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UNIVERSITY  OF 
TORONTO  PRESS 


presented  to 

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of  tbc 

Tflntverstt?  of  Toronto 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  HISTORY 

OF 

BRITISH  FOREIGN  POLICY 

1783-1919 


EDITED  BY 

SIR  A.  W.  WARD,  LITT.D.,  F.B.A. 

AND 

G.  P.  GOOCH,  M.A.,  LITT.D. 


VOLUME  I 
1783-1815 


NEW  YORK 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1922 

ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 


C3 


PREFACE 

T  N  offering  to  our  readers  the  First  Volume  of  The  Cambridge  History 
A  of  British  Foreign  Policy,  from  the  beginning  of  Pitt's  first  Adminis- 
tration (1783)  to  the  Peace  of  Versailles  (1919),  we  have  little  to  add 
to  the  announcement  put  forth  by  our  University  Press  less  than  two 
years  and  a  half  ago.  The  work  was  designed  as  a  connected  narrative 
of  the  subject  and  a  consecutive  account  of  its  bearing  on  the  political 
history  of  this  country  and  empire,  and  on  that  of  the  world  at  large. 
As  such,  it  is  intended  to  combine  with  a  strict  adherence  to  historical 
truth,  wherever  ascertainable,  a  national  point  of  view — in  other 
words,  an  avowed  regard  for  the  interests,  and  above  all  for  the 
honour,  of  Great  Britain ;  and  the  list  of  contributors  to  it  has  been 
confined  to  historical  scholars  who  are  British  subjects  by  birth. 
Our  work  has  accordingly  not  shrunk,  and  will  not  shrink  as  it  pro- 
gresses, from  seeking  to  vindicate  for  British  Foreign  Policy  that 
claim  to  consistency  which  in  certain  respects  has  been  denied  to  it 
by  some  of  its  censors,  and  in  others  allowed  to  it  only  in  the  way  of 
sarcasm.  Its  relations  to  political  aims  or  ideals  not  confined  to  a 
single  nation,  or  to  particular  groups  of  thinkers  and  their  followers 
within  it,  have  been  neither  overlooked  nor,  we  believe,  prejudged — 
whether  or  not  these  aims  have  in  the  past  been  submerged  with 
efforts  made  to  accomplish  them,  and  whether  or  not  on  the  fulfilment 
of  these  ideals  depend  the  future  peace  and  prosperity  of  the  world. 
Our  readers  will  understand  that,  in  the  several  chapters  of  this 
History,  military  and  naval  events,  as  well  as  the  progress  of  parlia- 
mentary legislation  and  administrative  changes  at  home  or  in  other 
parts  of  the  empire,  due  to  the  influence  of  the  Crown,  of  parties 
and  movements  in  Church  and  State,  and  to  the  voice  of  public 
opinion  and  the  Press,  have  been  kept  in  constant  view,  without 
being  themselves  discussed.  The  successive  stages  of  Indian  and 
(British)  Colonial  history  have  in  no  instance  been  regarded  as 
detached  from  that  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  The  narrative  is 
throughout  based  on  documentary  evidence  and  has,  so  far  as  possible, 
been  arranged  in  chronological  sequence,  though  without  any  attempt, 
more  especially  in  certain  summarising  sections  of  the  later  Volumes, 
to  maintain  a  synchronistic  system  of  dates. 

This  History  is  divided  into  six  Books,  each  consisting  of  a  very 
small  number  of  Chapters,  which  again  are,  in  the  large  majority 
of  cases,  subdivided  into  sections  of  varying  length,  dealing  with 


vi  PREFACE 

particular  subjects,  episodes  or  aspects  of  British  Foreign  Policy.  The 
First  of  these  Books  is  preceded  by  an  Introduction,  which  attempts 
to  summarise  the  course  of  English,  or  British,  Foreign  Policy,  in  the 
whole  of  the  period  to  which  these  terms  may  be  held  applicable,  and 
to  indicate  some  of  the  threads  lending  coherence  to  its  processes  and 
tendencies.  Though  the  narrative  is  continued  till  the  Peace  of  1919, 
our  readers  will  be  prepared  to  regard  the  sketch  of  the  War  of  1914- 
1918  and  of  the  settlement  in  the  character  of  an  Epilogue.  The  narra- 
tive as  a  whole  will  be  followed  by  a  brief  general  survey,  undertaken 
with  the  cognisance  and  approval  of  authoritative  opinion,  of  the 
administrative  system  of  the  British  Foreign  Office,  from  1793  (at 
which  date  an  important  change  was  introduced  into  it)  to  the  present 
time. 

Both  narrative  and  Introduction  are  accompanied  by  brief  notes, 
chiefly  references  or  of  the  nature  of  such,  or  reproductions  of  extracts 
from  important  documents,  treaties,  Instructions,  despatches,  or 
speeches.  In  the  Appendices  to  vols.  I  and  n,  particular  documents 
of  this  kind,  hitherto  either  unpublished  or  inaccessible  without 
difficulty,  are  printed  in  extenso  or  in  extract.  To  each  Volume  is 
appended  a  short  Bibliography,  which  in  no  instance  pretends  to  be 
exhaustive  or  to  do  more  than  supply  titles  of  some  of  the  books  and 
papers  not  mentioned  in  the  Bibliographies  to  corresponding  portions 
of  The  Cambridge  Modern  History,  or  to  similar  works,  with  the 
addition  of  those  of  a  few  specially  used  by  the  writers  of  Chapters  or 
shorter  sections  of  the  present  History. 

It  has  been  thought  well  to  find  room  for  a  brief  general  character- 
isation of  the  principles  and  achievements  in  Foreign  Policy  of  the 
chief  British  statesmen  and  diplomatists  engaged  in  it  in  the  course 
of  the  period  here  surveyed.  In  the  case  of  Castlereagh  or  Canning, 
Palmerston  or  Salisbury,  whose  foreign  policy  left  its  mark  not  only 
on  its  own  age,  and  also  in  the  case  of  Stratford  Canning  and  a  few 
other  representatives  of  Great  Britain  at  the  contemporary  centres 
of  diplomatic  activity,  a  summary  estimate  of  the  sort  seems  irre- 
sistibly called  for.  On  the  other  hand,  our  narrative  will  abstain  from 
attempting  to  influence  a  general  judgment  of  the  public  services  of 
the  agents,  at  home  or  abroad,  of  our  Foreign  Policy  by  remarks  or 
suggestions  as  to  their  personalities. 

In  issuing  the  First  Volume  of  this  work,  the  Editors  desire,  on 
behalf  of  the  Syndics  of  the  Press  as  well  as  on  their  own,  to  express 
their  thanks  for  the  countenance  and  goodwill  shown  to  their  project 


PREFACE 


vn 


by  those  to  whom  it  was  notified  before  being  carried  into  execution. 
The  Most  Hon.  the  Marquess  Curzon  of  Kedleston,  K.G.,  H.M.'s 
Principal  Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs,  kindly  permitted  resort, 
under  proper  conditions,  to  the  Archives  of  the  Foreign  Office,  and 
Sir  J.  A.  C.  Tilley,  K.C.M.G.  (British  Assistant  Secretary  for  Foreign 
Affairs,  and  now  His  Majesty's  Envoy  Extraordinary  and  Minister 
Plenipotentiary  in  Brazil),  and  Mr  S.  Gaselee,  C.B.E.,  Librarian, 
have  already  facilitated  our  proceedings  in  this  direction1.  We  owe 
a  similar  debt  to  the  Public  Record  Office,  more  especially  to 
Mr  Hubert  Hall,  Litt.D.,  Assistant  Keeper  of  the  Records  and 
Literary  Director  of  the  Royal  Historical  Society,  whose  support  is 
never  denied  to  any  endeavour  for  securing  or  widening  the  founda- 
tions of  historical  knowledge.  The  Editors  are,  also,  particularly 
indebted  to  the  advice  and  encouragement  of  the  Right  Hon.  Lord 
Sanderson,  G.C.B.,  whose  great  experience  as  Permanent  Under 
Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs,  and  the  Right  Hon.  Lord 
Fitzmaurice  whose  public  services  as  Under  Secretary  of  State, 
together  with  his  eminence  as  a  political  historian,  gave  high  value 
to  their  counsel.  They  desire  to  add  their  thanks  for  similar  suggestive 
aid  to  the  Right  Hon.  Viscount  Bryce,  O.M.,  who  at  an  early  period 
in  his  public  career  (1886)  held  the  office  of  Under  Secretary  of 
State  for  Foreign  Affairs,  and  was,  as  we  all  know  and  rejoice,  our 
Ambassador  to  the  United  States  from  1907  to  1913 ;  to  the  Right 
Hon.  Sir  Ernest  Satow,  G.C.M.G.,  late  His  Majesty's  Minister  at 
Tokyo  and  Pekin  and  author  of  the  invaluable  Guide  to  Diplomatic 
Practice-,  to  Sir  G.  W.  Prothero,  Litt.D.,  F.B.A.,  who  knows  how 
gladly  they  would  have  welcomed  him  as  a  collaborator ;  to  Professor 
C.  H.  Firth,  LL.D.,  Litt.D.,  F.B.A.,  and  other  friends.  Special 
instances  of  assistance  will  be  duly  acknowledged  as  the  work  pro- 
gresses ;  but  the  Editors  are  anxious  to  take  the  first  opportunity  of 
recording  their  deep  sense  of  the  generous  confidence  with  which 
the  Rev.  J.  Wallace  Kidston  and  the  other  Executors  of  the  late  Sir 
Donald  Mackenzie  Wallace,  K.C.I.E.,  K.C.V.O.,  have  placed  in  their 
hands  a  very  large  collection  of  MSS.  designed  by  him  as  materials 
for  a  History  of  European  Policy.  They  consist  mainly  of  classified 
extracts  and  notes  concerning  the  Foreign  Policy  of  the  chief  European 
States  from  the  i6th  century  onwards — Russia  of  course  occupying 

1  To  the  latter  we  owe  the  permission  to  print,  at  the  head  of  the  successive 
Books  of  this  History,  the  list  of  Secretaries  and  Under  Secretaries  of  State  for 
Foreign  Affairs  from  1873,  published  in  the  Foreign  Office  List. 


vm 


PREFACE 


the  most  prominent  place  among  them.  This  varied  collection  was 
carried  on  by  Sir  D.  M.  Wallace  in  connexion  with  his  lifelong  study 
of  modern  politics  and  history  and  his  services  from  1891  to  1898  as 
Director  of  the  Foreign  Department  of  The  Times.  It  is  obvious  that, 
as  the  lines  on  which  Sir  D.  M.  Wallace's  contemplated  History  would 
have  been  constructed  differed  from  those  followed  by  the  present 
work,  so  our  references  to  his  MSS.,  could  not  but  be,  in  the  main, 
incidental.  As  such,  should  any  particular  use  be  made  of  his  MSS.,  it 
will  be  duly  acknowledged  in  the  course  of  these  volumes ;  but,  in  the 
meantime,  the  Editors  are  desirous  on  behalf  of  the  Syndics  and  of 
themselves  of  acknowledging  the  obligation  under  which  they  have 
been  generously  laid  by  his  Executors. 

The  Editors  have  to  thank  the  officials  and  staff  of  the  University 
Press  for  the  care  they  have  bestowed  upon  the  production  of  the 
present  volume,  and  Miss  M.  Pate  for  her  indefatigable  assistance  in 
preparing  its  contents  for  the  Press.  They  are  also  much  obliged  to 
Miss  A.  D.  Greenwood  for  undertaking,  at  an  inevitably  short  notice, 
to  supply  the  Index. 

A.  W.  W. 

G.  P.  G. 

December,  1921. 

Since  the  above  Preface  was  in  print,  Lord  Bryce,  whose  interest 
in  our  scheme  is  noted  there,  has  died — seemingly  in  the  very  midst 
of  his  long  and  unwearied  labours.  In  him  has  passed  away  a  scholar, 
who,  just  sixty  years  ago,  by  a  University  prize  essay  illuminated  a 
path  of  historical  enquiry  hitherto  rarely  trodden  among  ourselves,  and 
whose  contributions  to  political  history  as  a  whole  cover  a  uniquely 
wide  range  of  observation,  research  and  deduction  in  the  fields  suc- 
cessively surveyed  by  him.  And  there  has  also  passed  away  a  statesman 
whose  services,  especially  in  the  sphere  of  foreign  policy  and  diplomatic 
action,  have  found  their  consummation  in  helping,  more  directly  than 
those  of  any  of  his  contemporaries,  to  draw  closer  the  bonds  of  friend- 
ship, based  on  mutual  understanding,  between  a  great  kindred  nation 
and  our  own.  The  relations  thus  established,  largely  through  his  insight 
and  influence,  will  we  believe  constitute  one  of  the  firmest  foundations 
of  a  world's  union  of  peace,  and  will,  in  any  event,  transcend  in  their 
intrinsic  strength  any  of  the  alliances,  compacts  and  concerts  dis- 
cussed in  these  pages. 

February,  1922. 


CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION 

By  SIR  A.  W.  WARD,  Lirr.D.,  F.B.A. 
Master  of  Peterhouse 

I.  England's  insularity  before  the  Norman  Conquest.  Political  and  military 
relations  with  France,  and  commercial  with  Flemish  and  Low- German 
towns,  under  the  Norman  and  the  Plantagenet  Kings.    Foreign  policy  of 
Edward  III,  and  of  Henry  VII  and  VIII.    The  Balance  of  Power.    The 
vicissitudes  of  the  Reformation  period  and  the  development  of  Elizabethan 
policy.  Pacificism  of  James  I.   Beginnings  of  English  Colonisation      PAGE  I 

II.  The  Civil  War  and  the  Peace  of  Westphalia.    Foreign  policy  of  the 
Commonwealth  and  the  Protectorate.    Spain  and  the  United  Provinces. 
Treaty  with  France  (1655).    Sum  of  the  foreign  policy  of  Cromwell.    Be- 
ginnings of  Charles  II.  Aix-la-Chapelle,  Dover  and  Westminster.   Isolation 
of  English  policy  of  Charles  II .13 

III.  William  III  and  his  purpose.  The  Partition  Treaties  and  the  Grand 
Alliance  Treaty.  The  War  of  the  Spanish  Succession  and  the  Utrecht 
Settlement.   British  interests  at  Utrecht.  The  Barrier  Treaties      .         .39 

IV.  George   I   and  the  Personal  Union.  The  Hanoverian  Junta.    Great 
Britain  and  the  Northern  War.    Hanoverian  acquisition  of  Bremen  and 
Verden.    Stanhope  and  the  Quadruple  Alliance.    Carteret  and  the  Swedish 
Settlement.    Peace  of  Nystad.    Pacific  policy  of  Walpole.  The  Alliance  of 
Hanover.  The  Congress  of  Soissons  and  the  Second  Treaty  of  Vienna. 
Great  Britain  and  the  Bourbon  Family  Compact.   Great  Britain  and  the  War 
of  the  Austrian  Succession  and  the  Second  Silesian  War.    Foreign  policy 
of  the  Pelhams,  and  the  Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle.  Continued  rivalry  between 
France  and  Great  Britain     .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .58 

V.  The  Reversion  of  Alliances.    'Treaty  of  Westminster'  (1756).    Great 
Britain  and  the  Austro-French  Alliance.  The  Seven  Years'  War.   Pitt's  first 
Ministry,  and  the  Foreign  and  Colonial  policy  of  Great  Britain.  The  Russo- 
Austrian  Alliance.  Prussian  victories  in  1757.  Convention  of  Kloster-Zeven. 
British  successes  in  Bengal  and  Canada  (1757-8).   Virtual  establishment  of 
naval  supremacy  of  Great  Britain.    Failure  of  Pitt's  Italian  scheme.    De- 
claration of  Ryswyk.    French  peace  overtures  refused.  The  Schouvaloff 
Treaties.    Death  of  George  II.    Resignation  of  Pitt  and  War  with  Spain. 
British  maritime  and  colonial  successes  (1762).    Peace  negotiations  with 
France  and  Spain.  The  Peace  of  Paris.    Conclusion  of  the  Seven  Years' 
War 97 

VI.  Ministerial  changes:  the  Grenville  and  Rockingham  Governments.  The 
North  American  Colonies  and  the  Repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act.    Ministry  of 
Grafton,  with  Pitt.  The  Tea  Duty.  Ministry  of  North.  The  Falkland  Islands 


x  CONTENTS 

incident.  The  American  War  of  Independence.  France  and  the  American 
Governments.  Restricted  British  proposals.  Armed  Neutrality.  Declaration 
of  Catharine  II.  Peace  negotiations  (1782)  and  definitive  signature  of 
Treaties  (1783).  Results  of  1763  and  of  1783 127 


CHAPTER  I 

PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE 
1783-1792 

By  J.  H.  CLAPHAM,  Lrrr.D.,  C.B.E. 
Fellow  and  Tutor  of  King's  College 

The  international  situation  after  the  Peace  of  1783.  British  isolation.  The 
Family  Compact.  Austro-Russian  cooperation.  Pitt  nursing  British  re- 
sources. Ireland.  India  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .143 

The  American  desire  for  a  '  Family  Compact.'  Difficulties  in  carrying  out 
the  Treaty  of  1 783 .  Failure  to  arrange  a  commercial  treaty.  Anglo-American 
diplomatic  relations  1783-97.  The  Jay  Treaty  .  .  .  .149 

British  Ambassadors  and  British  policy.  Harris.  The  problem  of  the 
United  Provinces.  The  Franco-Dutch  treaty  of  1785.  Decline  of  British 
influence  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .157 

Vergennes' policy  and  the  commercial  treaty  of  1786  .         .         .164 

Great  Britain,  Prussia  and  the  United  Provinces.  The  Prussian  invasion  of 
Holland.  Hertzberg's  diplomatic  projects.  British  policy  in  Poland.  The 
Triple  Alliance  of  1788 170 

Wars  in  Eastern  and  Northern  Europe.  British  intervention  between 
Denmark  and  Sweden,  1788.  Reform  in  Poland  .  .  .  .181 

Troubles  in  the  Habsburg  dominions,  1789.  The  Revolution  of  Brabant. 
Pitt's  Memorandum  of  August  1788.  France  supposed  to  be  crippled, 
'789 186 

Prussia's  forward  policy  against  Austria.  Death  of  Joseph  II,  Feb.  1790.  The 
policy  of  Leopold.  Great  Britain  and  the  Convention  of  Reichenbach  .  190 

The  affair  of  Nootka  Sound.  Its  relation  to  Britain's  policy  towards  France 
in  1790  •  197 

The  Congress  of  Sistova.  Oczakoff.  Great  Britain  again  isolated.  She  with- 
draws into  herself 202 

Great  Britain  and  France  in  1792.  Resolute  neutrality.  Talleyrand's 
abortive  Missions.  The  mistaken  confidence  of  1792  212 


CONTENTS  xi 

CHAPTER  II 

THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

1792-1802 

By  J.  HOLLAND  ROSE,  LiTT.D. 

Late  Fellow  of  Christ's  College 
Vere  Harmsworth  Professor  of  Naval  History 

I.  Non-intervention  policy  of  the  Pitt  Cabinet.  The  situation  in  Europe. 
The   French   Decrees   of  Nov. — Dec.    1792.    Attitude   of   Catharine    II. 
Declaration  of  War  by  France    .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .216 

II.  Great  Britain  and  her  Allies.  The  Polish  Question.  Tension  with  Spain. 
Vacillations   of  Prussia.     Malmesbury's    Mission.     Loss    of   Belgium.     A 
Weakening  of  the  First  Coalition.  The  Triple  Alliance  (1795).   Hostility  of 
the  Dutch  Republic  and  Defection  of  Spain.   Rupture  with  Spain.   British 
peace  overtures  (1795,  1796)       .         . 236 

III.  Opposed  Aims  of  Pitt  and  Burke.    Failure  of  the  Peace  Overture. 
Austria's  Aloofness.  The  Peace  Proposals  of  1797.   Results  of  their  Failure. 
Frederick  William  III.  Effects  of  Bonaparte's  Eastern  Expedition      .     265 

IV.  Preliminaries  to  a  Second  Coalition.    The  fiasco  at  Naples.    Anglo- 
Russian  Alliance.   Friction  with  Austria.   Collapse  of  the  Second  Coalition. 
British  Mediterranean  policy.    Action  against  the  Armed  Neutrals.  The 
Compromise  of  June  17,  1801.   Egypt.   Preliminaries  of  Peace.  The  Treaty 
of  Amiens  ...........     286 

CHAPTER  III 

THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

1802-1812 
By  PROFESSOR  J.  HOLLAND  ROSE,  LITT.D. 

I.  Problems  of  the  Peace.   Complaisance  of  Addington  towards  Napoleon's 
Encroachments.  Egypt  and  the  Maltese  Question.  Negotiations  with  France. 
Rupture  of  the  Peace  of  Amiens.  Responsibilities  for  this  event.  The  Whig 
Opposition.   Pitt's  Return  to  Office  ......     309 

II.  Anglo-Russian  rapprochement.  Rupture  with  Spain.  Aims  of  Alexander  I 
and  Czartoryski.    Attitude  of  Pitt.    Negotiations  with  Russia.  The  Third 
Coalition  and  its  Collapse.   Death  of  Pitt 331 

III.  The  Ministry  of  All  the  Talents.   Sicily  and  N.W.  Germany.  Fox  and 
the  Negotations  with  France.  Their  Breakdown.   Death  of  Fox.  Napoleon's 
'Coast  System'  and  the  British  retort.    The  Berlin  Decree.    Failure  of 
British  military  policy.  The  Portland  Cabinet.  Canning  and  the  Copenhagen 
Expedition.    Arrangements  with  Portugal.   The   Orders   in   Council   and 
friction  with  the  United  States.    Great  Britain  and  the  Spanish  National 
Rising.  The  Convention  of  Cintra 348 


xii  CONTENTS 


IV  Great  Britain  and  Austria.  Unsuccessful  coastal  Expeditions.  Collapse  of 
Austria  and  Sweden.  Wellesley  and  French  Peace  Proposals.  The  Sea  Power 
and  the  Land  Power.  Castlereagh's  overtures  to  Sweden.  Stratford  Canning 
and  the  Russo-Turkish  Peace.  Beginnings  of  a  new  Coalition  .  .  371 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE 

1813-1815 

By  C.  K.  WEBSTER,  M.A. 

Late  Fellow  of  King's  College;  Professor  of  Modern  History 
in  the  University  of  Liverpool 

I.  FROM  THE  TREATY  OF  KALISCH  TO  THE  END  OF  THE  YEAR  1813 

The  New  Coalition  and  the  New  Cabinet.  Castlereagh  and  his  subordinates. 
Main  lines  of  British  policy.  Maintenance  of  colonial  and  maritime  supremacy, 
obligations  to  Allies,  erection  of  '  Barrier '  against  France,  Abolition  of  the 
Slave  Trade.  Cathcart  and  Lord  Stewart.  Instructions  of  April  9th,  1813. 
Treaties  of  Reichenbach  (June  i4th).  Austrian  intervention  and  the  Ar- 
mistice. Instructions  of  July  5th,  and  July  i3th,  1813.  Renewal  of  the 
struggle.  Mission  of  Aberdeen.  Instructions  of  September  i8th,  1813. 
A  new  kind  of  Alliance  desired :  Aberdeen  and  Metternich.  Castlereagh's 
attitude  towards  Austria.  The  'Frankfort  Proposals.'  Aberdeen  and  the 
negotiations  with  St  Aignan.  Stewart's  protests.  Failure  of  the  Alliance  nego- 
tiations. Friction  between  Austria  and  Russia.  British  policy  and  Holland. 
Castlereagh  and  the  'Frankfort  Proposals.'  Castlereagh  and  the  Alliance. 
Resolve  of  the  Cabinet  to  send  Castlereagh  to  the  Continent  .  .  392 

II.  THE  FALL  OF  NAPOLEON  AND  THE  FIRST  PEACE  OF  PARIS 

Castlereagh's  Instructions  of  December  26th,  1813.  The  'Memorandum  on 
a  Maritime  Peace.'  Castlereagh's  r61e.  The  question  of  the  Bourbons. 
Castlereagh  and  Metternich.  The  meeting  at  Langres.  The  negotiations  at 
Chatillon.  The  discussions  at  Troyes.  Castlereagh  and  the  Armistice 
Proposal.  The  Treaty  of  Chaumont.  Rupture  of  the  Chatillon  negotiations. 
The  Cabinet  and  the  Bourbons.  Castlereagh  and  Metternich  agree  to  their 
Restoration.  The  Allies  at  Paris.  The  Treaty  of  Fontainebleau.  Castlereagh 
and  the  Peace.  The  Slave  Trade.  The  Treaty  of  Paris.  Failure  to  decide 
the  reconstruction  of  the  Continent.  Castlereagh  and  Spain.  Castlereagh, 
Bentinck  and  Murat.  Castlereagh  and  Constitutional  liberty  .  .  429 

III.  THE  CONGRESS  OF  VIENNA 

The  Allies  visit  to  England.  Preliminary  negotiations.  Castlereagh  and 
Talleyrand.  The  British  Staff  at  Vienna.  The  Cabinet  and  the  Negotiations. 
Castlereagh's  plans.  The  '  Balance  of  Power.'  Preliminary  Discussions.  The 
Polish-Saxon  Question.  Castlereagh  and  Alexander.  Castlereagh's  plan  of 
an  Austro-Prussian  alliance.  Its  failure.  Dissatisfaction  of  the  Cabinet. 
Castlereagh's  new  plan.  Castlereagh  and  Talleyrand.  Crisis  of  the  negotia- 
tions. The  Treaty  of  January  3rd,  1815.  Castlereagh's  r61e  of  Mediator  in 


CONTENTS  xiii 

the  final  settlement.  Castlereagh  and  the  Poles.  The  Italian  questions. 
Castlereagh  and  Murat.  Negotiations  leading  to  the  Restoration  of  the 
Sicilian  Bourbons.  Castlereagh's  'Project  of  Guarantee.'  Wellington  at 
Vienna.  British  policy  on  minor  Questions.  The  Abolition  of  the  Slave 
Trade.  Negotiations  with  France,  Spain  and  Portugal.  The  'Declaration* 
at  Vienna 459 

IV.  THE  RETURN  OF  NAPOLEON  AND  THE  SECOND  PEACE  OF  PARIS. 

Great  Britain  and  Elba.  Attitude  of  the  Cabinet  to  Napoleon  on  his  return. 
The  surrender  of  Napoleon  and  St  Helena.  Castlereagh  and  the  'Traitors.' 
Castlereagh  and  France.  Differences  with  the  Cabinet.  The  proposal  of 
Temporary  Occupation.  The  proposals  of  the  Allies.  Castlereagh  and 
dismemberment.  The  Cabinet  and  the  Allies  won  over.  The  terms  offered 
to  France.  Treaties  of  November  zoth,  1815.  The  'Holy  Alliance.'  The 
'Quadruple  Alliance.'  Castlereagh's  position  as  a  Foreign  Minister.  His 
'  European '  policy.  His  weaknesses  .......  500 

CHAPTER  V 

THE  AMERICAN  WAR  AND  THE  TREATY  OF  GHENT 

1812-1814 

By  PROFESSOR  C.  K.  WEBSTER,  M.A. 

I.  Causes  of  the  American  War.    Impressment  and  the  British  Right  of 
Search.  The  Orders  in  Council.   Difficulties  of  the  American  Government. 
The  rupture.  Attempts  to  obtain  peace.  Armistice  offered.  Russian  Media- 
tion. American  acceptance  and  British  refusal.   Castlereagh's  offer  of  direct 
negotiations  accepted.  The  American  and  the  British  Commissions       .     522 

II.  British   and   American   Instructions.     Importance   of   Gallatin.     Far- 
reaching  British  demands.    Skilful  American  diplomacy.    Gradual  growth 
of  British  desire  for  peace.  Wellington's  opinion.  American  Counter-project. 
Both  sides  abandon  claims.    Signature  of  the  Treaty.   Reception  by  public 
opinion  in  England  and  America 535 

APPENDICES  TO  CHAPTERS  II— III 

A.  The  Causes  of  the  Rupture  with  France  .         .         .  .  543 

B.  British  War  Policy  (February  1793  to  April  1795)      .         .  .  549 

C.  The  Spanish  Crisis  (April  1795  to  September  1796) .         .  .  561 

D.  Anglo- Austrian  Relations  (November  1795  to  November  1797)  564 

E.  Attempts  to  form  the  Second  Coalition  (1798)  .         .  .  578 

F.  Letters  of  Lord  Mulgrave  to  Pitt       .         .         .         .         .  .  587 

G.  Negotiations  with  Sweden  and  Russia  (1811-1812)    .         .  .  589 

H.  Extracts  from  Stratford  Canning's  Despatches  from  Constanti- 
nople (1812)  .........         599 

BIBLIOGRAPHIES 603 

INDEX  6 10 


INTRODUCTION 


THIS  work  proposes  to  treat,  within  definite  chronological  limits, 
the  history  of  British  Foreign  Policy — in  other  words,  to  discuss 
the  relations  in  that  period  of  the  British  Empire  to  Foreign  Powers, 
the  conditions  at  home  and  abroad  which  governed  the  conduct  of 
those  relations,  the  principles  more  or  less  consistently  followed  in 
the  conduct  of  them,  and  the  personal  influence  of  the  principal 
British  agents  responsible  for  it.  However  interesting,  it  cannot  be 
imperative,  in  setting  forth  upon  such  an  undertaking,  to  go  back  at 
length  into  a  past  which,  as  a  matter  of  course,  contained  in  it  in- 
numerable germs  of  the  future,  but  which  differed  essentially  from 
the  period  marked  out  for  present  treatment  in  many  of  the  con- 
ditions of  its  public  as  well  as  of  its  private  life. 

A  brief  sketch  indicating  some  at  least  of  the  threads  connecting 
earlier  with  later  epochs  of  our  Foreign  Policy  as  a  State  and  as  an 
Empire  is,  therefore,  all  that  can  be  attempted  here  by  way  of  intro- 
duction to  the  narrative  that  is  to  follow. 

Whether  or  not  a  people  is  only  to  be  held  happy  when  its  rulers 
are  without  a  foreign  policy,  none  can  assuredly  afford  to  dispense 
with  such  unless  it  has  no  foreign  affairs.  In  our  own  records,  an  era 
of  the  kind  could  hardly  be  found  from  the  time  onwards  when, 
under  Egbert,  the  English  nation  first  achieved  political  unity,  and 
the  kingdom,  as  a  polity  moulded  by  its  great  monarchs  Alfred  and 
Edgar,  after  in  turn  resisting  and  accepting  Danish  sway,  became 
the  prize  of  what  was  no  longer  a  dynastic,  but  a  national  struggle, 
to  be  apparently  settled  by  the  Norman  Conquest  in  its  own 
favour.  But  England  still  remained  merely  the  extreme  Western  home 
of  civilisation — an  ultima  Thule,  it  has  been  grandly  said,  as  of  old; 
and  her  insularity  was  a  chief  determining  element  in  the  early  course 
of  her  historical  life — making  her  exceptionally  strong  in  unity — long 
before  the  seas  engirdling  her  carried  her  into  the  world  of  modern 
life  and  assigned  to  her  a  controlling  place  in  it. 

Meanwhile,  William  the  Conqueror  had  not  only  prepared,  but 
throughout  his  reign  maintained  and  developed,  his  great  achievement 
w.  &G.  i,  i 


2  INTRODUCTION 

by  a  system  of  foreign  alliances,  of  which  the  most  signally 
important  was  that  with  the  Papacy— in  the  Hildebrandine  age  in 
particular.  With  his  active  and  efficient  diplomacy  began  that  long 
chapter  of  medieval  history  which  is  concerned  with  the  political 
and  military  relations  to  France  of  England  and  her  ruling  dynasty. 
Little  more  than  a  century  after  the  Conquest,  Henry  II  (the  first 
conqueror  of  Ireland)  might  be  described  as  a  greater  potentate  in 
France  than  his  French  suzerain;  but  his  power  was  feudal,  and,  even 
of  this,  most  was  lost  in  the  reign  of  John.  Yet  this  unhappy  King, 
too,  followed  a  foreign  policy  of  his  own.  His  quarrel  with  Pope 
Innocent  III,  though  not  especially  of  the  King's  making,  rendered 
Magna  Carta  possible ;  but  the  victory  of  the  Barons  did  not  suffice 
to  overthrow  his  Throne.  Soon  after  his  death,  Lewis  of  France  was 
driven  from  England ;  and,  after  John's  successor  had  come  of  age,  he 
and  his  dynasty,  encouraged  by  a  continuous  growth  of  national  con- 
sciousness, showed  every  desire  to  revive  the  aggressive  foreign  policy 
of  their  predecessors.  Henry  III  accepted  the  Crown  of  Sicily  for 
his  son  Edmund,  and  his  brother  Richard  of  Cornwall  was  elected 
German  King.  The  interests  of  the  Papacy,  together  with  those  of 
the  dynasty,  lay  heavy  upon  all  classes  of  the  subjects  of  the  Crown ; 
and,  while  Pope  Alexander  IV  duly  declared  the  Provisions  of  Oxford 
void,  their  immediate  sequel  was  the  expulsion  of  foreigners  from 
the  realm.  Notwithstanding  the  catastrophe  of  Simon  de  Montfort, 
England's  first  great  Protector,  a  memorable  constitutional  change 
— borough  representation — was  finally  established  under  Edward  I, 
reflecting  what,  like  all  sound  reforms,  was  already  a  historical  fact 
— viz.  the  importance  of  the  towns  (from  London  downwards)  in 
the  public  life  of  the  nation.  English  foreign  policy,  moreover,  had 
ceased  to  be  absorbed  in  dynastic  enterprises  or  designs,  or  satisfied 
with  the  advantages  to  be  gained  by  the  landed  magnates,  no  longer 
isolated  as  these  were  by  their  nationality  from  the  rest  of  the  popu- 
lation. On  the  other  hand,  a  different  kind  of  foreign  connexion  had 
steadily  advanced.  Flemish  and  Low-German  towns — not  sea-ports 
only,  but  towns  in  the  interior  of  the  Empire  also — had  maintained 
trade  relations  with  this  country  already  before  the  Norman  Con- 
quest. Henry  II  had  confirmed  the  privileges  of  the  Cologne  "fac- 
tory" in  London,  before  its  parent  association  had  been  outrivalled 
by  a  body  of  Lower-Saxon  towns,  headed  by  Lubeck,  which,  in  the 
course  of  the  thirteenth  century,  appropriated  to  itself  the  once 
generic  name  of  the  Hansa.  The  progress  of  this  intercourse,  and  of 


FOREIGN  POLICY  OF  EDWARD  I  AND  III  3 

that  with  the  Flemish  towns,  which  reached  its  height  at  a  later  date, 
could  not  otherwise  than  directly  affect  the  continental  relations  of 
England  and  her  Government  and  shape  the  beginnings  of  a  com- 
mercial, which  became  an  integral  element  in  her  foreign,  policy. 

But  as  yet  the  sword  was  the  determining  factor.  The  great  reign 
of  Edward  I,  who  came  out  of  the  midst  of  a  crusade  to  enter  upon 
the  mighty  task  awaiting  him  nearer  home,  was  one  of  widespread 
foreign  conquest,  though  at  the  same  time  of  the  firm  planting  of 
domestic  reforms.  He  mastered  both  Wales  and  Scotland,  though 
the  principality  was  not  incorporated  in  the  English  State  till  the 
reign  of  the  second  Tudor  King,  while  Scotland  retained  her  re- 
covered autonomy  even  after  the  personal  union  under  our  first 
Stewart.  Edward  Fs  relations  with  France  had  become  embittered 
before  he  entered  upon  his  first  conquest  of  .Scotland,  and  had  led 
to  his  conclusion  of  a  futile  alliance  with  the  German  King  Adolphus ; 
on  the  other  hand,  the  defensive  alliance  concluded  with  France  by 
John  Balliol  before  his  deposition,  established  the  tradition  of  a 
Scoto- French  league,  which  beset  English  foreign  policy  almost 
continuously  down  to  the  days  of  Elizabeth.  But,  if  it  was  Scotland 
herself  which  at  Bannockburn  undid  the  English  Conquest,  that 
Conquest  itself  and  the  whole  of  Edward  Ps  overbearing  policy  could 
not  have  been  carried  out  by  the  King  without  a  nation  at  his  back, 
or  without  the  widespread  resources  of  a  singularly  active  commercial 
diplomacy1.  When,  under  his  grandson  Edward  III,  after  an  unstable 
settlement  with  Scotland,  the  country  resumed  warlike  action  against 
France,  which  now  remained,  for  a  hundred  years,  its  dominant 
passion,  diplomatic  transactions  of  a  directly  political  kind  were  an 
inevitable  necessity.  The  chain  of  foreign  alliances  concluded  by 
Edward  III  with  the  German  Princes  along  the  Lower  Rhine,  and 
thence  even  with  the  potentates  of  the  Palatinate,  Wiirttemberg 
and  Savoy,  forms  an  early  example  of  the  series  of  subsidy  treaties 
which  is,  perhaps,  the  most  long-lived  feature  of  British  foreign 
policy;  and  (in  1337)  the  "system"  was  extended  so  as  to  include 
the  Emperor,  Lewis  the  Bavarian,  himself.  But  the  Peace  of 
Bretigny  (1360),  which,  by  a  drastic  partition,  was  to  have  at  last 
ended  the  struggle  for  the  throne  of  France,  held  good  for  less 
than  nine  years;  and  the  renewed  War  speedily  led  to  disastrous 

1  When  his  supply  of  money  fell  short  in  consequence  of  his  banishment  of 
the  Jews,  Parliament  came  temporarily  to  the  rescue,  and  he  was  able,  with  ad- 
vantage to  the  Crown,  to  fall  back  upon  the  banking  guilds  in  the  North  Italian 
cities. 


i — 2 


4  INTRODUCTION 

results  for  the  English  dominion  in  France.  Thus,  in  the  tragic  reign 
of  Richard  II,  the  efforts  against  France,  following  on  that  of 
England's  Flemish  ally,  broke  down  in  their  turn,  as  did  the  attempted 
invasion  of  Scotland;  and  failure  abroad,  coupled  with  the  effects  of 
the  social  catastrophe  at  home,  brought  the  national  life  to  the  state 
of  despair  which  precedes  dissolution.  In  the  end,  the  unfortunate 
King,  lured  back  to  England  from  an  expedition  to  Ireland,  lost  his 
English  Crown.  The  kinsman  who  took  it  from  him  was  a  prince  of 
wide  foreign  experience  acquired  by  travel,  and  would  have  willingly 
entered  into  the  inheritance  of  the  foreign  policy  of  Edward  I.  But 
the  insecurity  of  his  tenure  at  home  deprived  him  of  the  power  of 
action  in  France,  though  the  distracted  internal  condition  of  that 
kingdom  offered  so  favourable  an  opportunity  for  intervention  in 
its  affairs. 

The  renewal  of  the  French  policy  of  Edward  III,  and  the  asser- 
tion of  claims  at  once  wider  and  weaker,  fell  to  Henry  V,  in  whose 
settlement,  as  after  Agincourt  it  found  expression  in  the  Treaty  of 
Troyes,  the  Alliance  with  Burgundy  was  a  necessary  factor.  But 
it  was  not  written  in  the  book  of  fate  that  England  should  be  per- 
manently burdened  by  the  inheritance  of  a  great  foreign  dominion, 
which,  had  she  retained  possession  of  it,  must  have  strained  beyond 
bearing  the  powers  of  the  nation  in  the  satisfaction  of  an  unnatural 
ambition.  The  Wars  of  the  Roses,  while  they  went  far  towards  de- 
stroying the  ascendancy  of  the  great  Houses,  left  the  economic  con- 
dition of  the  people  largely  untouched ;  so  that,  at  the  close  of  the 
struggle,  the  country  stood  face  to  face  with  the  intelligent  despotism 
(a  phrase  to  which  the  Eighteenth  Century  has  no  prerogative  claim) 
of  the  Tudors.  At  the  same  time  (since  foreign  policy  is  a  branch  of 
government  to  which  public  opinion,  accustomed  as  it  is  to  judge 
mainly  by  results,  is  not  wont  to  apply  logical  reasoning),  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  the  dissatisfaction  caused  by  the  loss  of  France 
sensibly  contributed  to  the  downfall  of  the  rule  of  Henry  VI;  or 
that  his  rival,  after  seating  himself  on  the  Throne,  had  actually  to 
seek  a  momentary  refuge  against  French  intrigue  in  the  Netherlands. 
With  their  master,  Charles  the  Bold,  Edward  IV  was  on  friendly 
terms,  though  he  could  not  depend  on  him  as  an  ally  against  France, 
and  death  overtook  him  on  the  eve  of  a  struggle  with  an  adversary 
whose  equal  he  had  never  proved  himself. 

This  counterplay  of  foreign  rivalry  and  domestic  plot  still  con- 
tinued, when,  after  the  brief  and  bloody  epilogue  of  the  reign  of 


FOREIGN  POLICY  OF  HENRY  VII  5 

Richard  III,  the  long  dynastic  and  baronial  conflict  had  corne  to  an 
end  with  the  accession  of  our  first  Tudor  Sovereign.  By  far  the  most 
dangerous  of  the  Pretenders  who  tried  to  oust  Henry  VII  from  the 
Throne  of  which  he  had,  at  the  time  of  Buckingham's  rebellion, 
sought  to  possess  himself,  was  Perkin  Warbeck,  an  adventurous 
Fleming  whose  first  attempt  was  "financed"  by  the  Roman  King 
Maximilian.  He  was  afterwards  made  welcome  as  the  true  heir  to  the 
English  throne  by  King  James  IV  of  Scotland,  whose  goodwill  King 
Henry  VII  more  effectively  secured  by  bestowing  on  him  the  hand 
of  his  daughter  Margaret — a  step  which  ultimately  led  to  the  Union 
of  the  two  kingdoms. 

The  foreign  policy  of  Henry  VII — for,  in  this  age  marriages  were 
coming  to  constitute  a  very  notable  feature  in  the  foreign  policy  of 
the  European  dynasties — was  a  combination  of  circumspection,  if  not 
of  foresight,  with  caution.  Naturally  enough,  its  beginnings  display 
more  of  the  latter,  and  its  subsequent  developments  more  of  the 
former,  characteristic;  but  they  rarely  fail  to  be  blended  with  each 
other.  The  monarchical  rule  of  the  Tudors  transmuted  the  land — 
which  had  been  the  battle-field  of  a  turbulent  Baronage — into  a  State 
peacefully  united  in  itself  and  thus  gradually  grown  fit  to  find  its 
place  in  the  group  of  rival  European  nations.  And,  so  early  as  the 
beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  England  began,  likewise,  to  pur- 
sue an  economical  policy  of  her  own  in  lieu  of  one  which  merely 
suited  itself,  as  best  it  might,  to  the  interest  of  her  customers.  It 
took  a  century,  more  or  less,  to  break  the  domination  of  the  Hansa 
over  English  trade,  and  for  English  trade  to  assert  itself  in  the  North- 
ern Seas ;  and  the  Tudor  age  was  approaching  its  close,  when  England 
began  to  enter  into  the  maritime  life  of  the  Atlantic,  and  thus  at  last 
to  realise  the  true  value  of  her  insular  position  and  to  face  the  gradual 
unfolding  of  the  possibilities  of  her  imperial  future. 

But  the  process  was  both  slow  and  full  of  interruptions,  and  re- 
fuses to  be  detailed  even  in  a  chronological  sequence  of  reigns.  Before 
mounting  the  English  Throne,  the  future  King  Henry  VII  had  found 
a  refuge  in  Brittany;  and,  soon  after  his  accession,  he  assisted  its 
ducal  House  in  its  struggle  against  the  French  Crown,  though  he 
could  not  prevent  the  incorporation,  in  the  end,  of  the  duchy  in  the 
monarchy.  But  he  went  out  of  his  way  in  safeguarding  the  position 
of  England  in  the  event  of  future  troubles  between  France  and  the 
Spanish  monarchy,  as  is  shown  by  his  extreme  caution  in  the  method 
of  the  successive  marriages  of  his  sons  Arthur  and  Henry  to  the 


6  INTRODUCTION 

Infanta  Catharine.  While  it  seems  questionable  whether  Henry  VII 
actually  contemplated  a  decided  resumption  of  the  anti-French  policy 
of  the  Plantagenets,  he  was  certainly  alive  to  the  chances  opening  for 
a  relatively  weak  country  like  England  in  the  age  of  Discovery,  and 
was,  in  different  ways,  interested  in  both  Columbus  and  the  Cabots, 
though  unequal,  afterwards,  to  the  thought  of  disputing  the  Spanish- 
Portuguese  control  of  the  New  World  sanctioned  by  Papal  Bulls. 
Before  England  could  claim  her  place  in  the  sun,  the  mercantile 
marine  had  to  be  fostered,  and  rendered  capable  of  service  to  the 
royal  navy,  of  which  a  beginning  was  once  more  made. 

With  Henry  VIII,  the  foreign  policy  of  the  English  Crown  once 
more,  but  under  new  conditions,  enters  into  the  main  current  of 
European  affairs,  and  thus  contributes  to  the  beginning  of  a  new 
period— the  Habsburg  period,  as  it  has  been  appropriately  called, 
though  this  subdivides  itself  into  several  chapters  of  the  international 
history  of  Europe.  By  acknowledging  the  Spanish  Infanta  as  his 
legitimate  consort,  Henry  seemed  to  have  declared  that  he  had 
definitively  ranged  himself  on  the  side  which  had  not  yet  come  to 
be  the  "monstrous  aggregate"  of  Spanish- Austrian  power;  and,  in 
1512-14,  he  took  part  in  a  war  with  France  which  brought  him  no 
profit.  The  vagueness  of  his  own  political  ambitions  is  illustrated  by 
his  posing,  on  the  death  of  Maxmilian  I  in  1519,  as  a  candidate  for 
the  succession  to  the  Imperial  Throne.  But,  in  the  great  contest 
which  ensued  between  the  Emperor  Charles  and  King  Francis,  he 
again  chose  his  side,  and  proposed  to  his  victorious  ally  a  further 
enterprise  which  should  restore  to  himself  the  French  Crown  worn 
by  his  predecessors.  He  was  disappointed  in  his  designs,  and  in  the 
Emperor;  and,  by  the  advice  of  Cardinal  Wolsey,  he  thereupon 
brought  to  pass  one  of  the  most  notable  renversements  des  alliances 
recorded  in  European  diplomatic  history.  In  general  English  his- 
tory, this  political  episode  is  above  all  noticeable  as  forming  part  of 
the  transactions  which  ended  in  Henry's  divorce  from  Catharine, 
followed  though  it  was  by  a  very  different  marriage  from  that  originally 
contemplated  by  Wolsey.  In  the  history  of  our  foreign  policy  in 
particular,  the  significance  of  this  episode  lies  in  its  having  been  the 
first  application,  in  a  critical  connexion,  of  a  conception  which  was 
afterwards  to  become,  and  to  remain  longer  than  is  always  allowed, 
the  guiding  principle  of  English,  and  subsequently,  of  British  foreign 
policy.  This  principle  was  that  of  the  Balance  of  Power. 

The  Balance  of  Power  is,  as  has  been  well  pointed  out,  an  idea 


THE  SYSTEM  OF  THE  BALANCE  OF  POWER         7 

practically  inseparable  from  all  policy  properly  so  called — nor  in  the 
domain  of  international  relations  or  "foreign  affairs"  only.  But,  in 
this  domain — to  pass  by  whatever  precedent  Italy,  the  mother  of 
modern  diplomacy,  may  have  to  offer  in  her  sixteenth  century  his- 
tory— the  action  or  conduct  of  the  English  Government  after  the 
first  great  self-assertion  of  the  united  Habsburg  Power  may  be  de- 
scribed as  the  beginning  of  a  new  "system."  To  this  system  the 
political  world  of  Europe  was  not  to  cease  to  have  recourse  in  the 
succession  of  crises  undergone  by  it  from  the  times  in  question 
onward  to  those  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  of  the  War  of  the  Spanish 
Succession,  of  the  Napoleonic  rule,  and  of  the  German  design  of 
overwhelming  the  world.  So  far  as  England  is  concerned,  the  English 
archer's  motto  Cut  adhaereo  praeest  might  seem  to  denote  sufficiently 
the  way  in  which  this  country  has,  by  prescribing  its  remedy,  been 
wont  to  apply  the  doctrine  of  the  Balance  of  Power;  and,  for  our 
present  purpose,  it  is  needless  to  enquire  in  what  measure  the  changes 
in  the  attitude  of  the  Papacy  towards  King  Henry's  divorce  proposal 
was  a  cause,  and  in  what  a  consequence,  of  the  change  in  his  general 
foreign  policy. 

In  any  case,  the  English  Reformation  was  long  left  by  Charles  V 
to  proceed  on  its  way,  nor  was  it  till  after  the  critical  dates  of  1544 
and  1547 — Crepy  and  Muhlberg — that  the  head  of  the  House  of 
Habsburg  brought  the  whole  weight  of  his  designs,  political  and 
religious,  to  bear  on  our  national  future.  This  was  now  that  of  a 
monarchy  whose  unity  and  independence  seemed  both  to  have  been 
consolidated,  like  those  of  no  other  European  kingdom,  with  the  final 
aid  of  the  Reformation.  But  the  two  reigns  which  followed  brought 
with  them  the  extreme  of  vicissitudes.  Under  Edward  VI,  Somerset 
planned  the  achievement  of  a  union  between  England  and  Scotland 
— this  design,  also,  taking  the  form  of  a  marriage-scheme,  between 
the  young  King  Edward  and  the  still  younger  Queen  Mary  Stewart, 
which  was  to  result  in  the  hegemony  of  the  united  realms  over  Pro- 
testant Europe  (whose  refugees  had  already  found  a  welcome  on 
English  soil).  The  plan  came  to  nothing;  nor  was  it  even  possible  to 
maintain  the  good  understanding  with  France  which  was  a  necessary 
preliminary  condition  for  such  an  enterprise.  Mary  Tudor's  re- 
ligious creed  combined  with  the  traditions  of  her  descent  in  bring- 
ing about  the  return  of  England  to  the  Spanish  Alliance ;  though  it 
may  savour  of  the  Castilian  style  to  magnify  as  "the  Habsburg  in- 
vasion  of  England"  her  marriage  to  the  master  of  Spain  and  the 


8  INTRODUCTION 

champion  of  Rome,  followed  by  the  persecution  of  heresy  and  the 
humiliation  inflicted  on  Queen  and  country  by  the  loss  of  its  naval 
outpost  of  more  than  two  hundred  years'  standing.  Under  Elizabeth, 
English  foreign  policy  slowly  shook  itself  free,  and  thus  gradually 
recovered  an  influence  upon  the  political  relations  of  the  European 
States  which  Henry  VII  had  tentatively  striven  to  acquire  by  means 
of  foreign  alliances,  and  Henry  VIII  had  exercised  in  action  within 
restricted  limits.  As  the  aggressive  strength  of  Spain  and  Rome 
combined — we  are  now  in  the  age  of  the  so-called  Counter-reforma- 
tion— tne  goodwill  of  European  Protestantism  (from  which  in  form, 
and  largely  in  spirit,  the  ecclesiastical  system  of  England  remained 
aloof)  was  a  sure  support  against  them.  A  special  advantage,  which 
might  almost  be  called  adventitious,  was  derived  by  Elizabeth  from 
her  encouragement  of  the  Reformation  in  Scotland.  For,  as  the  deeply 
rooted  contention  between  herself  and  the  Scottish  Mary  merged 
into  the  European  religious  conflict  at  large  (so  early  as  1562,  Eng- 
lish aid  was  promised  by  Treaty  to  the  French  Huguenots,  but  the 
price  demanded  was  not  obtained),  Elizabeth  was  at  last  driven  by 
Spanish  machinations  and  Roman  arrogance  into  an  attitude  of  con- 
sistent opposition,  and  the  English  Throne  and  its  policy  became 
identified  with  the  resistance  of  Europe  to  the  general  undoing  of 
her  Peace. 

The  English  goodwill,  at  first  permissive  only,  towards  the  Re- 
volt of  the  Netherlands;  and  the  daring  piracies  of  Drake,  provoked 
the  final  despatch  of  the  Armada — the  combined  effort  of  Spanish 
southern  Europe,  undertaken  with  no  less  a  design  than  that  of  se- 
curing to  Philip  Mary  Stewart's  bequest  of  the  English  Throne.  The 
effort  was,  necessarily,  made  by  sea,  and  by  sea  it  was  scattered.  This 
one  great  victory — comparable  only  to  Salamis — had  at  the  same  time 
placed  England  in  the  position  of  a  Great  Power,  and  shown  that, 
unapproachable  herself  by  sea,  it  was  by  sea  that  her  national  des- 
tinies were  to  be  accomplished.  But,  both  before  and  after  the 
critical  years  1586-8,  the  safety  of  England  and  that  of  her  Sovereign 
depended  on  a  resolute  vigilance  which,  alike  in  the  observation  of 
European  (more  especially  Spanish)  policy  in  all  its  windings  and  in 
the  use  of  an  incomparable  spy-intelligence  system,  called  for  the 
single-minded  devotion  of  diplomatic  statesmanship.  This  was  the 
period  of  the  Cecils,  of  whom  the  elder  (Burleigh)  served  the  Crown 
as  Secretary  of  State  (with  a  five  years'  interval)  and  Lord  Treasurer 
for  nearly  half  a  century  of  indefatigable  and  unflinching  labours. 


THE  PACIFICISM  OF  JAMES  I  9 

At  the  height  of  these,  he  had  the  assistance  of  Sir  Francis Walsingham 
as  Secretary  of  State  (less  fortunate  than  Burleigh  in  the  requital  oi 
his  zeal),  and,  later,  that  of  his  second  son.  Sir  Robert  Cecil,  after- 
wards Earl  of  Salisbury,  was  sworn  Principal  Secretary  to  the  Queen 
in  1597,  in  which  year  he  returned  to  England  after  a  futile  mission 
to  Henry  IV  of  France,  in  time  to  take  his  father's  place  in  the  con- 
duct of  foreign  (and  not  a  few  other)  affairs.  He  gave  the  most  un- 
equivocal proofs  of  his  staunchness  in  the  unhappy  Essex  episode, 
which  followed  soon  after  Burleigh's  death  in  1598,  and  remained  in 
authority  till  his  own  decease.  This  took  place  in  1612,  the  year  before 
the  arrival  in  King  James's  Court  of  the  most  notable  of  Spanish 
diplomatists,  Gondomar,  under  whose  influence  English  policy  once 
more  swerved  from  its  course,  and  began  to  lie  low  without  really 
competent  guidance. 

To  go  back,  for  a  moment,  to  the  beginning  of  James  Fs  reign. 
By  land,  the  settlement  of  the  English  Crown  and  the  consequent 
Personal  Union  with  the  northern  kingdom,  were  effected  without 
resistance.  Great  Britain  was  henceforth,  as  Lord  Acton  expresses  it, 
politically  as  well  as  geographically  an  island,  and  no  apprehensions 
of  the  designs  of  a  warlike  neighbour  any  longer  entered  into  the 
foreign  policy  of  its  larger  half.  Moreover,  the  age  into  which  King 
James  was  born  was  one  of  limitless  conceptions  of  monarchical 
authority.  These  conceptions,  as  adopted  by  James  I,  included  not 
only  questions  of  religion  (treated  by  him  after  a  fashion  which  failed 
to  commend  itself  to  his  subjects,  Protestant  or  Catholic)  but  also 
questions,  often  mixed  up  with  these,  of  foreign  policy.  He  began  as 
a  peacemaker,  proclaiming  the  blessedness  of  this  task  to  the  Spanish 
grandee  who  came  over  to  conclude  peace  with  him  immediately 
after  his  accession1.  And  it  was  as  a  peacemaker  that,  though  "on 
all  hands  he  heard  the  call  of  battle/'  the  younger  of  the  Cecils,  in 
the  words  of  his  descendant  and  biographer,  carried  on  "the  tradi- 
tions of  peace  he  had  learnt  from  his  father."  But  the  forces  at  work 
against  James  Fs  persistent  desire  to  remain  on  friendly  terms  with 
Spain  were  too  strong  for  him ;  so  that,  before  he  died,  the  two  coun- 
tries were  again  to  all  intents  and  purposes  at  war  with  one  another, 
and  an  immediate  French  marriage  was  arranged  for  his  successor.  As 
for  the  Dutch,  it  is  worth  noticing  that  what  in  much  later  times  was 

1  Beati  Pacifici  (the  phrase  put  into  King  James's  mouth  by  Scott)  was  the 
inscription  in  the  apartment  in  Somerset  House  occupied  by  the  Constable  of 
Castile,  who  negotiated  the  Peace  with  Spain  of  1604. 


io  INTRODUCTION 

to  become  an  accepted  maxim  of  British  policy — a  strong  and,  in  a 
wider  sense,  United  Netherknds,  both  Protestant  and  Catholic — only 
very  slowly  became  even  so  much  as  a  pious  wish.  While  Salisbury, 
a  true  Conservative  like  his  father  before  him,  directed  the  foreign 
policy  of  James  I,  there  was  no  fear  of  extravagances  or  paradoxes. 
After  that  (from  1612),  the  King  reckoned  altogether  amiss  when, 
though  no  longer  guided  by  proved  principle  and  matured  experi- 
ence, he  credited  himself  with  the  power  of  adjusting  the  scales 
swinging  in  the  political  atmosphere  around  him.  The  marriage  of 
his  daughter  to  the  leader  of  German  Calvinism,  in  other  words  of  the 
actual  opposition  to  the  Habsburg  designs  for  the  future  of  the  Em- 
pire and  Western  Europe,  brought  him  a  strong  breeze  of  popularity 
at  home;  but  the  match  was  incompatible  with  the  repeated  proofs 
given  by  him  of  his  desire  to  cement  his  friendship  with  Spain,  who 
was  still  planning  a  revival  of  the  Habsburg  monarchy  of  Charles  V1. 
Meanwhile,  the  fierce  disillusionment  experienced  by  James  early  in 
his  reign  as  to  Catholic  goodwill  towards  himself  at  home  by  no  means 
remained  without  effect,  but  led  to  no  decisive  move  in  the  game.  He 
seized  the  opportunity  of  a  quarrel  between  Pope  Paul  V  and  the 
Signory  of  Venice  (which  culminated  in  1606)  to  instruct  his  willing 
Ambassador  there  (Sir  Henry  Wotton)  to  denounce  Pope  and  Papacy 
as  "the  chief  authors  of  all  the  mischiefs  of  Christendom."  And 
after,  ten  years  later,  the  great  Religious  War  had  already  begun  in 
Bohemia,  the  same  diplomatist  was  chosen  (though  Lord  Doncaster 
was  ultimately  appointed  in  his  place)  to  conduct  the  negotiations 
as  to  the  acceptance  of  the  Bohemian  Crown  by  the  King's  son-in- 
law,  in  which  the  King  himself  played  a  part  which  it  would  be  a 
euphemism  to  describe  as  ambiguous.  So  early  as  1619,  Wotton  had 
entered  into  negotiations  with  the  heads  of  the  Protestant  Union,  which 
turned  a  deaf  ear  to  his  inglorious  proposals  for  an  anti-Papal  propa- 
ganda, and  while  the  star  of  the  Emperor  Ferdinand  soon  rose  tri- 
umphant over  that  of  the  unfortunate  Winter-king,  the  foreign  policy 
of  his  father-in-law  had  to  concentrate  itself  upon  the  attempted  re- 
covery of  the  Palatinate  for  the  Elector  and  his  family,  who  had 
"lost  it  in  Bohemia."  But  the  efforts  of  English  volunteers  under 
Sir  Horace  Vere,  Mansfeld  and  Christian  of  Brunswick  were  futile, 
and  before,  quite  at  the  end  of  James's  reign,  Mansfeld's  plan  of 

1  Bourgeois  (vol.  i.  p.  19)  dwells  on  the  successive  attempts  of  Philip  III  to 
secure  the  Imperial  Succession  for  himself  or  his  son.  The  various  Spanish  mar- 
riage projects  of  King  James  for  his  children  are  well  known. 


BEGINNINGS  OF  ENGLISH  COLONISATION        n 

settling  the  claim  with  an  imposing  English  force  had,  in  the  midst 
of  Anglo-French  misunderstandings,  miserably  collapsed  (1625), 
James  had  fallen  back  upon  the  last  and  most  ill-starred  of  his  futile 
Spanish  marriage  schemes.  But  Charles,  Prince  of  Wales,  who,  to 
bring  it  to  an  issue,  had  travelled  to  Spain  with  Buckingham,  had 
come  home  free  (1623);  and,  when  he  actually  mounted  his  father's 
Throne,  England  was  once  more,  in  conjunction  with  the  Dutch 
Republic,  at  war  with  Spain,  and  the  alliance  with  France  was  con* 
firmed  by  the  marriage  of  Charles  to  Henrietta  Maria,  the  daughter 
of  Henry  IV. 

Meanwhile,  and  largely  in  consequence  of  the  altered  conditions 
of  the  relations  between  England  and  Spain  under  which  Queen 
Elizabeth's  reign  had  drawn  to  its  close,  the  island  Kingdom  had 
definitively  entered  into  the  paths  of  overseas  colonisation.  The  power 
of  Spain,  the  dreaded  adversary  of  rival  transatlantic  adventure,  was 
shaken,  though  not  annihilated ;  and  her  acquisition  of  Portugal  (1580), 
without  adding  to  her  political  strength  in  Europe,  had  diverted  enter- 
prise to  the  Portuguese  settlements  in  Brazil  and  the  East  Indies, 
inevitably  leading  to  angry  jealousy  between  the  English  and  the 
Dutch.  The  English  attempts,  in  Elizabeth's  days,  upon  Spanish 
possessions  on  land  and  sea,  however  conspicuously  supported  (on 
occasions  by  the  Queen  herself),  cannot  properly  be  described  as 
measures  of  colonial  policy,  but  are  simply  evidence  of  desire  for 
gain,  stimulated  by  jealousy  and  hatred;  just  as  the  charge  of  a 
broken  promise  to  which  Raleigh  was  (so  late  as  1617)  sacrificed 
was  a  signal  demonstration  of  accumulated  Spanish  wrath.  But  the 
early  course  of  English  Colonial  history  was  consistently  attended 
by  the  rivalry  of  other  Powers.  The  English  East  India  Company 
(more  strictly,  the  East  India  Company  of  London)  received  its 
original  Charter  in  1600,  nearly  two  years  before  the  Dutch,  and 
within  the  following  decade  the  two  were  at  open  war.  But  the  first 
settlement  directly  controlled  by  the  English  Crown,  and  therefore 
the  actual  beginning  of  our  colonial  system,  dates  from  the  grant  to 
"Virginia"  of  her  earliest  Royal  Charter  in  1606,  followed  by  the 
second  in  1609,  and  later  by  the  Charters  secured  by  the  several 
new  English  Colonies.  The  early  history  of  these  shows  their  safety 
in  constant  danger  from  Dutch,  and  more  particularly  from  French, 
enterprise  or  ambition;  while,  to  the  north,  France,  after  a  struggle 
terminating,  in  1632,  with  the  Peace  of  St  Germain,  maintained  her 
power  in  her  province  of  Acadia  (Nova  Scotia).  Hence,  too,  the 


12 


INTRODUCTION 


earliest  suggestions  of  a  scheme  of  federation  among  the  English 
North  American  Colonies,  which  might  very  possibly  have  earlier 
taken  lasting  shape,  but  for  the  Civil  War  at  home.  The  action  of  the 
Crown  towards  the  beginnings  of  our  Colonial  system  cannot  safely 
be  criticised  as  closely  connected  with  the  turns  and  changes  of  our 
foreign  policy;  but  the  time  was  not  far  off  when  the  two  currents 
were  effectively  to  unite. 

Under  Charles  I,  so  long  as  his  Government  was  able  to  carry 
on  any  foreign  policy  at  all,  it  may  be  regarded  as  having  been  chiefly 
actuated  by  the  motive  of  gaining  for  the  King  and  Buckingham 
some  of  the  popularity  which  their  method  of  government  at  home 
was  rapidly  forfeiting.  The  French  marriage  of  Charles  I  had  seemed 
likely  to  bring  about  friendly  relations  with  the  French  Court  and 
Government,  and  to  favour  an  anti-Habsburg  Alliance,  as  to  which 
negotiations  were  in  progress  with  both  Sweden  and  Denmark  so 
early  as  August  1624.  Apart  from  other  friction,  Buckingham's 
failure  at  Cadiz  (1625)  promised  ill  for  the  Spanish  War;  and  the 
French  Government  would  have  nothing  to  say  to  the  agreement 
into  which  the  English  Government  had  actually  entered  with  the 
States- General  for  the  recovery  of  the  Palatinate  by  a  force  under 
the  command  of  Christian  IV  of  Denmark,  Mansfeld  cooperating. 
But  the  English  supplies  failed;  and  the  defeat  of  Christian  IV  at 
Lutter  (1626)  put  an  end  to  the  whole  design,  as  it  did  to  England's 
futile  participation  in  the  Great  War.  Before  long  (1627),  the  tension 
between  France  and  England  had  ended  in  the  outbreak  of  hostilities ; 
and  Buckingham,  who  two  years  earlier  had  been  fain  to  lend  English 
ships  to  Richelieu  for  the  suppression  of  the  Huguenots  of  Rochelle, 
now  threw  his  French  policy  to  the  winds,  taking  command  of  the 
expedition  for  their  relief.  The  attempt,  the  success  of  which  was  to 
have  rejoiced  the  hearts  of  Protestant  Englishmen,  broke  down;  and, 
like  an  unlucky  gambler,  its  author  at  once  entered  upon  a  vaster 
design  against  the  adversaries  of  Protestantism,  in  which  the  relief 
of  Rochelle  was  to  be  but  the  initial  step.  The  assassin's  dagger, 
however,  settled  his  account  with  an  angry  Parliament;  the  last  re- 
fuge of  the  Huguenots  soon  fell ;  and  the  failure  in  France  had  been 
as  complete  as  that  in  Germany  (1628).  The  time  was  at  hand  when 
the  domestic  strife  in  which  the  second  Stewart  reign  had  opened 
was  to  end  in  the  Civil  War. 


THE  PEACE  OF  WESTPHALIA  13 

II 

The  eminent  historian  of  European  Foreign  Policy1  may  seem  to 
go  too  far  in  saying  that  England,  at  the  end  of  a  half-century  during 
which  hardly  more  weight  had  attached  to  her  in  European  politics 
than  to  Venice  or  Saxony,  suddenly  became  the  first  Power  of  the 
world.  But  it  is  true,  that  few,  if  any,  later  generations  have  wit- 
nessed a  transformation  at  once  so  astonishing  in  itself,  and  one  so 
full  of  the  promise  of  endurance.  The  period  in  question  covered  the 
Thirty  Years'  War,  the  great  European  struggle  in  which  England 
interfered  only  after  the  fitful  and  insignificant  fashion  to  which 
reference  has  been  made;  while  the  late  but  decisive  intervention  of 
France  finally  shaped  the  close  of  the  War  and  the  Pacification  which 
ended  it,  thus,  as  has  been  well  said,  preparing  her  hegemony  in 
Europe  during  the  half-century  that  was  to  follow.  In  settling  that 
Pacification,  neither  England  nor  Poland,  nor  the  Grand-duke  of 
Muscovy,  had  taken  any  part;  but  they  were  named  in  the  Peace  as 
Allies  of  the  Allies  of  the  Emperor  and  Sweden  (the  Grand- duke, 
of  Sweden  only),  and  thus  became  parties  to  the  Peace,  so  that  it 
bore  the  character  of  a  fundamental  act  and  international  procedure 
of  Christian  Europe.  And  it  is  in  this  sense  that  the  conditions  of 
the  Peace  of  Westphalia,  as  a  whole,  served  to  recast  the  State-system 
(societas  gentium)  of  which  England  (or  Great  Britain)  formed  part, 
and  essentially  affected  or  modified,  in  accordance  with  their  respec- 
tive circumstances  and  interests,  the  foreign  policy  of  the  several 
States  (England  with  the  rest)  included  in  it.  In  the  first  place,  from 
the  Peace  of  Westphalia  onwards,  the  Empire  was  no  longer,  as  such, 
an  organic  factor  in  the  European  State-system  in  question,  not- 
withstanding its  own  formal  endurance  and  the  glamour  of  tradition 
which  still  attached  a  lingering  weight  to  its  occasional  self-asser- 
tion2. For  the  Estates  of  the  Empire  were  now  in  possession  of  the 
rights  of  sovereignty  expressly  recognised  in  the  Peace  as  theirs. 
Moreover,  the  Empire  could  now  no  longer  lay  claim  to  control,  in 
any  way,  the  foreign  relations  of  the  United  Provinces  or  of  Switzer- 
land. The  independence  of  the  former,  which  specially  interests  us 
here,  was  recognised  in  the  Peace  by  Spain  herself,  who  retained  her 
direct  or  (since  1598)  indirect  control  over  the  Belgic  Provinces,  till, 
in  the  Peace  of  Rastatt  (1714),  they  became  the  Austrian,  instead  of  the 

1  M.  Smile  Bourgeois. 

2  More  especially,  as  the  leader  of  Christendom  in  its  resistance  to  the  Turks. 


,4  INTRODUCTION 

Spanish,  Netherlands.  Again,  however  absolutely  the  Vatican  might, 
for  this  very  reason,  denounce  the  Westphalian  Treaties,  the  re- 
ligious affairs  of  the  Empire  were  henceforth  definitely  regulated  by 
a  recognition  of  the  rights  of  the  three  Confessions — for  none  besides 
these  three  were  taken  into  account;  and  this  provision  took  away 
(though,  as  it  proved,  not  altogether)  future  occasions  for  religious 
conflicts  within  the  Empire  in  which  foreign  Powers  might  seek  to 
interfere1. 

Such  were  the  chief  general  changes  to  which  the  European  State- 
system  was  subjected  by  the  Peace  of  Westphalia — changes  of  high 
importance,  but  not  such  as  to  mark  any  signal  advance  towards 
international  relations  favourable  to  an  enduring  Peace  of  the  World. 
So  far  as  England  in  particular  was  concerned,  the  War  had  brought 
about,  and  the  Peace  established,  relations  between  the  Continental 
Powers  which  she  could  not  possibly  ignore  and  which,  in  one  way 
or  another,  must,  for  a  time  at  all  events,  greatly  affect  her  foreign 
policy.  The  long-sustained  military  enterprise  of  Sweden,  and  the 
well-timed  intervention  of  France,  had  enabled  them  to  obtain,  in 
the  Peace,  compensations  (" satisfactions")  which  gave  to  the  former 
a  strong  footing  in  northern,  and  provided  France  with  continuous 
opportunities  for  action  in  western,  Germany;  while  Sweden  had  ac- 
quired the  command  of  the  mouths  of  Oder,  Elbe  and  Weser,  and  was 
placed  in  antagonism  to  Brandenburg,  whose  Elector  held  Ducal 
(Western)  Poland  as  a  fief  of  the  Polish  Crown.  France  had,  by 
acquiring  Breisach  and  the  right  of  garrisoning  Philippsburg,  secured 
direct  access  to  the  German  South-west,  had  taken  the  place  of  Austria 
in  Alsace,  and  had  secured  sure  opportunities  for  future  intervention 
in  the  affairs  of  the  Empire  and  its  Estates  at  large.  The  acquisition 
of  the  Belgic  Provinces  themselves  remained  an  unachieved  project 
of  French  political  ambition,  as  it  had  under  Richelieu,  and  the 
"natural  frontiers"  of  France  were  proclaimed  by  him  in  his  last 
will  (now  accepted  as  genuine)  as  a  legitimate  claim  of  the  France 
of  the  future2.  As  for  the  sea,  though  at  the  close  of  the  Great  War 
(which  did  not  include  peace  between  France  and  Spain)  Mazarin's 

1  It  is  true  that,  although  the  idea  of  a  United  Christendom  was  thus,  in  Church 
as  well  as  in  State,  abandoned,  an  attempt  was  made  at  Miinster  to  provide  the 
settled  system  of  States  now  adopted  with  a  tentative  guarantee,  in  the  form  of  a 
"wish"  that,  in  case  of  any  dispute,  three  years  would  be  allowed  for  securing  a 
solution  sanctioned  by  all  the  States  not  parties  to  that  dispute.  But  the  guarantee 
included  no  appeal  to  arms ;  and  no  instance  seems  to  be  on  record  of  its  having 
ever  been  called  into  operation. 

2  Cf.  Hanotaux,  Melanges  Historiques,  vol.  HI.  (1880),  pp.  705  ff. 


ENGLISH  POLICY  AFTER  PEACE  OF  WESTPHALIA     15 

Italian  policy  had  not  achieved  complete  success,  there  was  now 
every  prospect  that  the  Mediterranean  would  henceforth  be  under 
French  rather  than  Spanish  control.  The  command  of  the  Baltic, 
on  the  other  hand,  ultimately  a  matter  of  far  more  importance  to 
Great  Britain  than  it  was  to  the  United  Netherlands,  the  Suedo- 
French  Alliance  had  assured  to  Sweden  for  the  period  immediately 
following  on  the  conclusion  of  the  Peace;  whether  it  could  be  re- 
tained by  her  depended  in  the  first  instance  on  her  relations  with  her 
neighbour  and  ancient  rival,  Denmark. 

From  the  settlement  or  discussion  of  all  these  questions,  the  Eng- 
lish Government  and  people,  which,  in  the  early  stages  of  the  Thirty 
Years'  War,  had  shown  so  keen  an  interest  in  its  progress,  held  aloof 
at  its  close.  The  country  was  on  the  very  eve  of  the  termination  of 
the  long  struggle  between  Crown  and  Parliament,  by  the  transfer  of 
supreme  authority  to  a  section  of  the  House  of  Commons.  The  foreign 
policy  of  the  Commonwealth  was  at  first  out  of  touch  with  either  of 
tne  belligerents  still  in  arms  against  each  other  (France  and  Spain) ; 
nor  was  it  even  clear  what  line  the  new  Government  would  pursue 
towards  the  Power  which  was  at  the  time  in  command  of  the  carry- 
ing-trade of  Europe  at  large.  Would  mercantile  jealousy  prevail,  in 
this  latter  day,  over  the  religious  sympathies  which,  in  Elizabeth's 
time,  had  induced  England  to  take  the  side  of  the  now  Free  Nether- 
lands in  their  long  struggle  with  Spain  ? 

Meanwhile,  soon  after  Europe,  as  a  whole,  had  accepted  the 
Westphalian  settlement  designed  to  govern  the  future  relations  be- 
tween her  States,  England  signified,  as  it  were  once  for  all,  what  was 
the  part  she  proposed  to  play  among  them.  This  she  accomplished  by 
the  assertion  of  her  sea-power;  which  not  only  made  possible  the 
great  Victory  (Dunbar),  but  put  an  end  to  such  resistance  as  was 
offered  by  Continental  Europe  to  her  new  Commonwealth.  French 
piracy  was  suppressed,  and  Lisbon  was  blockaded  (1650) — the  capital 
of  a  nation  which,  a  decade  earlier,  had  secured  its  independence  and 
had,  without  loss  of  time,  concluded  Treaties  with  France  and  the 
United  Provinces,  and  another  with  the  English  Government  (1642). 
The  last  of  these  was  the  precursor  of  the  still  more  important  Treaty 
with  Portugal,  negotiated  in  1654  by  the  Rump  and  signed  by  Crom- 
well, and  may  thus  be  regarded  as  having  laid  the  foundation  of  the 
most  long-lived,  as  well  as  the  oldest,  of  all  European  Alliances1.  Its 

1  Cf,  Guernsey  Jones,  Beginnings  of  the  Oldest  European  Alliance  (Washington, 
1919). 


16  INTRODUCTION 

beginnings  were,  however,  interrupted  by  the  catastrophe  of  the 
Stewart  Throne,  of  which,  among  contemporary  Sovereigns,  King 
John  IV  of  Portugal  alone  took  note  by  acts  of  overt  hostility,  though 
his   Government  was,  also,  the  earliest  to   enter  into   diplomatic 
relations  with  that  of  "the  Parliament  of  the  Commonwealth  of 
England."   Before  long,  King  John's  cherished  design  of  the  marriage 
of  the  Prince  of  Wales  to  a  Portuguese  Infanta  was  to  be  resumed, 
and  the  Anglo-Portuguese  Alliance  to  enter  into  a  new  stage  of  its 
long-protracted  course.    But,  for  the  present,  Prince  Rupert,  the 
stormy  petrel  of  the  Restoration,  had  fluttered  away  into  Medi- 
terranean waters,  and  English  foreign  policy  had  been  revolutionised. 
In  order  to  achieve  these  results,  Blake,  one  of  the  greatest  of  our 
naval  heroes,  had  found  it  necessary  to  complete  the  creation  of  a 
permanent  English  navy  of  war  and  to  secure  its  requisite  bases  of 
action.  When,  therefore,  an  English  fleet  entered  the  Mediterranean 
in  1651,  it  could  not  do  so  without  the  goodwill  of  some  Power  pos- 
sessed of  harbours  where  English  vessels  could  be  refitted  or  re- 
victualled  ;  and  this  Power  could  be  no  other  than  Spain  (by  means  of 
the  Spanish  ports  in  the  Two  Sicilies  and  Sardinia),  so  long  the  foe 
of  England  and  sure  to  become  such  again.  For  the  moment,  political 
advantage  had  drawn  the  two  nations  nearer  together ;  how  could  the 
Government  of  Philip  IV  remain  on  unfriendly  terms  with  a  Power 
which  had  swept  the  seas  clear  of  French  and  Portuguese  ships  ?  Thus, 
so  early  as  May  1650,  the  Spanish  Government  had  recognised  that  of 
the  Commonwealth;  and  a  resident  diplomatic  agent  had  been  sent 
to  Madrid.   But  the  murder  of  that  agent  (Ascham),  on  the  day  after 
his  arrival,  could  not  but  lead  to  friction  with  Spain ;  and  the  effect 
of  this  was  a  friendly  turn  in  the  relations  between  the  Common- 
wealth and  the  French  Government,  more  especially  as  the  Hugue- 
not interest  for  a  time  made  head  in  France  against  the  sway  of 
Mazarin.    French  commerce,  however,  continued  to  suffer  from 
English  naval  activity,  and  the  Commonwealth  was  now  strong 
enough  to  pass  an  Act  prohibiting  trade  with  such  of  the  American 
and  West  India  Colonies  as  adhered  to  the  Royalist  cause  (1650). 
By  sea  and  land,  the  Commonwealth  had  resolved  to  be  master 
where  the  Crown  had  been. 

As  for  the  relations  at  this  time  between  England  and  the  Free 
Netherlands,  they  passed  with  most  notable  suddenness  from  extreme 
to  extreme.  At  first,  the  States-General,  under  Orange  influence, 
refused  to  enter  into  other  than  commercial  negotiations  with  the 


THE  COMMONWEALTH  AND  THE  UNITED  PROVINCES  17 

Commonwealth.  But  the  death  (October,  1650)  of  the  Stadholder 
William  II  (before  the  birth  of  his  son,  the  future  William  III)  led 
to  a  complete  change  in  the  conduct  of  the  affairs  of  the  Dutch  Re- 
public, which  now,  with  the  exception  of  the  two  Provinces  acknow- 
ledging the  Orange  Stadholdership,  fell  under  the  control  of  the 
Province  of  Holland.  This  change  caused  the  Government  of  the 
Commonwealth  to  form  the  design  of  concluding  as  close  as  possible 
an  Alliance  with  the  United  Provinces,  and  even  to  entertain,  as  a 
possible  result  of  negotiations  to  this  end,  the  notion  of  converting 
the  Alliance  into  a  political  union  between  the  two  countries.  But  the 
Commonwealth  leaders  and  their  envoys  (Chief  Justice  St  John  and 
Strickland)  insufficiently  understood  the  political  organisation  of  the 
body  politic  with  which  they  had  to  deal,  and  they  made  no  allow- 
ance for  the  violent  Orange  predilections  of  the  populace.  Thus, 
after  a  protracted  negotiation,  at  an  early  stage  of  which  the  Dutch 
had  proposed  as  the  basis  of  a  treaty  the  Intercursus  Magnus  (agreed 
upon  in  1495,  at  the  time  of  the  Perkin  Warbeck  scare),  this  far- 
reaching  design  was  allowed  to  drop — chiefly  on  the  narrow  ground 
that  the  English  negotiators  insisted  on  the  strict  exclusion  of  the 
English  Royalists  from  the  Netherlands.  The  immediate  result  of 
the  attempt  and  its  failure  was  a  growth  of  illwill  between  the  two 
communities — stimulated,  on  the  part  of  England,  by  the  conscious- 
ness that  her  sea-power  was  no  longer  inferior  to  the  Dutch,  and  by 
the  acceptance  of  the  Commonwealth  Government  (notwithstanding 
Prince  Rupert)  in  the  greater  part  of  the  English  New  World. 

Hereupon,  the  Parliament  carried  on,  with  increased  determina- 
tion, the  restrictive  policy  on  which  it  had  fallen  back  after  the  col- 
lapse of  the  Dutch  Alliance  or  " Union"  project,  and  of  which  the 
main  end  was  to  advance  English  commerce  at  the  expense  of  that 
of  the  Provinces.  Their  legislation  and  diplomacy  had  been  long,  and 
at  times  unscrupulously,  directed  to  the  maintenance  of  their  com- 
mercial ascendancy,  north  and  east  as  well  as  west,  at  a  height  danger- 
ously near  to  monopoly;  and  the  first  Navigation  Act,  of  October, 
165 1 ,  which  practically  annihilated  Dutch  trade  with  the  English  West 
Indies,  though  not  intended  to  provoke  war  with  the  United  Provinces, 
was  very  intelligibly  looked  upon  as  conceived  in  the  spirit  of 
retaliation1.  Thus,  when,  in  1652,  the  first  of  the  Wars  between 

1  It  was,  at  the  same  time,  in  thorough  agreement  with  the  economic  ideas  of 
the  age.  Gardiner  points  out  that  this  was  the  one  legislative  achievement  of  the 
Commonwealth  which  not  only  found  favour  in  the  eyes  of  the  Convention  Parlia- 
ment, but  was  reenacted  by  it  in  a  more  stringent  form  (1660). 

W.&G.I.  2 


!8  INTRODUCTION 

England  and  the  Dutch  Republic  broke  out,  though  not  occasioned 
by  the  Navigation  Act,  it  was  largely  due  to  the  commercial  tension 
which  culminated  in  this  memorable  piece  of  legislation. 

Meanwhile,  the  turn  taken  by  domestic  affairs  in  France  had  in- 
evitably reacted  upon  the  party  in  the  Long  Parliament  by  which 
that  Parliament  was  itself  to  be  overthrown,  and  of  which  Cromwell 
himself  stood  at  the  head.  The  rally  round  Conde  of  the  Huguenot 
nobles  .of  the  South,  supported  by  Bordeaux  and  other  southern 
towns,  had  aroused  Cromwell's  interest.  He  had  dreamt  of  a  Pro- 
testant and  republican  France;  but,  of  course,  it  was  only  a  dream, 
and  the  notion  of  persuading  the  French  radical  organisation  called 
the  Ormee  to  construct  a  Constitution  on  the  Fifth  Monarchy  model 
(though  the  precursor  of  later  political  fancies)  proved  equally  futile. 
On  the  other  hand,  Conde  had  taken  the  paradoxical  step  of  applying 
for  aid  to  both  Spain  and  England ;  and,  for  a  time,  Cromwell  and  his 
following,  while  desirous  for  the  preservation,  if  possible,  of  peace, 
hesitated  between  two  possible  alliances.  They  were  drawn  to  Spain 
by  her  recognition  of  the  Commonwealth,  which  France  had  hitherto 
persistently  refused,  and  to  France  by  the  possibility  of  her  transfer 
of  Dunkirk  to  England,  as  well  as  by  the  further  possibility  of  her 
being  induced  to  put  an  end  to  the  persecution  of  the  Huguenots. 
Early  in  1652,  Mazarin  was  once  more  at  the  helm,  and  though  a 
proclamation  of  the  young  King  Lewis  XIV  confirmed  the  Edict  of 
Nantes  and  paid  a  tribute  to  the  loyalty  of  his  Huguenot  subjects, 
the  French  recognition  of  the  Commonwealth  was  still  distant,  and 
the  transfer  of  Dunkirk  quite  out  of  the  question.  When,  therefore, 
in  the  same  year  (against  Cromwell's  wish),  hostilities  began  between 
the  English  and  the  Dutch,  there  was  no  little  danger  of  a  speedy 
declaration  of  war  by  England  against  France,  and  Blake  lost  no  time 
in  inflicting  reprisals  on  French  ships.  But,  the  fall  of  Gravelines 
and  the  surrender  of  Dunkirk  into  Spanish  hands  notwithstanding, 
Mazarin  was  unwilling  to  hasten  an  open  conflict  with  England ;  where 
there  was  a  corresponding  wish  not  to  break  with  France,  unless  an 
understanding  should  have  been  reached  with  Spain.  Neither  Power 
was,  or  could  be,  welcome  as  an  ally  to  the  Commonwealth,  although, 
near  the  end  of  1652,  it  had  been  (at  first  with  a  doubtful  grace)  recog- 
nised by  the  King  of  France.  The  Dutch  War,  which  opened  in  1652, 
at  first,  notwithstanding  several  well-contested  battles,  remained 
unattended  by  any  decisive  result.  A  period  of  uncertainty  seemed 
to  have  befallen  the  foreign  policy  of  England,  and  one  which  even 


EARLIER  FOREIGN  POLICY  OF  OLIVER  CROMWELL  19 

the  most  expert  diplomacy  would  have  found  it  difficult  to  bring  to 
a  satisfactory  close.  Meanwhile,  it  was  not  to  any  question  of  foreign 
affairs  that  the  dissolution  of  the  Long  Parliament  was  due ;  and  the 
day  of  the  Lord- General  was  not  yet  quite  at  hand.  When  it  came, 
the  moving  spirit  in  every  branch  of  foreign  as  well  as  of  home 
affairs  was  the  same  militant  Protestantism  that  had,  in  turn,  re- 
modelled the  army  and  succeeded  in  transforming  the  State,  and 
that  was,  also,  more  and  more  potently  impressing  itself  upon  the 
beginnings  of  English  Colonial  life.  Thus,  far  more  distinctly  than 
the  tentative  efforts  of  Elizabeth's  later  years,  Oliver's  conduct  of 
our  foreign  policy  in  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  while 
advancing  the  material  interests  of  England,  put  her  in  the  van  of 
the  process  of  reconstituting  Europe.  The  problem  of  effecting  this 
by  securing  her  the  command  of  the  sea,  and,  incidentally,  depressing 
the  Papacy  to  a  thing,  or  at  least  a  Power,  of  the  past,  was  not  one 
for  which  even  the  genius  of  Oliver  Cromwell  could  find  an  enduring 
solution ;  but  the  attempt  lit  up  the  scene  of  the  world  for  a  brief  and 
brilliant  period  of  national  action.  After  these  years — fewer  even 
than  those  which  sufficed  Bismarck  for  establishing  the  new  Ger- 
many as  a  dominating  European  Power — English  foreign  policy  soon 
sank  back  into  a  restricted  sphere,  but  not  without  retaining  the 
consciousness  of  impulses  and  traditions  which  it  could  not  easily 
resist  or  lightly  abandon. 

But  Oliver's  was  a  political  genius,  and  as  such  dealt  with 
political  realities.  The  consummation  was,  therefore,  not  achieved 
suddenly  or  at  once.  In  1653,  while  the  control  of  English  govern- 
ment had  been  committed  to  a  doctrinaire  assembly,  but  when  the 
public  mind  was  already  looking  to  the  Lord- General  for  the  direction 
of  its  foreign  affairs,  he  continued  for  some  time  to  lean  towards  the 
paradoxical  combination  which  would  have  allied  England  with 
Spain  and  the  French  Dissidents.  Although,  in  July,  1653,  the  city 
of  Bordeaux  surrendered  to  the  King,  and  the  Huguenot  outlook 
darkened,  Cromwell  continued  in  this  mood  even  beyond  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Protectorate,  irritated  by  the  plots  hatched  in  France 
against  the  English  Government,  and  notwithstanding  the  overtures 
of  Mazarin  early  in  1654. 

He  had,  in  fact,  made  up  his  mind  that,  before  choosing  between 
France  and  Spain,  England  must  be  at  peace  with  the  United  Nether- 
lands. In  carrying  out  this  resolution  he  showed  his  greatness  as  a  poli- 
tician ;  but  in  the  several  stages  of  the  process  he  displayed  that  other 

2 2 


2O 


INTRODUCTION 


quality  of  his  mind — its  imaginative  impetus — which  was  in  a  different 
way,  an  essential  element  in  his  greatness.  The  Dutch  War,  after  a 
series  of  grandly  contested  naval  battles,  had,  by  Tromp's  defeat  off 
Portland  in  February,  1653,  left  the  command  of  the  Channel  in 
English  hands,  and  the  battle  of  the  Gabbard  (June)  had  proved  the 
inability  of  the  Dutch  to  recover  it.  The  peace  negotiations  hitherto 
carried  on  between  the  belligerents  had  broken  down  through  the 
severity  of  the  terms  demanded  by  the  English  Council  of  State,  and 
the  new  negotiation  proposed  by  the  States- General  at  the  instance  of 
de  Witt  (before  he  was  named  Pensionary  of  Holland)  had  been  re- 
jected by  the  new  Council.  But  now,  de  Witt's  insistence  upon  the 
necessities  of  the  case,  and  the  despair  of  the  Dutch  population,  led 
to  the  appointment  of  four  Dutch  Peace  Commissioners  to  England 
(June),  and  the  moment  had  arrived  for  Cromwell's  intervention. 
Whether  or  not  (and  it  seems  more  than  doubtful)  he  had  been  in 
favour  of  the  War,  he  was  now  certainly  in  favour  of  peace,  and  the 
advantages  of  an  intimate  alliance  in  his  mind  outbalanced  those  of 
the  abasement  of  England's  chief  mercantile  naval  and  mercantile 
rival.  As  for  the  United  Provinces,  they  must  make  their  choice 
between  a  territorial  sacrifice  to  France,  and  joining  hands  with 
England — though  not  precisely  falling  into  her  arms.  Peace  must  be 
made,  but  on  a  generous  basis — not  of  jealousy,  but  of  amity,  between 
two  great  Protestant  nations.  Thus,  Cromwell  first  informally  pro- 
posed, as  the  security  of  peace,  the  appointment  of  a  small  number 
of  Dutchmen  and  Englishmen  respectively  to  the  English  and  Dutch 
Councils  of  State  (or  States- General).  And,  when  the  Dutch  Com- 
missioners were  unable  to  see  their  way  to  this,  or  to  a  fresh  sug- 
gestion by  Cromwell  of  a  religious  and  commercial  union  only,  to 
which  the  Council  of  State  had  added  the  demand  of  a  complete 
political  blending  of  political  power  and  policy  under  one  Supreme 
Head,  Cromwell  made  one  more  effort — the  most  astonishing,  as  it 
was  the  most  characteristic,  of  all.  There  was  no  longer— and  with 
Cromwell  there  cannot  be  said  to  have  been  during  the  whole  of  this 
crisis— any  thought  of  a  revival  of  St  John's  grandiose  but  impractic- 
able idea  of  a  political  union  between  the  two  peoples,  which  had 
broken  down  on  a  previous  occasion.  What  was  now  informally  asked 
for  was  at  once  less  and  more  than  this.  Instead  of  political  amalgama- 
tion a  Perpetual  Alliance  was  to  be  established  between  the  two  nations. 
This  Alliance  was,  together  with  them,  to  include  Denmark,  Sweden, 
the  Protestant  Princes  of  the  Empire  and  France— but  the  last- 


CROMWELL  AND  THE  UNITED  PROVINCES        21 

named  on  condition  that  her  Government  should  grant  full  liberty 
to  the  Huguenots.  It  was  to  be  directed  against  all  Princes  and  States 
who  employed  the  services  of  the  Inquisition  and  acknowledged  the 
authority  of  the  Pope.  To  this  sufficiently  vast  scheme  was  added  a 
particular  plan  for  the  partition  of  the  New  World — England  to  be 
assigned  America,  with  the  exception  of  Brazil,  and  to  be  assisted 
by  the  United  Provinces  in  accomplishing  the.  necessary  conquest. 
Each  of  the  two  Allies  was  to  establish  a  Commission  consisting  of 
four  representatives  of  each.  Finally,  the  Christian  purpose  of  this 
strange  League  of  Nations  was  to  be  attested  by  the  sending  of  mis- 
sionaries to  any  people  willing  to  receive  them. 

Cromwell's  design — for,  though  not  of  his  drafting,  it  seems  cer- 
tainly to  have  commended  itself  to  him  as  a  basis  for  future  action — 
is  invaluable  as  indicating  the  present  state  of  his  mind  and  the  bent 
of  his  future  policy.  It  is  possible  that  the  bitter  hostility  to  Spain 
which  marks  the  document  may  have  been  partly  due  to  the  refusal 
of  the  Spanish  Government  (at  the  dictation  of  the  Inquisition)  to 
entertain  any  proposal  for  the  toleration  of  Protestants  in  its  dominions, 
and  by  its  natural  efforts  to  obstruct  the  Anglo-Dutch  Peace  which 
Cromwell  and  his  followers  had  at  heart.  In  any  case,  the  States- 
General  deferred  consideration  of  it,  either  in  its  first  (both  wider 
and  cruder)  or  in  a  subsequently  modified  (narrower  and  less  aggres- 
sive) form.  Hereupon,  after  his  installation  as  Protector,  Cromwell 
suggested  to  the  Dutch  Commissioners,  once  more  in  London,  a  far 
less  comprehensive  scheme  as  a  basis  of  peace.  A  Defensive  League 
was  to  be  concluded  between  the  two  Powers,  binding  each  side  alike 
to  enter  into  no  treaty  without  the  consent  of  the  other,  and  pro- 
claiming freedom  of  trade  between  them,  but  leaving  their  existing 
laws  (the  Navigation  Act,  of  course,  included)  untouched.  After  not 
a  few  hitches,  the  Treaty  of  Peace  was  signed  and  ratified  in  April, 
1654,  and  the  Act  of  Exclusion  which  barred  the  admission  of  any 
member  of  the  House  of  Orange  to  civil  or  military  office  was,  thanks 
to  the  management  of  de  Witt,  passed  by  the  States- General  in  the 
same  month. 

What  Cromwell  had  obtained  could  hardly  be  considered  as  a 
diplomatic  victory ;  but  the  success  of  the  War  had  not  been  used  by 
him  in  vain ;  for  the  eyes  of  France  were  once  more  bent  on  Flanders. 
As  for  the  Protector's  wider  views,  nothing  might  seem  left  of  them 
but  words;  yet  his  ideas  were  not  dead,  and  inspired  fresh  efforts  on 
behalf  of  the  combined  interests  which  he  had  at  heart. 


22  INTRODUCTION 

Whitelocke,  on  leaving  for  his  Swedish  embassy  (at  the  end  of 
1653),  had  been  charged  by  Oliver  himself  to  "  bring  us  back  a  Pro- 
testant Alliance."  This  he  was  not  likely  to  obtain  from  Queen 
Christina;  but  he  brought  back  with  him  a  Commercial  Treaty, 
which,  together  with  one  concluded  with  Denmark  (now  at  peace 
with  Sweden),  placed  English  commerce  on  the  same  footing  as  Dutch 
in  the  Baltic.  While  thus  at  least  a  good  understanding  was  effected 
with  the  Protestant  Powers  of  the  North,  the  Protectorate  had  entered 
into  similar  relations  with  certain  Protestant  Princes  and  Cities  of  the 
Empire,  and  with  the  Swiss  Protestant  Cantons,  aided  no  doubt  by 
the  negotiations  of  John  Dury  throughout  Europe  on  behalf  of 
Christian  unity.  And  it  may  be  added,  in  the  same  twofold  con- 
nexion, that,  about  the  same  time  (1657),  a  Treaty  with  Portugal 
secured  to  English  trade  with  that  country  and  its  dependencies  the 
intimate  commercial  relations  which  were  to  be  consummated  by  the 
Treaty  of  1661  between  the  two  monarchies.  The  free  intercourse, 
and  the  immunity  from  interference  by  the  Inquisition,  were  the 
very  concessions  which  it  had  been  sought  in  vain  to  secure  from 
Spain. 

In  the  meantime,  the  great  changes  effected  by  the  Thirty  Years' 
War  in  the  general  condition  of  European  politics,  together  with  the 
continuance  of  the  contest  between  France  and  Spain  in  particular, 
favoured  the  realisation  of,  at  least,  part  of  the  Protector's  plans. 
Though  his  vision  of  a  new  European  conflict  on  a  religious  basis 
seemed  unlikely  to  take  shape,  yet  England  was  rapidly  assuming  a 
position  of  decisive  influence  among  the  States  of  Europe.  For 
different  reasons,  neither  France  nor,  even  more  manifestly,  Spain 
was  strong  enough  to  assert  an  undisputed  predominance;  while 
they  were  alike  anxious  to  add  to  their  respective  weight  in  the  scales 
by  securing  the  alliance  of  England.  For  a  time,  as  has  been  seen, 
Oliver  inclined  to  a  Spanish  combination,  and  asked  for  Dunkirk  as  an 
eventual  pledge  for  Calais.  But  secret  preparations  were,  meanwhile, 
made  for  assailing  the  Spanish  Power  in  the  remote,  but  attractive 
quarter  of  the  West  Indies;  and,  moved  as  he  always  was,  in  the 
last  resort,  by  religious  convictions,  Oliver,  as  he  settled  down  firmly 
in  the  seat  of  supreme  authority  at  home,  proceeded  to  find  his  bear- 
ings in  the  sea  of  foreign  policy.  Thus,  once  more,  the  ship  of  State 
consciously  and  decisively  pursued  the  course  which  it  had  followed 
in  Elizabeth's  unforgotten  days. 

To  weaken,  if  not  to  put  an  end  to,  Spain's  hold  upon  the  New 


BREACH  WITH  SPAIN  AND  TREATY  WITH  FRANCE  23 

World  was,  now  as  then,  but  under  conditions  already  different  from 
those  obtaining  when  Drake  singed  King  Philip's  beard,  a  funda- 
mental part  of  the  Protestant  policy  which  England  found  herself 
carrying  out.  But  the  Protector  had  rated  too  low  the  difficulty  of  a 
West  Indian  conquest,  when  he  deluded  himself  into  the  belief  that 
he  could  make  war  upon  Spain  in  America  while  remaining  at  peace 
with  her  in  Europe.  The  attack  on  Hispaniola  (San  Domingo)  was 
abandoned;  but  Jamaica,  little  esteemed  in  comparison  by  its  first 
conquerors,  was  occupied  (1655).  Spanish  pride,  however,  took  fire; 
and  Philip  IV,  who  had  more  than  countenanced  the  damage  inflicted 
by  Blake  upon  French  Mediterranean  commerce,  now  laid  an  em- 
bargo upon  all  English  vessels  and  goods  in  his  dominions.  By  the 
end  of  October,  1655,  the  breach  was  complete;  and  Oliver  was  left 
to  defend  in  high-sounding  words,  which  may  have  convinced  him- 
self, a  course  of  action  irreconcilable  with  good  faith,  but  seeming 
to  be  imposed  on  him  by  resistless  forces. 

The  effect  of  England's  breach  with  Spain  upon  France  was  im- 
peded by  the  indignation  aroused  in  the  Protector,  and  assiduously 
spread  by  him  through  the  country  at  large,  at  the  news  of  the  Duke 
of  Savoy's  persecution  of  the  Vaudois  Protestants.  Neither  in  the 
remonstrance  to  the  Duke  (composed  by  Milton)  nor  in  the  appeal 
to  the  good  offices  of  the  King  of  France  (erroneously  rumoured  to 
have  taken  part  in  the  outrage)  was  there  anything  in  the  nature  of 
a  threat.  But  so  far  were  these  efforts  from  being  mere  demonstra- 
tions of  sympathy,  that  the  other  Protestant  Powers  of  Europe  were 
called  upon  to  join  in  seeking  redress.  The  tone  of  Mazarin's  reply 
reveals  his  anxiety  that  the  incident  should  not  thwart  the  conclusion 
of  the  expected  Anglo-French  Alliance;  and,  before  the  memor- 
able agitation  in  England  on  the  subject  had  subsided,  Duke  Charles 
had  promised  an  amnesty  to  his  insurgent  subjects,  as  a  concession 
to  England.  The  concession  was  mainly  due  to  the  policy  of  Mazarin, 
and  to  some  fear  of  Swiss  armed  intervention;  but  the  main  credit 
of  the  whole  transaction  rested  with  "the  World's  Protector." 

The  Treaty  hereupon  concluded  with  France  was,  as  yet,  only 
concerned  with  the  establishment  of  friendly  relations :  the  question 
of  an  Alliance  could  not  be  treated  while  England  was  ostensibly 
at  peace  with  Spain.  In  the  final  negotiations  preceding  the  con- 
clusion of  the  compact,  the  prohibition  of  the  assistance  of  "rebels" 
to  either  party  was  limited  to  the  case  of  rebels  "now  declared"; 
but  a  secret  agreement  was  added  banishing  the  Stewarts  and  their 


24  INTRODUCTION 

adherents  from  France  and  excluding  Conde  and  his  House  from 
England.  On  October  21,  1655,  the  Treaty  was  at  last  signed.  The 
mixture  of  motives  which  impelled  Cromwell  to  conclude  it  lay  at 
the  root  of  a  foreign  policy  in  which  a  personal  element  cannot  for  a 
moment  be  ignored.  Nevertheless,  together  with  the  actual  Treaty 
of  Alliance  which  followed  a  year  later,  it  marks  the  beginning  of  an 
epoch  of  the  utmost  significance  in  the  history  of  English  foreign 
policy — the  epoch  of  a  cooperation  between  English  and  French 
interests,  which,  though  with  certain  interruptions,  may  be  said  to 
have  lasted  for  the  better  part  of  a  quarter  of  a  century — till  the 
European  Coalition  of  1674  and  the  change  in  English  policy  con- 
sequent upon  it. 

Now  that  Cromwell  had  declared  for  a  policy  which  meant  war 
with  Spain — whom  he  was  soon  to  denounce  (to  his  second  Parlia- 
ment) as  England's  "natural  enemy" — he  found  himself  involved  in 
foreign  complications  hardly  less  difficult  to  meet  than  the  designs 
of  Royalists  and  Levellers  at  home.  A  war  with  Spain,  as  a  naval 
war  on  many  coasts,  necessitated  the  constant  use  of  the  right  of 
search  against  the  Dutch,  with  whom  it  was  most  desirable  to  avoid 
a  renewal  of  hostilities.  Fortunately  for  England,  the  Dutch  navy 
was  at  this  time  actively  employed  in  the  Baltic.  When,  in  this  year 
1655,  the  new  King  Charles  Gustavus  had  taken  up  arms  against 
Poland,  he  was,  in  accordance  with  the  political  canon  now  obtaining 
at  Whitehall,  regarded  as  a  militant  champion  of  Protestantism 
against  Popery.  (He  was,  in  truth,  anxious  to  add  to  the  territorial 
gains  of  Sweden  in  the  Peace  of  Westphalia,  and  to  lower  the  ascend- 
ancy of  the  Dutch  trade  in  the  Baltic,  where  it  then  quadrupled  that 
of  the  rest  of  the  world.) 

In  the  face  of  Sweden's  designs,  and  of  the  Counter-alliance  of 
the  Powers  threatened  by  her  advance,  Oliver  hesitated  about  re- 
sponding to  the  overtures  made  to  him  on  either  the  one  or  the  other 
side.  He  would  have  rejoiced  to  see  Charles  X's  war  against  Poland 
extended  into  a  general  Protestant  League  against  the  supposed  de- 
signs of  the  Emperor  Ferdinand  III  and  their  supposed  originator, 
Pope  Alexander  VII ;  yet  he  could  not  but  perceive  that  the  ambition 
of  the  Swedish  King  constituted  a  serious  menace  to  English  as  well 
as  to  Dutch  trade  in  the  Baltic.  Thus  (partly  in  consequence  of  the 
financial  embarrassments  of  the  Protectorate  Government,  and  partly 
because,  with  the  unprofitable  war  with  Spain  and  the  effort  to  hold 
Jamaica,  it  already  had  enough  on  its  hands  and  must  have  left 


THE  WAR  WITH  SPAIN  25 

operations  against  the  House  of  Austria  mainly  in  those  of  its 
Allies)  the  sole  result  of  the  negotiations  between  the  English  and 
Swedish  Governments  amounted  not  even  to  a  political  alliance. 
The  Treaty  between  them  (July,  1656)  merely  permitted  Charles  X 
to  levy  a  certain  number  of  volunteers  in  England  and  placed  this 
country  on  the  footing  of  the  most  favoured  nation  with  regard  to 
Baltic  ports  actually  in  Swedish  hands.  Much  the  same  terms  as  to 
duties  were  shortly  afterwards  secured  for  themselves  and  other 
nations  by  the  Dutch,  though  at  the  cost  of  a  naval  demonstration, 
which  England's  good  understanding  with  Sweden  had  saved  her. 
But,  if  so  far  satisfactory,  this  was  a  tame  ending  of  the  whole  of  this 
episode  in  the  foreign  policy  of  the  Protector;  and  the  design  of  a 
League  against  Pope  and  Emperor  had  once  more  vanished  into  thin 
air. 

But  the  War  with  Spain  and  the  definitive  Alliance  with  France 
had  to  be  pressed  on.  Mazarin  had  again  wavered  in  the  direction 
of  peace,  and  there  were  rumours  of  a  Papal  mediation  between  the 
belligerents.  Oliver's  manifesto  justifying  the  breach  with  Spain 
was  published  on  the  day  after  the  earlier  agreement  with  France, 
and  Spain  was  (in  accordance  with  diplomatic  precedent)  declared 
to  have  begun  the  War.  In  April,  1656,  Charles  II  made  his  con- 
tribution to  the  conflict  by  concluding  a  compact  with  Spain;  and 
the  War  now  ran  its  course,  at  first  indecisive.  In  November,  the 
Treaty  of  Alliance  between  France  and  England  against  Spain  was 
concluded,  though  not  put  into  its  final  form  till  five  months  later 
(March,  1657).  Mazarin  had  succeeded  in  preventing  the  extension 
of  the  Treaty  into  a  general  league  of  the  Powers  adverse  to  the  House 
of  Austria ;  and  Cromwell  had  obtained  the  substantial  pledge  of  a 
transfer  to  England  of  Dunkirk,  after  it  should  have  been  jointly  re- 
taken by  the  French  and  English  forces.  Then,  at  the  time  when  the 
Protector  seemed  to  have  reached  the  height  of  his  power  at  home, 
there  came  the  news  of  Blake's  great  victory  over  the  Spanish  fleet 
at  Vera  Cruz  (April,  1657)  which  crippled  the  resources  of  Spain, 
put  a  stop  to  her  invasion  of  Portugal  and  seriously  shook  her  general 
position.  The  fall  of  Dunkirk,  however,  did  not  take  place  till  more 
than  a  year  later  (June,  1658);  and  before  Cromwell  could  thus  feel 
assured  of  the  pledge  he  had  exacted  from  France,  his  foreign  policy 
had  to  face  new  difficulties. 

Though  he  could  not  call  into  being  the  Protestant  League  to 
which  from  religious  motives  he  aspired,  he  persistently  clung  to  the 


26  INTRODUCTION 

supreme  necessity  of  maintaining  peace  between  the  Protestant 
Powers.  Notwithstanding  the  seductive  efforts  of  Sweden,  which 
actually  made  him  an  offer  of  the  duchy  of  Bremen  as  the  price  of 
his  cooperation  (November,  1657),  he  declined  to  join  her  in  crush- 
ing Denmark,  with  whom  she  was  now  at  war,  into  utter  in- 
feriority; but  neither  could  he  see  his  way  to  the  demand  for  a  settle- 
ment by  a  Congress  brought  forward  by  Denmark  under  Dutch 
instigation.  The  process  of  Cromwell's  attempted  mediation  between 
the  Scandinavian  Powers  thus  depended,  with  much  else,  upon  the 
relations  between  England  and  the  United  Provinces.  These  relations 
were  growing  more  and  more  strained — mainly  in  consequence  of 
the  long-standing  contention  as  to  the  right  of  search,  heightened  by 
the  many  occasions  for  friction  offered  by  the  Anglo- Spanish  War, 
in  whose  aspect  as  a  Protestant  crusade  the  Dutch  showed  scant 
interest.  (Moreover,  they  had  picked  a  quarrel  with  England's  ally 
Portugal  about  Brazil.)  But,  when  Dutch  goodwill  to  the  Danes 
seemed  not  unlikely  to  take  the  form  of  actual  naval  aid  against  the 
Swedes,  the  Protector  held  to  the  way  of  peace.  He  determined  to 
utilise  the  French  alliance  in  this  direction,  and  suggested  to  Mazarin 
joint  diplomatic  action  on  the  part  of  England  and  France  for  the 
settlement  of  the  Suedo-Danish,  as  well  as  the  Portuguese- Spanish 
question.  The  Cardinal  (without  paying  any  formal  attention  to  the 
accompanying,  as  it  were  indispensable,  proposal  of  an  offensive 
and  defensive  alliance  against  the  House  of  Austria)  entered  into  the 
suggestion,  and  the  result  was  that  the  Danes  found  themselves  able 
to  accept  the  terms  imposed  by  the  victorious  Charles  X  in  the  Peace 
of  Roeskilde  (February,  1658).  The  Treaty,  by  which  each  of  the 
two  Northern  Powers  renounced  any  alliance  hostile  to  the  other  and 
closed  the  Sound  to  any  fleet  hostile  to  both,  was  a  diplomatic  vic- 
tory for  Cromwell  and  his  agent  Meadowe,  though  followed  neither 
by  a  Suedo-English  treaty  of  alliance  nor  by  any  other  approach  to 
the  idea  of  a  Protestant  League.  The  Dutch,  who  could  not  but  re- 
gard it  in  the  light  of  a  discomfiture,  and  notwithstanding  the  efforts 
of  de  Witt,  drew  back  from  the  conclusion  of  a  defensive  alliance 
with  England  and  France  (though  they  nominally  accepted  English 
mediation  with  Portugal  about  Brazil). 

When  at  last  (June,  1658)  after  the  brilliant  victory  on  the  Dunes, 
in  which  Cromwell's  soldiery  took  part,  Dunkirk  capitulated  and  was 
placed  by  Mazarin  in  English  hands,  his  policy  was  seen  to  have,  at 
last,  with  England's  aid  prevailed  over  Spain.  This  was  made  mani- 


THE  SUM  OF  CROMWELL'S  FOREIGN  POLICY      27 

fest  by  the  Elective  Capitulation  signed  by  the  Head  of  the  German 
Habsburgs  before  he  assumed  the  Imperial  Crown  as  Leopold  I — a 
Capitulation  which  marked  the  isolation  of  Spain.  It  was  followed 
by  the  League  of  the  Rhine  (August,  1658),  which,  though,  in  the 
end,  redounding  to  the  advantage  of  France  (against  whom  nearly  all 
national  feeling  had  died  out),  closed  any  prospect  of  a  participation 
of  the  German  Princes  in  a  Protestant  league  against  the  House  of 
Austria. 

Before  the  success  of  Mazarin's  designs  thus  encouraged  France 
and  her  King  to  look  forward  hopefully  to  the  developments  of  the 
future,  Oliver  Cromwell  died  (September  2nd,  1658),  with  the  high 
hopes  and  aspirations  unfulfilled,  of  which  his  foreign  policy  at  no 
time  lost  sight — sometimes  almost  suddenly  recurring  to  them.  With 
the  Dutch  he  had,  largely  owing  to  de  Witt's  single-minded  efforts, 
kept  the  peace;  but  his  patience  was  sorely  tried,  not  only  from  first 
to  last  by  the  old  trade  grievances,  but  in  the  end  also  by  the  violent 
action  of  Charles  X  of  Sweden,  who  had  broken  through  the  Treaty  of 
Roeskilde  and  was  manifestly  intent  on  incorporating  the  Danish 
dominions  into  one  great  Scandinavian  monarchy.  The  Dutch,  here- 
upon, determined  on  the  relief  of  Copenhagen;  and  it  was  widely 
believed  in  Europe  that  Cromwell  was  an  accomplice  in  the  present 
designs  of  "the  King  of  the  North"  in  expectancy.  What  is  certain 
is  that  Cromwell's  design  of  a  twofold  Northern  Alliance  was  in 
ruins,  and  that  the  danger  of  a  breach  with  the  United  Provinces,  to 
avoid  which  was  a  more  difficult,  as  well  as  a  more  important  part  of 
the  same  general  policy,  was  greater  than  ever.  The  chief  balance  to 
this  twofold  political  failure — apart  from  the  acquisition  of  Jamaica, 
and  its  maintenance  in  the  teeth  of  the  efforts  of  Spain  and  her  ad- 
joining possessions — was  the  success  of  the  Anglo-French  Alliance 
in  Flanders,  and  the  actual  tenure  of  Dunkirk.  Yet  no  survey  of  the 
Protector's  foreign  policy  and  its  results  could  rest  satisfied  with  a 
reference  to  its  material  gains;  the  power  of  the  country  was  now 
acknowledged  by  friend  and  foe  alike,  and  known,  at  home  as  well 
as  abroad,  in  Colonies  and  in  Motherland,  to  be  largely  the  product  of 
the  religious  zeal  which,  resting  in  the  last  resort  upon  his  army,  he 
had  inspired  in  the  Government  personified  in  him. 

No  change  of  principle  or  method  in  this  foreign  policy  could  be 
in  question  during  the  months  of  domestic  faction  and  civil  strife 
which  ensued  after  the  great  Protector's  death  and  brought  the  Puritan 
Revolution  to  a  close.  With  the  Restoration,  the  foreign  policy  of 


28  INTRODUCTION 

England,  although  no  longer  animated  by  the  religious  convictions 
and  aspirations  that  held  possession  of  Oliver's  soul,  underwent  no 
such  complete  revulsion  as  might  have  a  priori  been  supposed.  In 
1659,  the  Peace  of  the  Pyrenees  was  at  last  concluded  between  France 
and  Spain;  and,  while  any  possibility  of  a  future  union  between  the 
Spanish  and  the  French  Crowns1  was  at  present  ignored  by  Spain, 
Spain  was  left  so  weak  that  her  efforts  to  recover  Portugal  proved  in 
vain.  Nor  could  the  Empire,  under  its  new  Habsburg  Chief,  revive 
any  of  its  former  pretensions  to  direct  the  course  of  European  politics, 
wholly  dependent  as  he  was  (except  in  his  Turkish  Wars)  upon  the 
resources  of  his  own  hereditary  dominions.  But,  though  the  gains  of 
France  and  the  losses  of  Spain  had  been  great,  the  policy  of  Lewis 
XIV,  professedly  conducted  after  Mazarin's  death  (1661)  by  the 
King  himself,  with  the  aid  of  Mazarin's  pupil  and  successor,  de 
Lionne,  called  for  unremitting  vigilance.  On  the  death  (in  1665)  of 
Philip  IV  of  Spain,  Lewis  XIV,  on  behalf  of  the  Infanta  his  consort, 
pressed  her  claim  to  the  Spanish  Netherlands  by  "right  of  Devolu- 
tion," thus  laying  bare  his  desire  for  the  acquisition  of,  at  least,  part 
of  the  Spanish  inheritance.  The  attempt  might  be  prevented  by  a 
combination  of  the  other  Powers  against  France,  such  as  was  advo- 
cated with  extraordinary  persistence  and  resource  by  the  eminent 
Austrian  diplomatist  Lisola.  But  for  the  execution  of  this  the  time 
had  not  yet  arrived;  and,  of  the  two  Powers  most  directly  con- 
cerned, the  United  Provinces  and  England,  the  former,  though  well 
aware  of  the  French  appetite  for  the  Flemish  coastline,  remained 
under  the  guidance  of  de  Witt  in  favour  of  a  pacific  attitude,  and  in 
1662  had  concluded  a  defensive  alliance  with  France. 

It  may  be  that  the  fact  of  this  Alliance  was  unknown  to,  as  well 
as  left  unnoticed  by,  Charles  II  and  Clarendon,  still  his  Chief  Minister, 
and  himself  generally  well  inclined  to  France.  They  were,  at  the 
time,  much  perturbed  by  the  state  of  the  British  finances,  and  all 
the  more  ready  to  gratify  French  national  feeling  by  the  sale  of 
Dunkirk  (1662) — a  transaction  which  afterwards  contributed  to 
Clarendon's  downfall.  For  the  present,  the  acquiescence  of  England 
in  the  aggressive  schemes  of  France  might  thus  seem  assured.  The 

1  It  can  hardly  be  an  error  to  regard  the  conditions  under  which  King  Philip  IV 
accepted  Lewis  XIV's  suit  for  the  hand  of  the  Infanta  Maria  Teresa — her  re- 
nunciation of  her  rights  to  the  whole  Spanish  Succession — as  illusory,  and  intended 
to  be  such.  The  contention  that,  in  consequence  of  the  local  laws  of  Brabant,  this 
renunciation  did  not  apply  to  the  greater  part  of  the  Spanish  Netherlands,  was 
thus,  actually  or  virtually,  an  afterthought. 


THE  EARLY  POLICY  OF  CHARLES  II  29 

growth  of  political  intimacy  between  the  two  Governments  had  been 
marked  by  the  ominous  marriage  of  King  Charles  IPs  sister  Henrietta 
to  Philip  Duke  of  Orleans.  Soon  afterwards  (May,  1662),  Charles  JI's 
own  marriage  with  the  Infanta  Catharine  of  Portugal,  as  placing 
England  in  direct  antagonism  to  Spanish  interests,  and  therefore  in 
accord  with  those  of  France,  amounted  to  a  resumption,  in  its  most 
important  issue,  of  the  foreign  policy  of  Cromwell.  The  policy  of 
Charles  was  in  accordance  with  that  of  the  Protector  in  conciliating 
the  mercantile  interest  by  showing  hostility  to  Spain,  with  a  view  to 
keeping  hold  of  Jamaica,  while  at  the  same  time  securing  access  to 
the  East  Indies  by  the  proposed  cession  of  Bombay  as  part  of  the 
Infanta's  dowry.  Thus,  after  some  vacillation  on  the  part  of  Charles  II, 
the  marriage  was  concluded  which,  in  the  end,  brought  to  Portugal, 
with  England's  aid,  the  recognition  of  her  independence  by  Spain 
and  to  England  the  beginnings  of  her  Indian  Empire. 

The  adherence  of  England  to  the  policy  of  France  might  now 
seem  a  working  entente,  while  amicable  relations  had  continued 
between  the  dominant  party  in  the  United  Provinces  and  the  French 
Government.  But  material  interests  and  popular  feeling  combined, 
as  of  old,  to  keep  asunder  the  two  Maritime  Powers,  with  both  of 
whom  France  desired  to  remain  on  friendly  terms.  There  had  been 
acts  of  aggression  on  both  sides,  in  America  and  in  Africa;  and  in 
1664,  notwithstanding  the  unwillingness  of  King  Charles  II,  Eng- 
land and  the  United  Provinces  were  again  at  war.  For  a  time,  it 
seemed  as  if  the  continuance  of  hostilities  might  be  transitory;  for 
the  course  of  the  War  was  favourable  to  England;  and  in  Holland 
tne  republican  party  continued  to  desire  peace.  But,  before  long, 
the  catastrophic  events  of  the  years  1665-6,  and  the  continuance  of 
the  contest  at  sea,  made  the  situation  one  of  greater  danger  and 
difficulty;  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  problem  of  the  impending 
action  of  France  overshadowed  the  Anglo-Dutch  War.  The  death 
of  Philip  IV  of  Spain  (1665)  had  decided  Lewis  XIV  to  put  forward 
the  claims  of  the  Infanta  his  consort  to  the  Spanish  Netherlands  by 
"right  of  Devolution" ;  and  with  this  end  in  view,  he,  early  in  1666, 
as  bound  by  his  defensive  alliance  with  the  States-General  to  take 
their  side,  declared  war  against  England  (January,  1666).  But  he 
had  no  intention  of  preventing  either  of  the  combatants,  alike  reduced 
in  naval  strength,  from  concluding  a  peace  which  would  suit  his  own 
policy.  In  this  sense,  he  entered  into  an  agreement  with  Charles  II 
(March,  1667),  binding  him  to  abstain  from  any  interference  with 


3o  INTRODUCTION 

the  action  of  France  in  the  matter  of  the  Spanish  Netherlands,  in  return 
for  an  undertaking  that  France  would  abstain  from  further  assistance 
to  the  Dutch.  Safe  as  he  thought  himself  against  England  and  sure  of 
her  adversary,  his  way  now  seemed  clear ;  and  shortly  afterwards,  he  in- 
vaded the  Spanish  Netherlands,  and  the  "War  of  Devolution  "  began. 

But,  though  Charles  II  wrote  to  the  Queen-mother  in  France  that 
he  would  not  for  a  year  enter  into  any  contention  against  that  country, 
de  Witt  had  already  perceived  whither  the  situation  was  tending,  and 
that  the  future  of  the  United  Provinces  lay  with  the  designs  of  Lisola. 
Thus  a  Peace,  though  not  such  a  peace  as  Lewis  XIV  had  had  in 
view,  was  rapidly  concluded  between  the  English  and  the  Dutch 
Governments  at  Breda  (July,  1667),  which,  so  far  as  their  colonial 
rivalry  was  concerned,  might  perhaps  be  regarded  as  a  fair  com- 
promise. Its  European  significance  consisted  in  the  curb  which  it 
put  upon  French  aggression,  before  a  more  comprehensive  effort 
was  made  in  the  same  direction. 

In  January,  1668,  when  the  hand  of  France  lay  heavy  on  the 
Spanish  Netherlands,  and  her  King  was  negotiating  in  grand  style 
with  the  pacific  Emperor  (Leopold  I)  as  to  the  future  partition  of  the 
Spanish  inheritance  at  large,  the  Treaty  called  par  excellence  the 
Triple  Alliance  was  concluded  at  the  Hague.  De  Witt  had,  a  few 
years  earlier,  pointed  out  to  Sir  Willam  Temple,  the  clear-sighted 
English  Ambassador  there,  that  the  choice  for  the  United  Provinces 
lay  between  two  alternatives — a  corrupt  bargain  with  France,  and 
a  fair  but  effective  pressure  upon  her,  which  would  be  impossible 
without  the  cooperation  of  England.  Very  unwillingly,  but  unable 
to  resist  the  flow  of  home  opinion,  to  which  his  policy  always  rd- 
mained  sensitive,  Charles  II  instructed  Temple  to  offer  a  defensive 
alliance  between  England  and  the  United  Provinces,  which  should 
insist  upon  peace  between  France  and  Spain,  on  terms  allowing 
France  to  retain  what  she  had  conquered  in  her  campaign  in  the 
Spanish  Netherlands,  or  an  equivalent;  with  a  secret  proviso  that 
the  contracting  Powers  might  in  the  pursuit  of  their  object  have  re- 
sort to  arms.  The  Triple  Alliance,  of  which  Sweden  had  become  a 
member  on  the  day  after  its  conclusion  (subsidies  being  promised 
her  as  a  condition  of  her  accession),  was  not,  in  any  sense,  a  final 
settlement  of  the  French  design.  It  was  a  rebuff,  and  an  exposure  of 
the  policy  of  France  before  the  eyes  of  Europe ;  but,  even  within  these 
limits  and  with  many  reservations  as  to  its  effect  upon  the  aggressor, 
it  justifies  the  opinion  of  Lord  Acton,  that  it  was  "the  earliest  of  that 


PEACE  OF  AIX-LA-CHAPELLE  AND  TREATY  OF  DOVER  31 

series  of  coalitions  which  ended  by  getting  the  better  of  the  power 
of  Lewis  XIV,  and  is  therefore  a  landmark  in  History."  But,  as  he 
continues,  its  extension  into  a  wider  European  alliance  was  out  of 
the  question,  and  the  jealousy  between  the  two  mercantile  Powers 
concluding  it  was  not  one  to  be  removed  by  politicians.  Thus,  the 
advance  of  the  French  Power  (which  was  fain  to  outrival  both  on 
their  own  ground)  was  checked,  not  ended.  For  the  rest,  Charles  II 
never  ceased  to  remain  in  touch  with  Lewis  XIV,  and  took  care  to 
minimise  to  him  the  significance  of  the  Alliance  jubilantly  received 
in  England.  Thus,  after  some  hesitation,  Lewis  decided  to  give  way, 
and  play  before  Europe  the  game  of  moderation  (the  actual  terms  of 
the  Treaty  consisting,  indeed,  of  conditions  previously  offered  by 
himself),  which  for  himself  meant  a  willingness  to  wait. 

The  Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  which  followed  (May,  1668),  and 
which  ended  the  first  stage  of  the  advance  of  France  under  Lewis  XIV, 
may,  therefore,  be  said  to  begin  the  second,  which  had  for  its  primary 
purpose  the  isolation,  and  for  its  ultimate  goal  the  absorption,  of  the 
United  Provinces.  To  effect  this,  an  intimate  connexion  and  coopera- 
tion between  France  and  England  became  imperatively  necessary; 
and  to  subserving  the  policy  of  which  this  was  the  cardinal  principle, 
Charles,  primarily  intent  on  the  interests  of  his  monarchical  power 
and  of  his  purse,  now  wholly  lent  himself. 

The  Secret  Treaty  of  Dover,  successfully  negotiated  by  Henrietta 
Duchess  of  Orleans  in  1670,  was,  therefore,  merely  a  successful 
manoeuvre  for  binding  down  Charles  to  a  line  of  action  after  his  own 
heart,  in  the  prosecution  of  which  he  had  sought  to  engage  from  the 
very  day  of  the  conclusion  of  the  Triple  Alliance.  The  new  feature 
added  to  it — the  promised  conversion,  at  his  own  time,  of  King  Charles 
himself  to  Rome — was,  on  the  above  condition,  most  attractive  to 
him,  but  hardly  of  supreme  consequence  to  Lewis  XIV,  who,  like  his 
predecessors,  had  shown  little  repugnance  to  Protestant  Alliances. 
It  was  not  mentioned  or  reckoned  as  an  item  on  either  side  of  the 
money  bargain  in  the  version  of  the  Treaty  brought  home  from  Paris 
by  Buckingham,  which  alone  was  signed  by  the  Protestant  members 
of  the  Cabal  (le  Traite  simule).  For  the  rest,  the  Treaty,  in  both  its 
versions,  bound  Charles  to  the  policy  of  his  Ally  both  in  the  immediate 
and  in  the  remoter  future — i.e.  Lewis  was  to  have  the  assistance  of 
England  both  in  making  war  upon  the  Dutch,  and,  eventually,  in 
securing  the  whole  of  the  Spanish  inheritance.  The  partners  in  the 
Treaty  were  to  endeavour  to  obtain  the  adherence  to  it  of  Sweden 


32  INTRODUCTION 

and  Denmark,  or  of  at  least  one  of  these  States,  and  of  the  Elector  of 
Brandenburg  and  other  Princes. 

In  the  meantime,  the  Triple  Alliance  having,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
fallen  to  pieces,  though  not  till  after  its  members  had  resolved  on  an 
agreement  guaranteeing  the  subsequent  Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle, 
de  Witt  and  Lisola  drafted  the  hoped-for  expansion  of  the  Alliance 
into  a  wide  European  league.  The  proposal  was  inevitably  rejected 
by  Charles  II,  whose  immediate  efforts  against  the  republican  regime 
in  the  United  Netherlands  had  been  met  by  the  nomination  of  Prince 
William  III  of  Orange  to  the  stadholderate  of  five  of  the  Provinces, 
with  the  expectancy  of  that  of  Holland  and  Zeeland  on  the  day  of 
his  coming  of  age.  Before,  however,  that  day  arrived,  the  Secret 
Agreement  with  France  had  come  into  operation:  the  Declaration 
of  Indulgence,  into  which  the  King's  religious  undertakings  had  for 
the  present  shrunk,  had  been  proclaimed;  and,  a  few  days  later 
(March,  1672),  the  English  Declaration  of  War  against  the  United 
Provinces  appeared,  outrunning,  like  a  jackal,  that  of  France.  The 
foreign  policy  of  Charles  II,  at  once  timid  and  treacherous,  had  at 
last  come  into  the  open.  This  and  his  home  policy  were  not  so  much 
detached  from  each  other  as  antithetically  mixed.  For  he  was  anxious, 
above  all  things,  for  the  retention  of  the  Throne  which,  after  so  long 
an  exile,  he  had  secured ;  and  yet  he  was  secretly  averse  from  what  was 
at  bottom,  though  by  no  means  consistently,  the  national  policy  to- 
wards foreign  Powers  whose  motives  he,  unlike  Cromwell,  perfectly 
understood  and  whose  action  he  was  often  personally  disposed  to 
support. 

Thus,  in  the  War  which  from  1672  to  1674  they  had  to  sustain 
against  England  as  well  as  against  France,  the  United  Provinces  were 
left  without  an  Ally  (except  the  Elector  of  Brandenburg,  who  soon 
found  it  necessary  to  secure  himself  by  a  separate  Peace).  Sweden, 
under  its  youthful  King  Charles  XI,  had  been  early  detached  from 
the  Triple  Alliance,  and  in  April,  1673,  when  the  French  had  already 
invaded  the  Free  Netherlands,  had  concluded  an  Alliance  with 
France,  and  another  with  England,  promising  her  (in  this  strangely 
inverted  triple  compact)  Swedish  help  in  the  case  of  any  attack  "for 
the  sake  of  France." 

The  French  invasion  of  the  United  Provinces  in  1672  had  seemed 
to  justify  the  self-confidence  of  Lewis  XIV,  till  after  the  murder  of 
the  brothers  de  Witt,  and  the  committal  of  the  fortunes  of  the  Pro- 
vinces to  the  guidance  of  their  young  Stadholder  William  III  of 


THE  DUAL  POLICY  OF  CHARLES  II  33 

Orange,  the  Dutch  people  had  made  a  heroic  stand  behind  their 
wall  of  waters.  The  bellicose  English  feeling  against  them,  stimulated 
by  factious  invective  such  as  Shaftesbury's,  was  dying  out.  Our  share 
in  the  War  had  brought  no  laurels,  and  no  East  India  fleet  spoils,  to 
our  navy ;  and  public  feeling  was  becoming  strongly  agitated  against 
France.  Meanwhile,  the  desire  of  the  other  European  Powers  to 
bring  about  the  restoration  of  peace  in  Europe  had  led  to  the  as- 
sembling of  a  Peace  Congress  at  Cologne,  from  which  England 
necessarily  held  aloof,  and  which  came  to  nothing  (1673).  But  diplo- 
matic activity  continued;  and,  while  France  and  England  severally 
carried  on  their  secret  negotiations  with  the  Dutch  for  a  peace  satis- 
factory to  themselves,  the  Imperial  agents  were  busily  employed  on 
the  project  of  a  wider  combination  against  the  aggression  of  France, 
whom  it  was  hoped  King  Charles  would,  notwithstanding  the  in- 
fluences surrounding  him  and  his  own  inclinations,  be  obliged  to 
abandon. 

On  the  action  of  the  English  Government,  hard  pressed  more 
especially  by  the  Spanish  (December,  1673),  much  depended;  and 
Charles  gave  way  so  far  as  to  indicate  that  he  was  prepared  to  treat 
as  to  peace  with  the  Dutch  on  his  own  account,  and  without  con- 
sulting his  Ally.  He  threw  himself  on  Parliament  for  the  decision  of 
a  question  which,  by  virtue  of  his  prerogative,  it  really  appertained 
to  him  to  settle,  and  sought  to  conciliate  parliamentary  and  popular 
feeling  by  denying  the  existence  of  any  Treaty  with  France  beyond 
the  "simulated"  one.  (This  suppression  had  seemed  all  the  more 
desirable  after  the  Test  Act  agitation  and  the  Catholic  marriage  of 
the  Duke  of  York,  in  the  same  year  1673.)  Thus,  he  allowed  himself 
to  be  detached  from  the  obnoxious  Alliance,  and  the  result  was  the 
conclusion  of  the  Peace  of  Westminster  (February,  1674)  between 
England  and  the  United  Provinces. 

The  conditions  of  this  Treaty  were  honourable  to  England  as 
well  as  in  other  ways  satisfactory,  so  far  as  her  claims  on  the  United 
Provinces  were  concerned ;  but  the  Secret  Article  which  prohibited 
either  Power  from  allying  itself  with  an  adversary  of  the  other  bore 
ominously  upon  the  events  that  were  to  follow.  In  the  following 
August,  the  Coalition  against  France  was  formed,  which  included  with 
the  United  Provinces,  the  Emperor,  the  King  of  Spain  and  the  Duke 
of  Lorraine,  in  the  confident  belief  that,  besides  other  Princes, 
England  would  soon  come  over  to  their  side — and  a  new  era  in  the 
history  of  Europe  actually  began.  In  this,  England  at  first  took  only 

W.&G.I.  3 


34  INTRODUCTION 

a  tentative  and,  indeed,  uncertain  part.  The  Emperor  Leopold  now 
declared  war  upon  Lewis ;  and  France  (left  with  no  support  but  that 
of  Sweden,  whose  neighbour  Brandenburg  had  joined  the  Coalition) 
resolved  on  evacuating  the  Low  Countries  and  turning  against 
Franche-Comte  and  the  Palatinate.  There,  her  arms  were  on  the 
whole  successful,  and  Charles  II  might  feel  that  it  was  not  the  losing 
side  from  which  he  had  been  so  strongly  pressed  to  turn  away.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  he  had  left  auxiliary  troops  with  the  French  army, 
who,  by  a  strange  irony  of  fate,  took  part  in  the  devastation  of  the 
Palatinate;  but  neither  this  circumstance  nor  his  known  personal 
inclinations  could  incline  the  Emperor  to  accept  the  mediation 
proffered  by  Charles  in  the  War  against  France.  On  the  other  hand, 
William  of  Orange,  now  Hereditary  Stadholder  and  Cap  tain- General 
of  the  United  Provinces,  would  willingly  have  accepted  such  a  media- 
tion, and  suggested  Nymegen  for  requisite  negotiations.  But,  after 
a  series  of  both  parliamentary  and  diplomatic  manoeuvres,  the  de- 
sign failed  and  with  it,  for  the  present,  the  attempt  to  establish  a 
dynastic  connexion  between  the  English  Throne  and  the  Stadholder- 
ate  by  means  of  a  marriage  between  William  and  the  Princess 
Mary.  But  he  could  bide  his  time,  and  firmly  stood  out  against 
Lewis  XIV's  endeavour  to  draw  him  over  to  the  policy  of  a  separate 
peace  between  France  and  the  United  Provinces.  Meanwhile,  in 
the  same  year  (1676)  Charles  signed  another  Secret  Treaty  with 
Lewis,  binding  him  by  a  yearly  subsidy  to  adherence  to  the  French 
alliance. 

Thus  what  has  been  well  called  the  period  of  two  foreign  policies 
— marked  by  an  impotence  due  to  this  duality  more  than  to  any  one 
other  cause — continued  into  the  eventful  year  1677  and  the  beginning 
of  the  following  year.  In  spite — or  partly  in  consequence — of  the 
French  successes  in  the  field,  the  feeling  against  the  Court  and  its  in- 
clination towards  France  was  stronger  than  ever ;  in  the  spring  of  1677, 
notwithstanding  the  corruption  of  the  members  of  the  Opposition  by 
Lewis  XIV,  the  House  of  Commons  unanimously  voted  an  address 
explicitly  hostile  to  France,  Lord-Treasurer  Danby  being  in  favour 
of  the  policy  urged  by  the  House.  It  then  refused  to  grant  supplies 
for  the  defence  of  the  country,  unless  the  King  concluded  an  offensive 
and  defensive  alliance  with  the  States-General  against  France  and 
for  the  preservation  of  the  Spanish  Netherlands.  While  Charles  now 
began  to  haggle  with  his  Ally,  public  feeling  rose  higher  and  higher; 
in  the  end,  Parliament  was  adjourned,  and  an  addition  was  made  by 


ISOLATION  OF  ENGLISH  POLICY  35 

Lewis  to  the  price  he  had  agreed  to  pay  for  the  English  adhesion  to 
his  Alliance. 

Charles  II,  in  the  pursuit  of  the  policy  on  which  he  was  bent,  had 
many  resources ;  but  they  did  not  include  those  of  an  inflexible  will  and 
of  a  deeply  meditated  statesmanship.  William  of  Orange,  by  whom  the 
great  change  in  the  foreign  policy  of  England  was  to  be  brought 
about,  and  who  was  in  possession  of  both  these  qualities,  was,  in  the 
first  instance,  called  upon  to  use  all  the  tact  and  circumspection  at 
his  command.  The  proposal  was  unpopular  in  the  United  Provinces 
and  suspected  in  England ;  but,  with  some  difficulty,  he  gained  over, 
first  the  King,  and  then  his  brother  the  Duke,  to  consent  to  his  mar- 
riage with  Princess  Mary — a  step  which,  as  Charles  calculated,  would 
at  least  reassure  the  English  people  as  to  his  own  relations  with 
France,  without  in  any  way  subjecting  him  to  the  influence  of  the 
Prince. 

But  the  effect  of  the  transaction  was  not  long  in  showing  itself. 
Lewis  XIV  had  refused  the  terms  of  peace  with  the  Coalition  offered 
by  Charles  II  as  mediator  and  proffering  the  return  of  part  of  his 
conquests  in  the  War,  including  Lorraine.  Now,  after  the  Orange 
marriage  (November,  1677)  the  policy  of  Charles  II  took  a  turn — 
which,  if  carried  to  its  logical  consequences,  would  imply  that  the 
last  link  in  the  European  Coalition  against  Lewis  XIV  was  to  be  sup- 
plied by  the  accession  of  England.  The  English  auxiliary  contingent 
in  the  French  army  was  now  actually  recalled,  and  (in  January,  1678) 
a  Treaty  was  concluded  with  the  United  Provinces,  defining  the 
French  retrocessions  on  which  the  Powers  must  insist.  But,  when 
Parliament  assembled,  it  went  even  further  in  the  conditions  to  be 
imposed  on  France,  demanding  that  the  Peace  of  the  Pyrenees  should 
be  made  the  basis  of  the  intended  settlement,  and  that,  in  the  mean- 
time, all  trade  with  France  should  cease.  King  Charles,  though  called 
upon  by  Parliament  to  inform  it  of  the  state  of  his  Alliances,  this 
time  held  to  his  view  of  his  prerogative,  and  ventured  to  enter  into 
a  private  negotiation  with  Lewis  XIV,  offering  in  return  for  yet 
another  subsidy  to  modify  in  his  favour  the  peace  terms  demanded. 
They  were  accordingly  presented  to  the  Powers  at  Nymegen  (April, 
1678),  but  rejected  by  them;  and  England  found  herself  in  the 
unfortunate  position  of  standing  definitely  on  neither  side  in  the 
contest. 

She  had  before  her,  on  the  other  hand,  the  prospect  of  a  new  con- 
flict as  to  her  foreign  policy  between  Crown  and  Parliament,  in  which 

3—2 


36  INTRODUCTION 

the  latter  went  so  far  as  to  bid  the  King  disband  his  army  or  break 
with  France.  He  determined  to  settle  the  matter  by  promising 
Lewis  XIV,  in  return  for  the  consolidated  subsidy,  to  preserve 
neutrality  in  case  of  the  rejection  by  the  Coalition  of  the  French 
terms  of  peace. 

On  August  loth,  1678,  Lewis  XIV  having  at  last  signified  his 
unconditional  assent  to  the  territorial  arrangements  demanded  of 
him,  the  Peace  of  Nymegen  was  signed  between  France,  Spain  and 
the  United  Provinces.  But  Charles  II,  who  was,  through  Temple, 
acting  as  Mediator  at  the  Conference, declined  to  append  his  signature, 
or  to  enter  into  any  further  understanding  with  the  Emperor  and 
Spain.  Thus,  largely  by  the  inaction  (or  double-faced  action)  of  the 
English  policy,  Lewis  had  in  the  Peace  obtained  Franche-Comte  and 
sixteen  fortified  places  in  the  Spanish  Netherlands,  and  (since  no 
compromise  could  be  mooted  on  this  head)  .kept  Lorraine  in  his 
hands  for  the  present.  So  far  as  English  foreign  policy  was  concerned, 
Lewis  XIV  replied  to  the  congratulations  of  Sunderland  on  behalf 
of  his  master,  and  to  his  claim  of  a  share  in  the  result  as  due  to  the 
action  of  England,  that  he  regarded  himself  no  longer  under  any 
treaty  obligation  towards  her.  The  great  advance  of  France  towards 
a  complete  predominance  in  the  affairs  of  Europe,  in  which  consists 
the  real  significance  of  the  Treaties  of  Nymegen,  had  thus  been 
effected  neither  against  England  nor  through  her  aid.  The  ratification 
of  the  Treaties  by  the  States- General  and  other  Powers  was  long 
delayed,  and  (so  strong  was  public  feeling  in  England)  Temple  joined 
William  of  Orange  in  impeding  it.  But,  in  the  end,  the  work  of 
pacification  was  accomplished  (1679);  an<^>  by  a  series  of  agreements 
with  which  no  one  concerned  in  them  was  content,  Europe  had 
secured  a  breathing- time.  It  was  within  this  breathing- time  that 
English  foreign  policy  at  last  freed  itself  from  the  duplicity  which 
had  beset  it  through  the  personal  designs — hesitating  in  the  case  of 
Charles  II,  but  persistent  in  both  him  and  his  brother.  A  statesman 
had  come  to  the  front  who  viewed  the  course  of  European  politics 
from  an  international  as  well  as  from  a  national  point  of  view,  yet 
who  stood  too  near  the  Throne  of  England  for  his  political  future  to 
admit  of  being  dissociated  from  hers. 

The  ink  was  hardly  dry  on  the  Nymegen  Treaties  when  Lewis 
XIV's  operations  against  the  Empire  began;  and,  in  1686,  the  Em- 
peror Leopold  I,  on  behalf  of  the  Empire,  concluded  with  Spain  and 
Sweden  the  League  of  Augsburg,  countenanced  by  Pope  Innocent  XL 


CHARLES  IPs  "SYSTEM"  MAINTAINED  TO  THE  LAST 37 

This  League  forms  another  landmark  in  this  age  of  coalitions.  But 
England,  notwithstanding  the  Orange  marriage  (November,  1677) 
was  still  out  of  the  reckoning.  Charles  II,  after  being  harassed  by 
the  exploitation  of  the  Popish  Plot,  was  even  more  nearly  touched 
by  the  Exclusion  Bill  agitation  (1679-81).  His  increased  estrange- 
ment from  Lewis  XIV,  after  an  attempt  at  an  understanding  on  the 
old  lines,  actually  led  to  an  Anglo-Spanish  Alliance  (1680).  While 
the  tortuous  diplomacy  of  the  French  King  aimed  at  rendering  the 
breach  between  Charles  and  his  subjects  impassable,  the  States- 
General  (without  the  interference  of  William  of  Orange),  urged  him 
to  relinquish  his  opposition  to  the  Exclusion  Bill.  But  he  was  en- 
couraged by  the  conservative  reaction  in  Church  and  State  of  his 
last  years  to  go  his  own  way,  trusting,  in  the  last  instance,  to  the 
support  of  Lewis  XIV.  As  the  Continental  policy  .of  Lewis  grew 
more  and  more  aggressive,  Charles  gave  repeated  proofs  of  his  reso- 
lution to  persist  in  his  non-intervention  in  European  affairs,  and 
turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the  appeal  made  to  him  to  take  part  in  the  de- 
fence of  Vienna  against  the  Turk  (1682).  Thus,  Charles  II  quitted 
the  scene,  without  having  changed  the  "system"  of  foreign  policy 
— ultimate  dependence  upon  France  and  refusal  to  enter  into  a 
European  combination  against  her — to  which,  with  the  occasional 
semblance  of  divergences,  he  had  adhered  throughout  his  inglorious 
reign. 

Near  its  close  (in  February,  1684)  Charles  II  supported  new  pro- 
posals for  peace  made  by  Lewis  XIV  to  the  States- General,  which 
were  denounced  by  William  of  Orange  and  rejected  by  a  majority  in 
favour  of  continuing  to  aid  Spain  in  the  defence  of  the  Spanish 
Netherlands.  When,  in  the  following  August,  the  Truce  of  Ratisbon 
left  France  in  possession  for  twenty  years  of  her  acquisitions  (the 
so-called  reunions)  made  up  to  1681,  and  of  Strassburg,  as  well  as 
of  Luxemburg,  more  recently  captured,  Charles  II,  in  his  desire  for 
peace,  promised  the  Imperial  Ambassador  to  guarantee  the  agree- 
ment ;  though  Lewis  XIV's  intention  of  ultimately  keeping  what  he 
had  gained  could  be  no  secret  to  him.  The  importance  of  this  double- 
faced  course  both  for  him  and  his  successor  is  manifest.  His  own 
end,  however,  was  close  at  hand  (he  died  on  February  i6th,  1685). 
By  receiving,  at  the  last,  the  Sacraments  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  he 
had  kept  at  least  part  of  his  bond  with  France.  For  the  rest,  he 
had,  during  the  last  ten  years  of  his  reign,  preserved  the  peace  of 
England,  at  the  cost  of  refusing  to  throw  such  weight  as  she  still 


38  INTRODUCTION 

possessed  into  the  scale  of  the  only  policy  by  which  tranquillity  could 
be  permanently  restored  to  Europe.  If  his  policy  is  viewed  as  a 
whole,  it  must  be  said  to  have  found  no  other  way  of  deferring  the 
catastrophe  of  his  dynasty,  than  that  of  depressing  the  English 
monarchy  to  the  position  of  a  vassal  State. 

The  event  to  which  Lewis  XIV  had  looked  forward  so  hopefully 
—the  accession  of  the  Catholic  James  II  to  the  English  Throne— was 
to  prove  the  final  cause  of  the  French  ascendancy  in  Europe.  At 
first,  King  James  seemed  not  unwilling  to  come  to  an  understanding 
with  the  Prince  of  Orange,  and  through  him  with  the  States- General. 
But  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  which  was  judged  very 
differently  in  different  parts  of  the  Catholic  world,  certainly  had  the 
effect  of  constituting  the  Prince,  in  the  public  eye,  the  representative 
of  Protestant  feeling  against  the  King's  Catholic  sympathies  and 
policy.  Thus,  though  neither  King  James  nor  the  nation  paid  much 
attention  to  the  course  of  foreign  affairs,  the  suspicions  of  an  under- 
standing between  him  and  the  King  of  France  soon  spread,  and 
William  of  Orange  continued,  to  the  best  of  his  ability,  to  cement 
the  defensive  league  of  the  other  Powers.  James  IPs  home  policy — 
blind  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  preservation  of  his  Throne — 
was,  like  his  foreign  policy,  shortsighted,  except  on  the  supposition 
that  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  follow  France  in  any  event.  In 
April,  1687,  he  issued  the  fatal  Declaration  of  Indulgence,  and,  in 
August  of  the  same  year,  he  declined  the  Emperor's  request  that  he 
should  guarantee  the  Truce  of  August,  1684.  Yet,  to  make  his  iso- 
lation more  complete,  he  incensed  the  States- General  by  attempting 
to  recall  his  regiments  in  their  service,  while  seeking  to  form  a  body 
of  disbanded  Catholic  officers  with  the  approval  of  Lewis  XIV.  The 
Dutch  saw  through  the  intrigue ;  and  William  of  Orange  could  thus 
lay  before  the  States-General  a  plan  for  offensive  operations  against 
his  father-in-law's  Throne. 

Yet,  while  he  was  engaged  in  these  manoeuvres,  he  had  still  dis- 
believed in  war  being  made  upon  him  by  the  United  Provinces ;  and 
had  continued  his  course  of  government  at  home.  The  birth  of  the 
Prince  of  Wales  (June  loth,  1688)  had  only  served  to  heighten  the 
public  distrust  in  the  King.  On  the  day  of  the  acquittal  of  the  Seven 
Bishops  (June  agth),  the  invitation  to  the  Prince  of  Orange  was  issued, 
and  the  last  stage  in  the  catastrophe  of  the  Stewart  Throne  began. 
From  this  moment  till  the  assumption  of  the  royal  power  by  William 
and  Mary,  it  is  idle  to  speak  of  an  English  foreign  policy.  But  though 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  WILLIAM  III  39 

by  his  declaration  to  the  States- General,  on  September  Qth,  1688,  the 
French  Ambassador  formally  identified  his  Sovereign  with  the  pre- 
servation of  the  Throne  of  James  II,  the  latter  declined  King  Lewis' 
proposal  of  a  joint  war  on  the  part  of  England  and  France  against  the 
United  Provinces;  nor  is  there  any  reference  to  it  in  the  Prince  of 
Orange's  famous  Declaration. 


Ill 

William  of  Orange,  one  of  the  most  far-sighted  of  great  statesmen, 
had,  so  far  back  as  1686,  taken  counsel  with  a  contemporary  Prince 
who,  in  this  respect,  most  resembled  him,  the  Elector  Frederick 
William  of  Brandenburg  (already  the  leading  State  of  Protestant 
Germany),  as  to  an  invasion  of  England.  In  1688,  William  had  sent 
word  to  the  Great  Elector  that  the  moment  had  come ;  but  Frederick 
William  died  in  1688,  before  the  sailing  of  the  expedition.  His  suc- 
cessor (afterwards  King  Frederick  I  in  Prussia)  undertook  to  cover 
the  United  Provinces  on  its  departure;  his  brother-in-law,  Land- 
grave Charles  of  Hesse-Cassel,  followed  suit;  and,  soon  afterwards, 
the  Liineburg  Dukes  (Duke  Ernest  Augustus  only  indirectly)  took 
part  in  the  enterprise.  Prince  George  Frederick  of  Waldeck,  whose 
masterly  diplomacy  had  been  invaluable  to  William  of  Orange  in 
preparing  the  great  stroke,  was  named  by  him  his  vicegerent  in  the 
Stadholderate  during  his  absence. 

The  object  of  William's  invasion  was  the  object  of  his  life — the 
preservation  of  the  independence  of  the  United  Provinces,  which,  as 
their  Stadholder  only,  and  in  uncertain  relations  with  England,  it 
had  been  beyond  his  power  to  guard  effectively,  but  which,  when  in 
assured  control  of  both  countries,  he  felt  confident  of  securing.  The 
final  warrant  of  success  in  the  accomplishment  of  his  life's  task  would 
be  the  formation  of  the  Grand  Alliance  against  France,  at  which 
William  had  long  been  aiming,  and  which  was  now  consummated  in 
fact  (though  in  name  not  till  near  the  close  of  his  reign).  The  Declara- 
tion of  War  by  England  against  France  was  the  work  of  William ;  for 
Lewis  XIV,  even  after  James  II  and  his  consort  had  found  a  refuge 
with  him,  preferred  to  avoid  open  war;  and  William's  opportunity 
was  the  landing  of  James,  with  French  support,  in  Ireland  (April, 
1689).  The  Treaty  of  Offensive  and  Defensive  Alliance  between  the 
Emperor  and  the  Dutch  Republic  was  concluded  (May),  after  King 
William  had  announced  to  the  Emperor  his  accession  to  the  English 


4o  INTRODUCTION 

Throne,  and  had  declared  his  readiness  to  adhere  to  all  the  Treaties 
of  Alliance  in  existence  between  the  United  Provinces  and  the  Em- 
pire. Its  object  was  stated  to  be  the  reestablishment  of  the  Pacifica- 
tions of  Westphalia  and  of  the  Pyrenees— i.e.  the  retrocession  by 
France  of  all  her  subsequent  territorial  acquisitions.  In  a  Secret 
Article,  the  Contracting  Powers  eventually  promised  their  armed 
support  of  the  Imperial  claims  for  the  whole  of  the  Spanish  inheri- 
tance. The  Treaty,  also,  provided  for  the  adhesion  to  it  of  England. 
Though  Spain,  Duke  Victor  Amadeus  of  Savoy,  and  the  Princes  of 
the  Empire  afterwards  joined  the  Alliance,  they  neither  signed  the 
Treaty  nor,  so  far  as  we  know,  were  aware  of  this  Secret  Article.  In- 
asmuch, however,  as  it  provided  for  the  mutual  support  of  those  who 
joined  in  it  against  the  Crown  of  France  and  its  adherents,  it  implied 
a  guarantee  of  the  existing  tenure  of  the  English  Throne.  In  a  word, 
the  Alliance  of  1689  amounted  to  an  anticipation  of  the  Grand  Alli- 
ance of  1701-2,  and  was  by  no  means  a  mere  repetition  of  the  League 
of  Augsburg  of  i686/The  critical  importance  of  the  1689  Alliance  in 
the  history  of  European  politics  can,  therefore,  hardly  be  exaggerated1. 
When  (on  September  9th)  King  William,  without  submitting  the 
Treaty  of  Alliance  of  May  i2th  to  Parliament,  without  even  re- 
quiring the  signature  of  it  by  any  Minister  of  State,  signed  his  own 
Act  of  Adhesion  to  it,  he,  in  effect,  guaranteed  the  restoration  and 
the  preservation  of  the  Peace  of  Europe,  and  once  more  placed  England 
in  the  forefront  of  those  who  barred  the  way  to  the  assailant  Power. 

Although,  in  the  ensuing  conflicts,  Lewis  XIV  kept  no  ally  stedfast 
to  the  end  but  the  Ottoman  Turk,  and  although  the  only  member  of 
the  League  whom,  quite  at  the  last  (1696),  he  succeeded  in  buying  off 
was  Savoy,  the  Peace  of  Ryswyk  (1697)  could  not  be  regarded  with 
satisfaction  by  his  leagued  adversaries.  Yet,  although,  by  this  Peace, 
he  lost  nothing  that  he  had  held  at  the  time  of  the  commencement 
of  the  struggle  organised  against  him  by  William,  the  French  advance 
had  at  that  point  been  decisively  arrested,  and  the  recognition  by 
Lewis  XIV  at  Ryswyk  of  William's  tenure  of  the  English  Throne 
proved  which  Power  had  taken  the  lead  among  those  opposed  to  the 
*  Grand  Monarch's  '  aggression. 

In  the  actual  Ryswyk  negotiations,  no  reference  had  been  made 
to  any  secret  undertaking  as  to  the  eventual  treatment  of  the  Spanish 

1  Nor  must  the  fact,  though  incidental  only,  be  overlooked,  that  it  finally 
abandoned  the  recognition  of  difference  of  religious  confession  as  a  determining 
element  in  international  agreements;  albeit  appeal  continued,  from  time  to  time,  to 
be  made  on  the  one  side  or  the  other  to  confessional  sympathies  and  antipathies. 


PROPOSED  PARTITION  OF  THE  SPANISH  MONARCHY  41 

inheritance.  But  Lewis  XIV — though  historians  differ  as  to  whether 
he  then  had  any  serious  design  of  adhering  to  the  compact — had,  so 
far  back  as  January,  1668,  concluded  an  actual  Treaty  of  Partition 
of  the  Spanish  monarchy  with  the  Emperor.  Thus,  the  idea  of  a 
Partition  was  no  novelty;  it  could  hardly  fail  to  come  to  the  front 
in  a  period  of  European  politics  during  which  neither  side  was  pre- 
pared to  contemplate  the  appropriation  of  the  whole  inheritance  by 
a  single  claimant;  and  it  became  a  question  of  practical  politics,  so 
soon  as  King  William's  statesmanship  addressed  itself  to  this  solu- 
tion. He  had  to  use  great  caution,  for  he  knew  how  slow  English 
politicians  are  in  "taking  up"  questions  of  the  future,  more  especi- 
ally in  the  field  of  foreign  policy;  and  he  was,  also,  aware  that  public 
opinion  in  his  English  kingdom  was  far  less  interested  in  the  em- 
ployment of  its  forces  in  foreign  offensive  warfare  than  in  the  reduc- 
tion of  the  standing  army  at  home.  To  William  III,  the  idea  of  a 
partition  of  the  Spanish  monarchy,  i.e.  of  an  arrangement  whereby, 
on  the  extinction  of  the  Spanish  Habsburgs  in  the  male  line,  the 
distribution  of  their  inheritance  should  not  unsettle  the  Balance  of 
Power  in  Europe,  and  above  all  not  unsettle  it  in  favour  of  France, 
was  of  the  essence  of  the  result  to  be  aimed  at.  To  Lewis  XIV,  it 
was  nothing  but  a  pis  oiler  solution,  when  he  found  it  impossible,  at 
an  earlier  or  later  date,  to  secure  the  whole  inheritance  for  France. 
The  logical  position,  in  view  of  the  result  contemplated  by  Lewis, 
was  that  of  William ;  but  the  policy  which  reckoned  with  arguments 
coming  home  to  national  feeling,  and  which,  considering  the  possi- 
bility of  unexpected  incidents,  had  time  on  its  side,  was  that  of  his 
adversary.  This  judgment  seems  borne  out  by  the  actual  sequence 
of  events,  here  only  noticed  in  so  far  as  they  concern  the  history  of 
English  foreign  policy  in  particular. 

What  is  usually  called  the  First  Partition  Treaty — the  first,  i.e. 
of  which  William  III  shared  the  responsibility — was  concluded  by 
him  with  Lewis  XIV  in  1698.  By  it,  the  bulk  of  the  Spanish  in- 
heritance— viz.  Spain,  the  Spanish  Netherlands,  and  the  West  Indies 
— was,  on  the  death  of  Charles  II,  to  fall  to  his  great-grand-nephew, 
the  Electoral  Prince  Joseph  Ferdinand  of  Bavaria;  but  the  Two 
Sicilies,  with  Guipuscoa,  were  to  pass  to  the  Dauphin  Lewis  of  France, 
and  the  Milanese  to  the  Archduke  Charles,  son  of  the  Emperor 
Leopold  by  his  third  wife.  This  arrangement,  though  seeming  to  go 
some  way  towards  meeting  the  principle  of  the  Balance  of  Power, 
was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  more  in  the  French  than  in  the  Austrian 


42  INTRODUCTION 

interest,  and  would  hardly  have  been  favoured  by  William  III,  but 
for  the  critical  condition  of  his  own  affairs  at  home.  It  was,  how- 
ever, frustrated  by  the  death  of  the  Electoral  Prince  in  January,  1699 ; 
and,  about  a  year  later,  a  second  scheme  was  devised  by  Lewis  and 
William,  in  which  the  Austrian  claims  were  necessarily  treated  after 
a  different  fashion,  but  still  so  as  to  indicate  the  desire  of  Lewis  to 
show  regard  for  the  principle  of  European  policy  upheld  by  William 
III.  The  Archduke  Charles  was  now  to  receive  Spain,  while  the 
Netherlands  and  all  the  Spanish  Colonies,  together  with  the  Two 
Sicilies  and  the  Milanese  (to  be  ultimately  exchanged  for  Lorraine) 
were  to  be  the  share  of  France — not  perhaps  the  lion's  share,  but 
something  not  altogether  unlike  it.  The  scheme  was  rejected  by  the 
Emperor — from  what  motives,  it  is  not  quite  easy  to  decide — and 
was  profoundly  unpopular  in  Spain,  where  the  indivisibility  of  the 
monarchy  had  become  an  article  of  popular  faith.  The  ambition  of 
Lewis  XIV,  hereupon,  throwing  over  any  further  consideration  of 
schemes  of  partition,  exercised  all  possible  pressure  in  the  French 
interest  on  the  Spanish  Sovereign,  now  near  the  close  of  his  days. 
He  died  (in  November,  1700),  shortly  after  signing  a  will,  in  which, 
in  accordance  with  Spanish  sentiment  and  with  the  approval  of  Rome, 
he  left  the  whole  Spanish  monarchy  to  Philip  Duke  of  Anjou,  the 
second  grandson  of  Lewis  XIV.  As  such,  he  would  not,  in  the 
ordinary  course  of  events,  succeed  to  the  Throne  of  France ;  should 
he,  however,  come  to  stand  next  in  the  French  Succession,  and  accept 
that  position,  the  Spanish  monarchy  was  to  pass  to  his  younger 
brother,  the  Duke  of  Berry.  To  this  testamentary  disposition  the 
King  of  France  agreed  in  the  teeth  of  the  certain  opposition  of  the 
House  of  Austria ;  and  there  could  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  action  with 
regard  to  it  of  England  and  of  the  United  Provinces — so  long  as 
they  were  under  the  joint  guidance  of  William  III. 

Although  religious  motives  cooperated,  it  had  been  the  com- 
mercial interests  of  his  country  which  had  induced  Oliver  Cromwell 
to  challenge  the  still  unrelinquished  claims  of  Spain  to  oceanic  rule. 
Still  more  definite  was  the  conviction  of  the  King-Stadholder  that 
England  and  the  United  Netherlands  were  alike  menaced  in  the  very 
foundations  of  their  future  prosperity  by  the  prospect  of  the  Power  of 
Spain  falling  under  the  control  of  that  of  France.  The  fact  that  French 
aggressive  ambition  was  now  rising  to  its  height  had  led  William  III 
to  adopt  irrevocably  the  policy  carried  on  by  him  consistently  since 
the  Alliance  of  1689.  It  had  entered  into  no  new  phase  when  the 


THE  GRAND  ALLIANCE  TREATY        43 

Spanish  Succession  question  came  to  the  front.  Public  opinion  in 
England  had  cared  little  for  the  Partition  schemes,  and  might,  as 
time  went  on,  have  rested  content  with  a  provision  for  the  perpetual 
separation  of  the  French  and  Spanish  Crowns;  and  in  Amsterdam 
the  funds  rose  on  Philip  of  Anjou's  acceptance  of  Charles  IPs  in- 
heritance. But  William's  statesmanship  was  not  to  be  checkmated 
in  the  midst  of  the  game;  and  the  action  of  Lewis  XIV  speedily 
justified  the  attitude  maintained  by  him  and  Grand-pensionary 
Heinsius.  While  formally  reserving  the  French  rights  of  the  Duke 
of  Anjou,  Lewis  XIV  ordered  his  troops  to  lay  hands  on  the  Barrier 
Towns  and  (1701)  promised  to  the  dying  James  II  to  recognise  his 
son  as  his  successor. 

The  Emperor  Leopold  I,  after  at  once  protesting  against  the 
Will,  entered  into  negotiations  with  William  III,  and  began  war  in 
Italy  on  his  own  account  in  the  summer  of  1701.  Early  in  the  same 
year,  an  Alliance  was  contracted  with  Denmark.  And,  though  the 
Empire  did  not  formally  declare  war  until  a  year  later,  the  Coalition 
of  1689,  of  the  direction  of  whose  operations  the  lead  was  from  the 
first  assumed  by  England  and  the  United  Provinces,  was  renewed 
on  September  7th,  1701.  The  limits  to  which  the  stipulations  of  this 
Treaty,  the  Grand  Alliance  Treaty  proper,  were  restricted  should  be 
carefully  noticed,  if  the  policy  of  William  III  is  to  be  rightly  judged. 
It  did  not,  like  the  Secret  Article  of  the  Treaty  of  1689,  insist  on 
the  right  of  the  Austrian  claimant  to  the  whole  Spanish  inheritance ; 
it  merely  demanded  for  him,  as  a  due  satisfaction,  the  Spanish  pos- 
sessions in  Italy.  On  the  other  hand,  while  France  was  in  no  cir- 
cumstances to  acquire  any  Spanish  Colonies  in  America,  the  question 
of  the  addition  of  any  of  these  to  the  English  or  Dutch  Colonies  was 
left  to  depend  on  the  course  of  the  War.  No  express  reference  was 
made  to  the  future  occupancy  of  the  Spanish  Throne;  except  that 
France  and  Spain  were  never  to  be  under  the  same  Sovereign.  A 
clause  was  added  to  the  effect  that  no  peace  should  be  concluded  by 
the  parties  to  the  Alliance,  till  England  had  received  satisfaction  for 
the  insulting  recognition  of  the  Stewart  Pretender  by  the  King  of 
France.  These  conditions,  to  a  large  extent,  coincide  with  those 
afterwards — at  the  end  of  the  great  War  of  the  Spanish  Succession — 
secured  at  the  Peace  of  Utrecht.  Thus,  the  statesmanship  responsible 
for  engaging  England  and  the  United  Provinces  in  the  great  struggle 
was  essentially  of  a  piece  with  that  of  the  Ministers  who  brought  it 
to  a  conclusion.  The  "War  of  the  Spanish  Succession"  was  fought 


44  INTRODUCTION 

by  the  Maritime  Powers,  and  by  England  in  particular,  for  ends 
with  which  the  actual  satisfaction  of  the  claims  to  that  Succession 
was  only  in  so  far  concerned,  that  France  was  to  be  prevented  from 
succeeding  to  the  Spanish  dominions  in  the  Netherlands,  and  be- 
coming the  leading  Mediterranean,  and  a  great  Colonial,  Power. 
These  latter  were  the  interests  ultimately  at  stake,  and  through  its 
care  for  them  the  policy  of  William  III  itself  takes  its  place  within 
the  general  course  of  British  foreign  policy. 

The  accession  of  Queen  Anne  was,  in  itself,  favourable  to  the 
prospects  of  a  War  on  the  issues  of  which  the  whole  foreign  policy 
of  her  reign  concentrated  itself.  The  national  support  indispensable 
for  its  victorious  prosecution  was  assured  by  her  having  inherited 
an  ancestral  Throne,  and  being  both  an  Englishwoman  by  birth  and 
(as  now  required  by  law)  a  Protestant.  On  the  Act  of  Settlement 
(1701)  rested,  also,  the  nation's  assurance  against  being  involved  with- 
out the  consent  of  Parliament  in  any  war  on  behalf  of  its  sovereign's 
foreign  possessions  from  which  it  desired  to  keep  aloof.  Thus,  the 
conservatism  of  the  nation  rallied  round  her,  and  made  legislation 
possible  under  her  which  her  predecessor  had  in  vain  sought  to  bring 
about.  It  included  the  Act  of  Union  with  Scotland  (1707),  which, 
though  it  did  not  put  an  end  to  Jacobitism,  was  essential  to  the 
future  of  Great  Britain  as  a  European  Power.  And,  at  the  very  time 
when  our  national  political  life  was  definitively  adopting  the  system 
of  party  government,  a  practical  conjunction  between  the  more 
moderate  men  of  both  the  parties  in  the  State  enabled  the  Queen's 
Government,  for  a  number  of  years,  to  carry  on  with  extraordinary 
success  the  War  actually  in  progress. 

A  great  war,  extending  over  several  years,  almost  inevitably  be- 
comes an  evolutionary  process,  testing,  at  each  successive  stage  of  it, 
the  statesmanship  which  directs  its  course.  The  primary  purpose  of 
England  and  the  United  Provinces  when,  in  1701,  setting  on  foot 
the  Alliance,  in  which  they  had  been  successively  joined  by  Denmark 
(1701),  the  Emperor  (1701),  the  Empire  (1702),  Portugal  (1703)  and 
Savoy  (1703),  had  been,  as  was  seen,  to  prevent  the  union  at  any 
time  of  the  French  and  Spanish  monarchies,  or  the  transfer  of  the 
kingdom  of  Spain  itself,  to  the  reigning  House  of  France,  without 
providing  any  suitable  compensation  for  the  House  of  Austria.  In 
other  words,  the  maintenance  of  Balance  of  Power  had  been  the  pri- 
mary object  of  the  last  great  achievement  of  William  Ill's  foreign 
policy.  But,  so  early  as  1703,  the  Emperor  Leopold  I  renounced 


BREAKDOWN  OF  PEACE  OVERTURES  45 

with  great  solemnity  his  claims,  and  those  of  his  elder  son  Joseph,  to 
the  Spanish  inheritance,  declaring  that  they  scrupled  to  unite  it  with 
the  hereditary  dominions  of  their  own  line.  The  attempt,  however, 
of  the  English  Government,  about  the  same  time,  to  supplement  the 
Grand  Alliance  Treaty  by  a  declaration  that  no  part  of  the  Spanish 
monarchy  should  at  any  time  come  under  the  rule  of  any  member  of 
the  House  of  Bourbon,  failed,  because  of  a  difference  on  another  point. 
Soon  afterwards  (1704),  the  Austrian  claimant  himself  appeared  on 
the  scene,  where  he  called  himself  Charles  III ;  but  his  progress  was 
slow,  though  Gibraltar  was  soon  taken  by  an  English  fleet.  On  the 
other  hand,  Marlborough 's  great  victory  of  Blenheim,  in  the  same 
year,  ended  a  long  period  of  unbroken  French  military  ascendancy ; 
and  in  1705,  though  the  English  Government,  on  good  terms  with 
Marlborough  and  Godolphin,  was  vigorously  prosecuting  the  War, 
the  idea  of  Peace  was  mooted.  In  August,  1706,  Lewis  XIV  made  his 
first  serious  overtures  to  the  States- General,  offering  them  a  good 
Barrier  and  suggesting  the  recognition  of  Archduke  Charles'  tenure 
of  Spain  proper,  if  he  would  agree  to  Philip's  sovereignty  over  all  her 
Italian  dominions.  But  Heinsius  ascertained  from  Marlborough  that 
the  English  Government  would  not  now  listen  to  the  thought  of  a 
Partition,  and  that,  if  desirous  of  a  satisfactory  Barrier,  the  Dutch 
must  act  with  the  rest  of  the  Allies.  On  the  other  hand,  the  party 
now  in  entire  control  of  British  foreign  policy,  in  December,  1707, 
passed  in  the  House  of  Lords  an  (amended)  resolution,  that  no  Peace 
would  be  honourable  or  safe  that  allowed  the  House  of  Bourbon  to 
retain  possession  of  any  part  of  the  Spanish  monarchy1.  Thus  in  1709 
after  Oudenarde  (1708),  Lewis  felt  forced  to  assent  to  the  peace 
terms  of  the  Allies,  so  far  as  the  surrender  of  the  entire  Spanish 
monarchy ;  but  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  give  the  required  pro- 
mise of  joining  hands  with  the  Allies,  should  it  prove  necessary,  in 
enforcing  their  demand  upon  his  grandson.  It  is,  assuredly,  to  the 
credit  of  Marlborough 's  good  sense,  that  he  regarded  this  condition 
as  unreasonable ;  but  he  allowed  himself  to  be  overruled  by  Heinsius 

1  Though  they  form  a  curious  chapter  in  the  history  of  our  foreign  policy  in 
this  period,  it  must  suffice  merely  to  refer  to  two  among  the  diplomatic  efforts 
made  on  both  sides  to  extend  the  range  of  the  War,  so  as  to  include  Northern 
Europe  in  its  complications.  Marlborough  was  not  successful  in  moving  King 
Frederick  I  in  Prussia  out  of  his  neutrality;  but  (at  Altranstadt,  in  1708)  he  per- 
suaded Charles  XII  of  Sweden  to  abandon  the  idea  of  entering,  with  the  aid  of 
France,  on  the  task  of  liberator  of  Protestant  Germany,  which  had  of  old  been 
taken  upon  himself  by  Gustavus  Adolphus.  (The  Pretender's  attempt,  in  the 
same  year,  at  invading  Scotland  with  a  French  force  broke  down.) 


46 


INTRODUCTION 


and  Prince  Eugene;  and,  in  the  absence  of  any  other  guarantee  of 
the  Peace  satisfactory  to  the  Allies,  the  negotiations  broke  down. 
After  Malplaquet  (fought  in  September,  1709),  they  recommenced 
(March,  1710),  at  Gertruydenberg,  between  the  States- General  and 
France,  Great  Britain  and  the  Emperor  alike  at  first  taking  no  part 
in  them.  But,  when  he  did  so,  it  was  as  adhering  to  the  refusal  of 
any  cession  to  France  (that  of  Sicily  was,  also,  opposed  by  Savoy). 
Thus,  though  Lewis  XIV  actually  declared  himself  ready  to  pay  a 
subsidy  towards  the  execution  of  coercive  measures  against  his 
grandson,  the  Conferences  of  Gertruydenberg  ended,  under  French 
protest,  in  July,  1710.  Inasmuch  as  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  Marlborough  and  Townshend  (our  Ambassador  at  the  Hague), 
shared  the  wish  of  the  Dutch  to  go  back  to  the  policy  of  a  Partition 
of  the  Spanish  inheritance — to  the  policy,  in  other  words,  with  which 
the  War  had  been  begun  by  this  country — the  failure  of  the  Con- 
ferences casts  a  shadow  on  the  part  played  in  these  transactions  by 
Great  Britain.  With  the  aid  of  the  Dutch,  with  whom  it  had  concluded 
the  First  Barrier  Treaty  (1709),  thereby  securing  them  the  protected 
frontier  they  desired,  the  British  Government  could  probably  have 
succeeded  in  moderating  the  policy  of  the  Allies,  and  of  the  Em- 
peror in  particular.  The  chief  responsibility  for  the  failure,  therefore, 
must  lie  with  Marlborough  and  Godolphin.  Aware  of  their  imminent 
political  downfall,  they  shrank  from  the  responsibility  of  bringing 
about  a  peace  unacceptable  to  their  party  at  home,  and  to  the  Allies 
abroad,  with  whom  they  had  so  successfully  cooperated  in  the  prose- 
cution of  the  War. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  before  the  end  of  1710,  Archduke  Charles 
(Charles  III)  had  lost  his  hold  over  any  part  of  Spain  except  Cata- 
lonia; and,  even  before  the  news  reached  England,  Harley  and 
St  John,  without  communicating  with  any  of  the  Allies,  opened  secret 
negotiations  with  Lewis  XIV,  on  the  lines  of  the  retention  of  Spain 
by  King  Philip  V.  On  the  main  theatre  of  the  War,  no  important 
change  had  taken  place ;  but  the  prospect  of  its  continued  vigorous 
conduct  had  been  gravely  affected  by  the  change  of  Ministry  in  Eng- 
land, when  a  new  element  was  introduced  into  the  European  situation 
at  large  by  the  death  of  the  Emperor  Joseph  I  (April  i7th,  1711). 
The  titular  King  Charles  III  of  Spain  had  now  become  ruler  of  the 
whole  of  the  dominions  of  the  House  of  Austria.  Should  the  entire 
Spanish  monarchy  be  secured  to  him,  the  Balance  of  Power  would 
be  permanently  unsettled  by  the  union  of  all  the  possessions  of  the 


THE  UTRECHT  SETTLEMENT  47 

Emperor  Charles  V  in  the  hands  of  his  descendant  and  namesake. 
It  is  the  great  merit  of  the  English  Tory  Government,  of  Harley 
(Oxford)  and  St  John  (Bolingbroke)  the  Lord  Treasurer  and  the 
Secretary  of  State — and  of  the  latter  in  particular — to  have  per- 
ceived at  once,  that  the  future  of  Europe  must  be  protected  against 
the  new  danger,  as  it  had  been  from  that  of  the  union  of  France  and 
Spain.  Thus,  Bolingbroke's  name  is,  more  than  that  of  any  other  man, 
identified  with  the  policy  resulting  in  the  Treaties  which  we  call  by 
the  collective  name  of  the  Peace  of  Utrecht,  and  of  which,  whatever 
exceptions  he  may  afterwards  have  taken  to  some  of  their  provisions, 
he  is  known  to  have  prided  himself  on  being  the  real  author.  On 
this  international  settlement  the  Peace  of  Europe,  for  more  than  a 
generation — shall  we  say  from  1714  to  1746? — virtually  hinged;  and, 
though  within  this  period  there  are  to  be  noted  several  Wars  and  several 
Congresses  or  Conferences  by  which  they  were  successively  brought 
to  a  conclusion — these  led  to  no  important  unsettlement  or  resettle- 
ment of  the  Utrecht  Treaties1.  Thus,  the  Utrecht  pacification,  more 
especially,  sufficed  to  put  a  stop  to  the  aggressive  policy  favoured  by 
France  during  nearly  the  whole  of  the  reign  of  Lewis  XIV  and  not 
resumed  by  her,  at  least  with  any  measure  of  consistency,  till  the 
Revolutionary  War.  It  will  hardly  be  asserted,  per  contra,  that  the 
Peace  of  Europe  would  have  been  more  effectually  secured  by  a 
Treaty  or  Treaties  securing  to  the  House  of  Austria  the  full  fruits 
expected  from  the  victories  of  Eugene  and  Marlborough,  and  that, 
in  this  case,  the  " gratitude"  of  that  House  would  have  been  itself 
more  notable  in  the  long  run  than  was  its  wont.  And  a  candid  review 
of  the  processes  for  preventing  a  possible  future  union  between  the 
French  and  the  Spanish  Crowns  which,  in  the  eyes  of  the  British 
Government  at  all  events,  formed  the  nodus  pads,  will  hardly  con- 
demn the  conclusion  reached  as  lame  and  impotent.  Philip  of  Anjou 
solemnly  renounced  his  eventual  rights  to  the  French  Throne  (No- 
vember, 1712);  and  this  renunciation  was  supplemented  by  those  of 
the  Dukes  of  Berry  and  Orleans  of  their  contingent  rights  to  the 
Spanish,  which  were  confirmed  by  the  Cortes  and  assented  to  by 
Lewis  XIV  (in  the  form  of  an  Amendment  of  the  Reservation  of 
December,  1700).  No  doubt,  it  was  the  unexpected  survival  of  the 
Prince  afterwards  crowned  as  Lewis  XV  which  actually  prevented 
the  agreement  from  coming  into  operation;  and  no  doubt,  at  one 

1  The  most  notable  exception,  with  which  we  have  no  direct  concern  here,  was 
the  complicated  (so-called  Third)  Treaty  of  Vienna  (1738). 


48  INTRODUCTION 

time,  Lewis  XIV  had  himself  regarded  such  an  event  as  undesirable 
in  the  interests  of  France,  so  that  Bolingbroke  had  accordingly  been 
induced  to  revive  an  alternative  plan  (in  favour  of  Savoy).  But,  in 
itself,  the  policy  ultimately  approved  and  accepted  by  Great  Britain 
was,  in  the  circumstances,  definite  and  moderate,  as  well  as  consistent 
with  the  principles  to  vindicate  which  she  had  entered  into  the 
War. 

We  must,  however,  pass  from  the  special  question  of  the  Spanish 
Succession  to  the  general  results  of  the  War  to  which  it  gave  its 
historic  name,  as  affecting  the  political  future  of  the  world,  and  of 
Great  Britain  in  particular.  France  came  forth  from  the  struggle,  no 
longer  the  arbitress  of  the  destinies  of  Europe — exhausted,  though 
(as  in  later  periods  of  seeming  decline  in  her  national  life)  not  beyond 
recovery;  but  more  closely  connected  than  before  with  Spain,  though 
not  by  a  personal  or  institutional  union.  Spain  herself  was  sinking 
into  a  European  Power  of  the  secondary  order,  though  by  no  means 
without  hopes  of  a  partial  recovery  of  her  former  external  (Italian) 
possessions,  as  well  as  of  a  beneficial  change  in  her  administrative 
system.  To  the  Empire,  France  would  have  to  yield  up  some,  but 
not  all,  of  her  spoils  when  the  Emperor  concluded  his  own  Peace, 
which  he  preferred  to  postpone,  and  by  which  he  would  be  left  in 
possession  of  the  now  "Austrian"  Netherlands — the  least-desired  by 
him  of  his  reextended  dominions  (Sicily  falling  to  Savoy).  The 
United  Provinces,  who  had  played  their  game  with  characteristic 
persistency,  by  the  so-called  Third  Barrier  Treaty  in  1715  negotiated 
with  the  Imperial  Government,  and  guaranteed  by  Great  Britain, 
finally  entered  into  possession  of  the  full  military  security  which  had 
been  their  primary  object  in  declaring  and  carrying  on  the  War. 
Necessarily,  their  influence  in  the  counsels  of  the  Allies  had  sunk, 
in  consequence  of  the  change  of  Sovereign  in  England,  and  afterwards 
through  the  collapse  of  the  Whig  Government;  but  though  they, 
afterwards,  to  some  extent,  recovered  this  influence,  the  time  had 
passed  for  them  to  play  a  leading  part  in  European  politics;  for, 
while  their  merchantmen  still  outnumbered  those  of  any  other 
country,  they  were  certainly  falling  behind  as  a  Naval  Power. 

The  inheritance  of  Charles  II  of  Spain  had  included  a  Colonial 
dominion  far  more  extensive  than  that  which  had,  before  the  date  of 
his  decease,  been  acquired  by  the  Dutch  in  India  and  by  the  English 
in  the  New  World.  Had  France,  unlimited  as  her  aspirations  were 
in  this  period,  been  allowed  to  annex  this  domain  with  the  rest  of  the 


THE  PEACE  OF  UTRECHT  AND  BRITISH  INTERESTS    49 

Spanish  possessions,  and  to  consolidate  it  with  her  own  Colonial 
settlements,  she  might  have  laid  the  foundations  of  an  empire  far 
exceeding,  in  extent,  that  afterwards  under  the  sway  of  Napoleon. 
In  this  regard,  the  Treaty  of  the  Grand  Alliance  (1702)  had  provided 
that  France  should  never  be  allowed  to  take  possession  of  the  West 
Indies,  or  to  enjoy  any  rights  of  commerce  and  navigation  not  granted 
in  precisely  the  same  measure  to  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
Provinces.  In  the  Utrecht  Treaty  with  Great  Britain,  the  King 
of  France  undertook,  in  even  more  comprehensive  terms,  never  to 
accept,  in  favour  of  his  own  subjects,  any  advantage  in  the 
way  of  trade  or  navigation  with  regard  to  Spain  or  her  American 
Colonies  which  should  not  also  be  conceded  to  subjects  of  other 
Powers. 

As  for  specifically  British  questions,  we  remember  how,  before 
the  outbreak  of  the  War  of  the  Spanish  Succession,  British  popular 
feeling  had  indignantly  resented  the  French  autocrat's  arrogant  inter- 
ference in  the  matter  of  the  Succession  to  the  Throne  of  these  Islands. 
Thus  it  was  significant  as  well  as  appropriate  that  the  earliest  article 
in  the  Anglo-French  Treaty  concluded  at  Utrecht  should  concern 
the  difficult  and  delicate  subject  of  this  Succession.  Much  intrigue, 
more  or  less  secret,  in  which  " persons  near  the  Queen"  may  or  may 
not  have  had  a  hand,  and  of  which  the  object  no  doubt  was  to  di- 
minish the  responsibility  of  Lewis  XIV  for  the  observance  of  the 
undertaking  which  he  was  about  to  accept,  had  preceded  its  inclusion 
in  the  Treaty.  France  recognised  the  order  of  Succession  established 
by  the  Act  of  Settlement  (1701)  in  favour  of  the  issue  of  Queen  Anne, 
or,  in  default  of  such,  of  the  House  of  Hanover.  At  the  same  time, 
King  Lewis  XIV  promised  that  the  son  of  King  James  II  ("the  Old 
Pretender  ")  should  not  at  any  time  return  within  the  realm  of  France, 
whence  he  had  "voluntarily"  taken  his  departure. 

Among  the  territorial  acquisitions  accruing  to  Great  Britain  from 
the  Peace  of  Utrecht  a  significance  of  its  own  attached  to  the  so-called 
"  Dunkirk  Clause  " ;  for  the  control  of  the  Narrow  Seas  had  long  been 
treated  as  a  cardinal  principle  of  English  foreign  policy.  After  Dun- 
kirk had  been  taken  from  Spain  in  1658  by  France  and  England,  and 
placed  in  the  hands  of  the  latter  Power,  the  sale  of  it  to  France  in 
1662  had  aroused  great  resentment  against  Charles  IPs  Government 
and  more  especially  against  Clarendon ;  and  additions  to  the  fortifica- 
tions had,  beyond  doubt,  made  it  a  serious  menace  to  the  English 
command  of  the  Narrow  Seas.  In  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht,  it  was 

W.&G.I.  4 


5o  INTRODUCTION 

stipulated  that  the  King  of  France  should,  at  his  own  cost,  in  per- 
petuum,  rase  the  fortifications  of  Dunkirk,  and  fill  up  its  harbour 
within  six  months.  Lewis  XIV  subsequently  showed  a  palpable 
want  of  good  faith  in  his  manipulation  of  this  clause,  and  great  agi- 
tation was  provoked  in  England  by  the  construction  at  Mardyke  of 
a  harbour  connected  with  Dunkirk  by  a  canal  and  intended  to  be  of 
greater  depth  than  the  previous  Dunkirk  harbour.  The  Mardyke 
works  had  to  be  suspended,  and  finally  when,  under  the  Regency, 
amicable  relations  obtained  between  the  two  Governments,  the 
dimensions  of  the  scheme  were  so  reduced  as  to  render  it  harmless 
(1717).  The  " Dunkirk  Clause"  continued  to  be  regarded  by  British 
Governments  as  a  security  in  need  of  careful  watching,  and  the 
question  of  its  observance  caused  trouble  both  in  1719  and  later1. 
The  clause  reappears  in  the  chief  European  Treaties  till  the 
Peace  of  Paris  in  1783,  when  its  abolition  was,  at  last,  obtained  by 
France. 

Of  far  greater  importance  were  the  British  acquisitions  from 
France  secured  at  Utrecht,  although,  from  the  nature  of  the  case, 
this  fact  could  only  gradually  come  to  be  understood,  more  especially 
by  the  very  Power  about  to  enter  on  a  half  century's  struggle  for  the 
preservation  of  her  overseas  dominion.  After  the  temporary  over- 
throw of  French  sovereignty  in  North  America,  the  whole  of  the 
former  province  of  Acadia  was,  in  the  Peace  of  St  Germain  (1632), 
restored  to  the  French  Crown,  and  the  long  contest  between  English 
and  French  enterprise  (in  Newfoundland  and  elsewhere)  seemed  to 
have  come  to  an  end.  In  the  latter  half  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
the  Colonial  ambition  of  France  took  a  wider  flight  than  it  had  pre- 
viously pursued,  and  she  claimed,  as  her  Colonial  empire,  the  whole 
region  from  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  to  the  Great  Lakes  and  the 
St  Lawrence.  To  this  vast  dominion  was  attached  the  familiar  name 
of  New  France,  though  it  was  administered  in  full  accordance  with 
the  political  and  ecclesiastical  principles  of  the  old  country. 

It  was,  therefore,  a  notable  step  towards  a  transformation  of  the 
Colonial  relations  between  the  two  Powers,  when,  in  the  Peace  of 
Utrecht,  Acadia  (once  more  renamed  Nova  Scotia)  was  again  trans- 
ferred to  Great  Britain.  In  a  separate  article  of  the  Peace,  France 
added  the  cession  of  Newfoundland  and  the  adjacent  islands  (except 
Cape  Breton  and  one  or  two  others,  which  remained  French  and  were 

1  See  W.  Michael,  vol.  n.  pp.  236-9.   In  1720,  an  English  engineer  was  residing 
at  Dunkirk  to  invigilate. 


SETTLEMENTS  WITH  FRANCE  AND  SPAIN         51 

left  in  possession  of  certain  rights  of  fishery1).  At  the  same  time, 
Great  Britain's  possession  was  recognised  of  the  whole  island  of 
St  Christopher's  (St  Kitt's),  where  the  Peace  of  Ryswyk  had  restored 
a  bipartite  occupation  with  France. 

On  the  same  day  as  the  Utrecht  Treaty  of  Peace  between  Great 
Britain  and  France  was  signed  a  Treaty  of  Navigation  and  Commerce 
between  the  two  Powers  which  (besides  placing  them  eventually  on 
the  footing  of  the  most  favoured  nation)  seemed  to  promise  a  more 
momentous  change  than  actually  ensued  in  a  most  important  sphere 
of  international  maritime  law2.  Inasmuch  as  a  Treaty  of  the  same 
purport  was  signed  a  few  weeks  later,  between  France  and  the  States- 
General,  these  agreements  would  have  greatly  benefitted  maritime 
(neutral)  commerce,  had  they  but  been  duly  observed.  Such,  how- 
ever, in  spirit,  at  least,  was  not  the  case,  certainly  not  on  the  part  of 
Great  Britain,  who  concluded  no  similar  compact  at  Utrecht  with 
any  Power  besides  France,  and  the  principle  of  the  Anglo-French 
agreement  had  to  await  revival,  half  a  century  later,  when  the  aspect 
of  things  had  altogether  changed. 

The  Peace  between  Great  Britain  and  Spain,  though  not  con- 
cluded till  July  1 3th,  1713,  formed  an  integral  part  of  the  resettle- 
ment of  the  relations  between  the  Western  Powers  of  Europe.  Hence 
it  is  in  this,  quasi-supplementary,  Treaty  that  is  to  be  found  the 
earliest  mention  of  the  fundamental  provisions  for  the  prevention  of  a 
future  union  on  the  same  head  of  the  Spanish  and  the  French  Crowns ; 
while,  in  further  Articles,  the  King  of  Spain  agrees  to  the  prohibition 
of  the  transfer  to  France  or  any  other  Power  by  Spain  of  any  land  or 

1  By  the  exercise  of  these  rights,  the  French  fishermen  were  enabled  to  carry 
on  their  trade  on  a  large  scale,  so  much  so  that,  at  the  time  of  the  Peace  of  Aix- 
la-Chapelle,  it  greatly  exceeded  the  British.   Hence  the  long-lived  fishery  disputes, 
which  continued  to  be  a  source  of  mutual  vexation,  until  the  Peace  of  1763  excluded 
the  French  altogether  from  the  Gulf  of  St  Lawrence  and  the  Newfoundland  waters ; 
and  even  this  proved  no  permanent  settlement. 

2  In  1 68 1,  when  the  French  navy  had  risen  to  a  condition  of  unprecedented 
strength,  and  the  pride  of  Lewis  XIV  as  its  head  to  a  corresponding  height  of  arro- 
gance, a  royal  ordinance  had  declared  any  vessel  a  fair  prize  in  which  should  be 
found  goods  belonging  to  enemies  of  France.  This  ordinance  directly  controverted 
the  principle  of  "free  ship,  free  goods,"  which  was  so  prized  by  the  Dutch,  and 
which  had  been  acknowledged  by  this  country  in  several  Treaties — including  that 
with  France  of  1655,  as  well  as  by  France  herself  in  her  Treaty  with  the  Dutch  of 
1646.  To  the  practice  which,  accordingly,  prevailed  during  the  following  period 
(including  that  of  the  War  of  the  Spanish  Succession),  the  Utrecht  Treaty  opposed, 
so  far  as  Great  Britain  and  France  were  concerned,  the  provision  that  all  goods 
(except  contraband  of  war)  should  be  held,  even  in  the  case  of  a  vessel  proceeding 
to  a  port  belonging  to  a  belligerent,  to  be  covered  by  the  flag  of  the  (neutral)  State 
to  which  such  vessels  belonged. 

4 — 2 


52  INTRODUCTION 

lordship  owned  by  her  in  America.   (He,  also,  expressly  approves  the 
Succession  in  Great  Britain  as  settled  by  Act  of  Parliament.) 

Among  the  remaining  articles  in  the  Anglo- Spanish  Treaty  stands 
forth  that  which  confirmed  the  cession  by  Spain  to  Great  Britain  of 
the  town,  citadel  and  port  of  Gibraltar.  Of  this  famous  possession 
the  retention  or  abandonment  was  at  different  times  in  the  history 
of  our  foreign  policy  differently  viewed  by  successive  Governments, 
but  never  in  more  than  one  way  by  public  opinion  in  this  country. 
In  Spain,  the  loss  and  humiliation  suffered  by  the  capture  (almost 
accidental)  of  the  Lion's  Rock  in  1704,  led  to  the  investment  of 
Gibraltar,  in  the  following  winter,  by  a  strong  Spanish  force,  and 
then  by  a  French  under  Marshal  de  Tesse.  But  the  resistance  was 
successful,  and  the  British  hold  on  the  fortress  was  confirmed  by  the 
Peace  of  Utrecht,  on  condition  that,  should  the  British  Government 
ever  propose  to  sell  or  otherwise  alienate  Gibraltar,  the  Spanish 
should  always  have  the  first  refusal  of  it.  By  another  article  of  the 
same  Treaty,  Spain  ceded  Minorca,  which  had  been  taken  from  her 
by  British  arms  in  1708.  But  this  island,  though  at  first  more  highly 
prized,  from  a  naval  point  of  view,  than  Gibraltar,  was  not  destined 
to  hold  the  same  continuous  place  among  British  conquests.  In  the 
meantime,  while  the  simultaneous  possession  of  Minorca  and  Gib- 
raltar satisfactorily  secured  the  future  of  British  trade  with  the  Levant, 
where  the  French  were  by  far  the  most  dangerous  competitors,  to 
Spain,  in  the  words  of  Philip  V,  a  British  Gibraltar  was  "a  thorn  in  the 
flesh" ;  and  the  question  of  its  removal  could  not  be  a  transient  one1. 

1  See,  for  an  account  of  the  attempts  made  in  this  direction,  Michael,  vol.  II. 
part  I.  pp.  257-82.  As  the  peaceable  return  of  Gibraltar  to  Spain  was  not  likely  to 
be  made  without  a  quid  pro  quo  (besides  the  saving  of  expense),  it  seems  explicable 
why  (apart  from  any  personal  reason)  the  thought  for  a  time  commended  itself  to 
the  statesmanship  of  Stanhope — if  it  did  not  originate  with  George  I  himself. 
Leaving  aside  the  questionable  story  of  Louville's  secret  mission,  we  cannot  doubt 
that  in  1717,  when  Stanhope  was  seeking  to  obtain  the  adhesion  of  Spain  to  this 
European  Alliance,  he  secretly  communicated  the  idea  to  Dubois,  and  that  he 
returned  to  it  in  1719-20,  before  he  had  definitively  convinced  himself  of  the  re- 
ception with  which  it  would  meet  in  Parliament.  He  then  resolved  to  identify 
himself  with  what  he  had  recognised  to  be  an  irresistible  current  of  public  opinion, 
and  made  the  position  clear  to  the  Regent  Orleans  (who  was  still  inclined  to 
harp  on  the  idea  of  the  cession),  through  the  new  French  Ambassador  Senne- 
terre,  and  was  encouraged,  naturally  enough,  by  the  Imperial  Resident  Hoffmann 
in  his  new  attitude  of  non  possumus.  There  was  no  question  of  the  suggestion  being 
discussed  at  the  expected  Congress;  and  as  for  public  opinion  in  England,  any 
return  to  the  policy  of  a  cession  would  have  been  utterly  scouted.  No  reference 
need  be  made  here  to  Richard  Cumberland's  futile  secret  mission  to  Spain  in  1780, 
when  he  was  instructed  to  abstain  from  any  mention  of  the  idea  of  a  cession,  though 
the  question  was,  notwithstanding,  the  real  crux  in  the  endeavour  to  bring  about  a 
separate  Peace  between  Great  Britain  and  Spain.  After  the  failure  of  the  great  siege, 


THE  PEACE  AND  THE  EMPIRE  53 

No  further  provisions  or  omissions  in  the  Anglo- Spanish  Treaty  need 
be  dwelt  upon  in  the  present  connexion.  The  Article  securing  to 
Great  Britain  (through  the  South  Sea  Company)  the  Asiento  mono- 
poly formerly  enjoyed  by  France,  and  henceforth  by  her  chief  rival 
till  she  and  Spain  were  once  more  at  war,  belongs  to  a  happily 
transient  phase  of  international  trade  relations ;  the  British  abandon- 
ment of  the  Catalans,  whom  under  cover  of  an  amnesty  by  King 
Philip  the  Utrecht  settlement  left  to  their  fate,  was  a  breach  of  good 
faith  over  which  a  veil  must  be  cast. 

Manifestly,  the  chief  shortcoming  of  the  Utrecht  Treaties  as  se- 
curities of  the  Peace  of  Europe  lay  in  the  fact  that  they  had  been  con- 
cluded without  the  Emperor  Charles  VI,  on  behalf  and  in  conjunction 
with  whose  House  the  great  War  had  been  waged.  Perhaps,  had  the 
campaign  of  Prince  Eugene  in  1712,  continued  by  him  after  the 
Franco- British  Armistice,  not  proved  a  failure,  the  Emperor  might 
have,  from  the  outset,  refused  to  take  any  part  in  the  Conferences. 
As  it  was,  they  duly  opened  in  the  presence  of  an  Imperial  Pleni- 
potentiary (Count  Sinzendorf);  but  the  capture  of  Denain  further 
increased  the  confidence  of  the  French  negotiators ;  and  the  interests 
of  the  Empire,  notwithstanding  the  visit  of  Prince  Eugene  to  London, 
became  (as  in  some  measure  did  the  claims  of  the  United  Provinces) 
a  matter  of  relative  indifference  to  British  statesmanship.  On  the 
evening  of  the  very  day  of  the  signature  of  the  Peace  between  France 
and  Great  Britain,  the  British  Plenipotentiaries,  the  Earl  of  Strafford  and 
the  Bishop  of  Bristol  (Robinson)  handed  to  their  Imperial  colleagues 
the  final  offer  of  Lewis  XIV,  which  proposed  the  Peace  of  Ryswyk  as 
the  basis  of  the  present  Treaty,  and  the  Rhine  as  the  frontier-line  be- 
tween France  and  the  Germanic  Empire.  These  terms  differed  widely 
from  what  France  might  have  proposed  a  very  short  time  earlier; 
but,  though  British  diplomacy  contrived  to  bring  about  a  few  further 
conferences  between  the  Imperial  and  the  French  Plenipotentiaries, 
by  May,  1713,  Sinzendorf  and  his  colleague  had  quitted  Utrecht. 
The  bitterness  of  feeling  which  ensued  might  be  illustrated  from  the 
party  pamphlets  published  on  both  sides;  but  the  Imperialist  in- 
vective against  the  servile  submissiveness  of  British  public  opinion 

the  Peace  of  Versailles  (1783),  otherwise  not  unfavourable  to  the  latter  Power,  left 
her  face  to  face  with  an  apparently  unredeemable  loss.  Later  proposals  for  making  it 
good  have  been  hardly  more  than  speculation.  Minorca  was  recaptured  by  the 
French  in  1756,  but  restored  to  Great  Britain  in  the  Peace  of  Paris  (1763).  The 
island  was  again  subjected  to  recapture  and  recovery,  before,  at  Amiens  (1802),  it 
was  definitively  given  up  by  Great  Britain,  to  whom,  in  view  of  her  continued 
occupation  of  Malta,  it  had  come  to  be  of  secondary  importance. 


54  INTRODUCTION 

to  the  wishes  of  the  Crown  missed  fire.  Continental  statesmanship 
had  been  taught  a  lesson  which  it  might,  to  its  own  advantage,  have 
more  readily  remembered—that  British  foreign  policy  was  not,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  under  the  imperative  control  either  of  established 
historical  tradition  or  of  supposed  commercial  interests. 

When,  however,  before  long,  the  Emperor  Charles  VI,  finding 
himself  hemmed  in  by  successive  calamities,  began  to  go  back  upon 
his  unwillingness  to  fall  in  with  the  British  policy,  British  diplomacy 
brought  about  the  communications  between  the  French  and  Imperial 
Commanders-in- Chief  which  led  to  the  opening  of  Peace  Confer- 
ences at  Rastatt  (November,  1713).  The  Peace  of  Baden  (September, 
1714),  which  finally  wound  up  these  negotiations,  was  concluded 
without  the  mediation  of  either  Great  Britain  or  Spain  being  accepted 
by  France  or  the  Emperor,  whose  frontiers  were  settled  on  a  plan  of 
mutual  compromise,  while  the  Spanish  Netherlands  were  now  de- 
finitively acknowledged  to  be  a  possession  of  the  House  of  Austria. 
British  interests  had  no  direct  concern  with  this  Peace.  On  the  other 
hand,  they  were  not  unaffected  by  the  Supplementary  Pacifications 
concluded  at  Utrecht,  in  February,  1715,  between  Portugal  and  Spain. 
This  Treaty  had  been  long  delayed  by  the  unextinguishable  hatred 
between  the  two  neighbouring  peoples,  and,  also,  by  the  hopes  of 
the  Portuguese  for  better  terms  than  Spain  was  willing  to  allow  to 
them  in  requital  of  their  faithful  adherence  to  the  Grand  Alliance 
throughout  the  War  (which  the  diplomatic  skill  of  Sir  Paul  Methuen 
had  induced  them  to  join  so  early  as  1703).  Portugal,  whose  Alliance 
with  England  was  but  an  extension  of  relations  which  had  now  lasted 
for  half  a  century,  had,  apart  from  the  subsidies  paid  to  her  during 
the  War,  owed  much  to  this  Alliance;  in  return,  she  had  incurred 
considerable  losses  in  its  course,  including  the  French  capture  of 
Rio,  with  much  booty.  Yet,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  she  was  in  the  Peace 
negotiations  left  very  much  to  her  own  efforts,  till,  at  a  later  stage  of 
the  negotiations,  Great  Britain's  leverage  was  with  some  effect  ap- 
plied on  behalf  of  her  faithful  Ally. 

Finally,  some  reference  must  be  made  to  the  "  Barrier  Treaties," 
concluded  in  this  period  by  the  Power  our  Alliance  with  whom  may 
be  described  as  a  fundamental  part  of  our  whole  policy  in  the  War 
and  the  Peace.  Nature  had  done  less  than  nothing  for  the  Low  Coun- 
tries in  the  way  of  Barrier;  and  the  French  invasion  of  1672,  which, 
but  for  the  opening  of  the  dykes,  might  have  swept  over  Holland 
itself,  was  only  stayed  by  the  patriotic  efforts  of  William  of  Orange, 


THE  FIRST  BARRIER  TREATY  55 

assisted  in  the  following  year  by  Spanish  and  Imperial  troops.  The 
clause  in  the  Grand  Alliance  Treaty  giving  the  United  Provinces 
assurance  of  a  Barrier  against  France,  without  naming  the  places 
which  should  constitute  it,  had,  therefore,  led  to  protracted  discus- 
sions between  the  States-General  and  the  Court  of  Vienna;  and, 
when  the  latter  became  aware  of  the  possibility  of  offers  of  a  separate 
peace  being  made  by  France  to  the  States,  Sinzendorf  was  sent  to 
the  Hague  (1706)  to  open  negotiations,  under  the  mediation  of  Marl- 
borough,  on  the  subject  of  a  Barrier  Treaty.  The  Austrian  point  of 
view  was  that,  if  the  Spanish  Netherlands  were  definitively  secured 
to  the  Austrian  claimant,  there  was  no  necessity  for  a  Barrier  at  all; 
while  the  Dutch  had  prepared  a  list  of  towns  that  were  to  form  it, 
including  Ostend,  and  at  first  even  Antwerp.  At  this  point,  British 
interests  came  into  play.  A  war  between  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  Netherlands  could,  as  recent  history  showed,  not  be  regarded 
as  absolutely  impossible ;  how  then,  with  such  an  event  in  view,  could 
these  places  be  permanently  committed  to  Dutch  custody?  When, 
however,  the  peace  negotiations  of  1709  broke  down,  and  cordial 
cooperation  between  the  British  and  Dutch  Governments  became 
once  more  imperative,  negotiations  on  the  Barrier  question  were  re- 
newed between  the  two  Powers.  In  these  Austria,  though  one  of  the 
Powers  primarily  interested,  took  no  part;  and  the  result  was  the 
First  Barrier  Treaty  (1709),  signed  by  Townshend.  The  British 
Government  undertook  to  secure  for  the  Dutch  the  right  of  garrisoning, 
at  their  own  cost,  nine  strong  places  in  the  Spanish  Netherlands,  with 
two  others  if  retaken  from  the  enemy.  This  Barrier  Treaty  amounted, 
in  point  of  fact,  to  a  renewal,  on  conditions  more  favourable  to  the 
United  Provinces,  of  the  Offensive  and  Defensive  Alliance  between 
them  and  Great  Britain.  It  was,  accordingly,  decried  with  much 
vehemence  by  the  Tory  party,  soon  to  return  to  political  power  in 
England,  where  much  jealousy  and  animosity  against  the  Dutch  still 
survived  and  were  augmented  by  what  seemed  an  undue  morigeration 
to  Dutch  interests,  so  that,  in  the  agitated  period  of  British  public  life 
that  followed,  the  First  Barrier  Treaty  acted  as  a  constant  irritant. 
The  Dutch,  on  their  side,  had  little  gratitude  to  spare  for  British 
promises;  and  when,  in  1711,  Marlborough  was  dismissed  from  his 
offices,  the  States-General,  instead  of  entrusting  the  command  of 
their  troops  to  his  successor,  the  Duke  of  Ormond,  made  it  over  to 
the  Commander-in- Chief  of  the  Imperial  forces,  Prince  Eugene. 
Hereupon,  in  the  course  of  the  peace  negotiations  of  1711  and 


56  INTRODUCTION 

1712,  in  accordance  with  the  general  course  of  the  relations  between 
the  Powers,  the  British  Government  was  found  prepared  to  revise 
its  previous  Barrier  Treaty,  after  such  a  fashion  as  considerably  to 
reduce  its  value  for  the  States- General.  Several  of  the  Barrier-places 
enumerated  in  the  First  Treaty  had  now  been  marked  out  for  cession 
to  France;  and  it  became  necessary  for  Great  Britain  to  conclude  a 
Second  Barrier  Treaty  with  the  States- General,  which  finally  revoked 
the  First.  By  this  Second  Treaty  (January  3Oth,  1713)  the  United 
Provinces  acquired  the  right  of  garrisoning  eight  places,  four  of 
those  included  in  the  First  (Lille  was  one  of  them)  being  omitted  in 
the  Second.  Military  and  naval  contingents  were  promised  on  both 
sides  for  the  maintenance  of  the  Treaty;  but  the  United  Provinces 
lost  Upper  Gelders,  which  had  now  been  disposed  of  to  Prussia. 

At  Utrecht,  as  well  as  afterwards  at  Rastatt  and  Baden,  the  House 
of  Austria's  possession  of  the  once  "  Spanish"  Netherlands  was  con- 
sistently treated  as  part  of  the  settlement  effected.  Yet,  in  all  these 
agreements,  provision  had  been  made  that,  until  the  States-General 
should  have  arrived  at  a  satisfactory  understanding  with  the  Emperor 
in  the  matter  of  their  Barrier,  they  should  retain  their  hold  over  the 
Austrian  Netherlands.  To  bring  about  such  an  understanding,  an 
Austro-Dutch  Conference  was  held  at  Antwerp,  once  more  under 
British  mediation.  The  task  was  no  easy  one,  especially  after  the 
Dutch,  whose  influence  among  the  Allies  had  been  much  depressed 
during  the  last  four  years  of  Queen  Anne,  found  their  position  im- 
proved by  her  death  (August  ist)  and  the  consequent  Governmental 
changes  in  England.  The  death  of  Lewis  XIV  (September  ist,  1715), 
and  the  accession  to  power  of  the  Regent  Orleans,  who  was  consist- 
ently desirous  of  maintaining  a  good  understanding  with  the  United 
Provinces,  likewise  redounded  to  their  advantage. 

The  Third  Barrier  Treaty,  concluded  November  i5th,  1715, 
proved  a  settlement  with  which,  when  it  had  been  with  great  diffi- 
culty brought  to  paper,  the  Dutch  had  every  reason  to  be  satisfied. 
British  policy,  genuinely  interested  in  the  security  of  the  Belgic  Pro- 
vinces, in  view  of  the  always  possible  contingency  of  hostilities  with 
France,  was  naturally  inclined  to  meet  the  wishes  of  the  Dutch,  if 
only  because  of  their  guarantee  of  the  now  imperilled  Protestant 
Succession.  But  it  had  been  a  very  far  from  easy  task  for  British 
statesmanship  to  seek  to  reconcile  the  claims  of  the  United  Pro- 
vinces with  those  of  the  House  of  Austria,  which  had  never  welcomed 
with  any  warmth  the  acquisition  of  the  Catholic  Netherlands,  though, 


THE  THIRD  BARRIER  TREATY  57 

of  course,  unable  to  countenance  the  idea,  soon  afterwards  started  by 
France,  of  forming  them  into  a  neutral  State.  In  November,  1714, 
Stanhope  (whose  personal  influence  already  counted  for  much)  had 
paid  a  visit  to  Vienna,  but  found  no  disposition  there  to  yield; 
General  (afterwards  Earl)  Cadogan,  however,  who  followed,  proved 
more  successful,  and,  in  the  end,  an  arrangement  was  agreed  upon  to 
which  the  Emperor  reluctantly  gave  his  assent.  The  Barrier-places 
were  now  to  number  seven, including Namur,Tournay  andYpres  (with 
a  joint  garrison  at  Dendermonde) ;  and  Venloo,  with  a  small  further 
addition  of  Flemish  territory,  was  to  be  transferred  to  the  United  Pro- 
vinces. Great  Britain  (while  obtaining  for  herself  certain  commercial 
advantages)  undertook  as  Guarantor  of  the  Treaty  in  all  its  parts  to 
provide  a  considerable  force  for  the  defence  of  the  Barrier  by  both  land 
and  sea,  and  if  necessary  to  declare  war  against  any  aggressor.  Thus, 
the  Dutch  had  succeeded  in  securing  a  well-protected  frontier  against 
France;  while  at  the  same  time  a  relation,  which  was  in  a  measure 
one  of  dependence  upon  them,  had  been  established  with  the  "Aus- 
trian" Provinces.  It  is  therefore  not  difficult  to  understand  that  the 
ratifications  of  the  Treaty  had  to  undergo  considerable  delays,  on  the 
particular  causes  of  which  we  need  not  dwell.  The  Dutch  declined, 
as  will  be  seen,  to  join  the  Quadruple  Alliance  till  the  Third  Barrier 
Treaty  should  be  complete,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  till  their  joining 
had  ceased  to  matter.  Moreover,  as  was  asserted  by  their  neighbours, 
they  had  at  the  same  time  acquired  a  practical  control  of  the  Belgic 
waterways  and  (since  the  Scheldt  could  at  any  time  be  closed)  of 
every  port  in  the  country,  except  Ostend.  The  delimitation  of  the 
Netherlands  was  finally  accomplished  by  a  Supplementary  Conven- 
tion signed  at  the  Hague  (December,  1718).  As  for  the  House  of 
Austria,  it  had,  for  the  sake  (as  will  be  seen)  of  British  goodwill, 
consented  that  the  fortresses  of  the  territory  acquired  by  it  should 
be  left,  partly  at  its  own  cost,  in  the  hands  of  another  Power;  so 
that,  in  course  of  time,  it  anxiously  sought  to  exchange  this  for  a  less 
remote  acquisition. 

The  Treaties  of  Utrecht  (to  use  the  term,  once  more,  in  its  widest 
sense)  had  thus,  taken  as  a  whole,  carried  out  the  policy  of  William 
III,  as  representing  the  interests  of  Great  Britain,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  those  of  the  Netherlands  on  the  other ;  but  had  not  carried  it 
out  in  full.  France  had  acquired  for  a  member  of  her  royal  House, 
though  he  was  no  longer  included  in  the  Succession  to  it,  part  only 
of  the  inheritance  of  Charles  II ;  but  this  part  included  what  William 


58  INTRODUCTION 

III  had  sought  to  withhold  from  the  French  candidate,  viz.  Spain 
herself.  Furthermore,  France  was  deprived  of  the  new  vantage- 
ground  which  she  had  seized  in  the  Spanish,  as  against  the  United 
Netherlands,  and  which  was  now,  though  not  without  certain  in- 
convenient liens,  in  Austrian  hands.  Finally,  France  had  formally 
renounced  any  pretension  to  interfere  with  the  stability  of  the  British 
Constitutional  settlement.  So  much  for  the  results  of  the  Treaties 
which  ended  the  War  of  the  Spanish  Succession. 

What  may  be  called  the  moral  results  of  that  War  were  due, 
above  all,  to  its  actual  course,  and  to  its  effect  on  the  material  resources 
of  the  Powers  engaged  in  it  and  upon  the  relations  between  them  and 
the  political  system  of  which  they  formed  part.  For  the  attainment 
of  these  results,  the  policy  which  had  originated  the  War  and  that 
which  directed  the  Peace  were  primarily  and  jointly  responsible. 
And  more  than  this:  the  Peace  of  Utrecht,  though  negotiated  and 
concluded  by  a  statesmanship  in  most  important  respects  out  of 
harmony  with  that  of  the  author  of  the  Grand  Alliance,  was,  not  less 
than  the  War  itself,  in  the  main  Great  Britain's  work;  and,  if  it 
failed  to  gather  in  fully  what  the  War  seemed  to  have  laid  at  her 
and  her  Allies'  feet,  to  her  credit  was  to  be  placed  what,  within  limits 
deliberately  chosen  by  herself,  it  achieved  for  Europe  and  her  de- 
pendencies. In  this,  as  in  all  but  the  rarest  instances  of  similar 
magnitude,  history  is  called  upon  to  judge  by  other  standards  than 
those  of  person  or  party. 


IV 

George  I,  wise  in  his  generation  with  a  wisdom  recalling,  in  its 
degree,  that  of  the  great  politician  in  whose  school  he  had  been  bred, 
had  fully  learnt  a  modern  ruler's  primary  obligation  of  moving 
with  his  times  and  acting  in  accordance  with  their  exigencies.  Yet, 
although,  in  his  kingdom,  he  discreetly  forbore  from  interfering  with 
the  existing  system  of  government,  the  influence  exercised  by  him  on 
British  foreign  policy  was  unmistakable.  To  a  considerable  extent, 
it  subserved  Hanoverian  interests,  and  was  guided  by  Hanoverian 
advice,  though  these,  in  their  turn,  in  a  large  measure,  coincided  with 
the  traditions  that  had  come  down  from  the  age  of  the  Grand 
Alliance.  Thus,  while  his  reign  as  a  whole  justified  the  national 
preference — at  first  far  from  assured — of  the  continued  acceptance 
of  the  Revolutionary  settlement  to  a  "Restoration"  of  the  Stewart 


GEORGE  I  AS  A  PRINCE  OF  THE  EMPIRE          59 

Pretender,  the  doubts  and  jealousies  of  foreign  Governments  were 
successfully  met  by  a  policy  blending  national  (British)  and  dynastic 
(Hanoverian)  purposes ;  and,  although  George  I  was  neither  an  Eng- 
lishman nor  a  popular  King,  it  was,  on  the  whole,  fortunate  for  Great 
Britain  that  he  should  have  come  from  his  well-beloved  Hanover  to 
ascend  the  Stewarts*  uneasy  Throne. 

It  may  be  worth  pointing  out  that  the  "Personal  Union"  brought 
about  under  George  I  is  not  quite  correctly  described  as  a  union 
between  a  powerful  monarchy  and  a  small  secondary  State.  The  re- 
lations between  England  and  the  United  Netherlands  in  the  reign  of 
William  III,  even  after  the  death  of  his  devoted  Queen,  furnished  no 
sort  of  precedent,  and  had  never  come  near  to  what  had  once  been 
Cromwell's  ideal;  and  the  course  of  the  War  of  the  Spanish  Suc- 
cession, and  of  the  negotiations  at  its  close,  had  shown  how  un- 
intermittently  each  of  the  two  Maritime  Powers  kept  its  own  par- 
ticular ends  in  view.  Moreover,  at  the  beginning  of  the  Hanoverian 
period,  the  foundations  of  the  British  Empire  were,  after  all,  still  in 
the  laying ;  and  the  Elector  of  Hanover,  although  hardly  even  among 
the  foremost  of  the  Princes  of  Germany,  was  entirely,  in  the  words 
of  a  modern  historian1,  "a  leading  personage  in  Europe."  The 
politics  of  the  Brunswick- Wolf enbiittel  branch  of  the  Guelfs  had 
been  Imperialist  before  the  days  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War ;  and  the 
Liineburg-Celle  branch  had,  six  years  before  the  conclusion  of  the 
Peace  of  Westphalia,  signed  with  the  Emperor  a  separate  pacification 
favourable  to  themselves.  Thenceforward,  the  Brunswick-Liine- 
burgers  had  remained  on  the  best  of  terms  with  the  Court  of  Vienna. 
The  Elector  George  Lewis,  in  especial,  had  borne  an  active  part  in 
several  campaigns  against  the  Turks,  including  the  rescue  of  Vienna 
— a  fact  not  forgotten  when,  at  Carlowitz,  in  1699,  English  mediation 
had  secured  to  the  Emperor  Leopold  the  fruits  of  Austrian  prowess 
against  the  Crescent,  as,  in  substance,  it  again  did,  nineteen  years 
later,  at  Passarowitz.  In  the  WTest  the  Liineburg-Celle  Princes  had, 
in  the  main  (though  in  the  case  of  those  ruling  at  Hanover,  not  from 
the  first),  supported  the  policy  of  William  III  and  of  the  Grand 
Alliance,  and  had  been  rewarded  by  the  Electoral  investiture  (1792) 
of  the  father  of  George  Lewis,  under  whom  the  whole  Liineburg- 
Celle  dominions  were  reunited  (1705). 

1  Mr  J.  F.  Chance,  in  his  most  valuable  monograph,  George  I  and  the  Northern 
War  (1909).  As  Mr  Chance  notes,  "  that  George  I  might  have  succeeded  Charles  VI, 
on  the  Imperial  Throne,  was  in  1714,  a  possibility  not  disregarded." 


60  INTRODUCTION 

The  reign  of  George  I,  regarded  from  the  point  of  view  of  its 
foreign  policy,  divides  itself  most  conveniently  into  three  periods, 
coinciding,  more  or  less,  with  those  of  the  ascendancy  in  this  respect 
of  Townshend  (1714-7),  of  Stanhope  (1717-21),  and  of  Townshend 
and  Walpole  (not  yet  "Walpole  and  Townshend")  (1721-7),  respec- 
tively. In  the  earliest  of  these  periods,  the  two  statesmen  chiefly 
concerned  with  the  conduct  of  foreign  affairs  served  side  by  side  as 
First  and  Second  Secretaries  of  State — Townshend,  who  held  the 
former  post,  being  regarded  as  Head  of  the  Government,  but  the 
disposal  of  business  between  them  being  left  to  their  own  discretion. 
The  arrangement  proved  itself  inconvenient,  especially  since  both 
these  Ministers  were  high-minded  as  well  as  able  men.  Stanhope's 
views  were,  to  a  far  greater  extent  than  his  colleague's,  in  accordance 
with  their  Sovereign's;  and,  on  the  split  in  the  Whig  party  declaring 
itself  and  Townshend  giving  up  the  Seals,  Sunderland  was  associated 
with  Stanhope.  Among  the  Secretaries  of  State  in  this  reign  were 
the  excellent  Addison  (a  steady  party-man)  and  the  younger  Craggs 
(Pope's  Pollio,  of  whose  capacity  in  or  out  of  Parliament  there  is 
abundant  evidence)1. 

While  the  chief  operations  of  British  foreign  policy  during  the 
larger  half  of  George  Fs  reign  had  the  approval  and  were  due  to  the 
suggestion  of  the  King's  Hanoverian  advisers,  it  by  no  means  follows 
that  they  should  be  held  responsible  for  the  conception,  any  more 
than  for  the  execution,  of  that  policy  as  a  whole.  Apart  from  the  fact 
that  few  British  Sovereigns  have  exercised  so  close  and  continuous  a 
personal  interest  over  the  country's  foreign  affairs  as  George  I,  it 
should  be  remembered  that  the  British  statesmen  entrusted  with  the 
management  of  these  affairs  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  reign  and  the 
Hanoverian  advisers  of  the  King  were,  from  the  nature  of  the  case, 

1  The  force  and  lucidity  of  Craggs'  despatches  might  be  illustrated  without 
difficulty.  Of  Addison's,  that  to  Count  Gallas  (the  Imperial  Ambassador  at  Rome) 
asking  for  his  mediation  with  Pope  Clement  XI,  who  is  required,  in  a  conciliatory 
tone,  to  redress  a  series  of  British  grievances  of  which  the  arrest  of  Peterborough 
at  Bologna  was  the  foremost  (October,  1717),  is  notable  as  showing  the  absence  of 
direct  diplomatic  relations  between  the  Holy  See  and  the  Court  of  St  James.  Cf. 
W.  Michael,  u.  s.  vol.  n.  part  I.  pp.  309  ff.  Lord  Stanhope  (History  of  England, 
etc  sth  ed.,  1858,  vol.  i.  p.  202),  notices  that  the  House  of  Commons  remained 
without  its  due  share  in  appointments  to  high  administrative  offices,  and  therefore 
in  the  direction  of  the  administration  of  the  country  itself,  till  after  the  passing  of 
the  Septennial  Act  (1716).  The  real  change  in  the  relative  importance  of  the  two 
Houses  of  Parliament  in  the  public  eye  dates  of  course  from  the  age  of  Walpole ; 
but  the  part  taken  by  members  of  the  House  of  Lords  in  the  conduct  of  foreign 
affairs  continued,  for  obvious  reasons,  to  preponderate  up  to  the  days  of  the  younger 


THE  HANOVERIAN  "JUNTA"  61 

in  substantial  agreement.  Townshend  had  been  chosen  as  Principal 
Secretary  of  State  with  the  approval,  if  not  at  the  direct  instance,  of 
Bothmer  (whose  confidence,  with  that  of  the  leading  Dutch  states- 
men, he  had  gained  during  his  residence  at  the  Hague);  while  the 
entire  Whig  Government  with  which  George  I  began  his  reign  had 
been  recommended  to  him  by  Bernstorff  (who  accompanied  him 
from  Hanover  to  England  on  his  journey  for  taking  seisin).  The 
approval  of  Bernstorff  implied  the  assent  of  Robethon,  the  inevitable 
(and  indispensable)  Huguenot  refugee,  whose  connexion  with  Eng- 
lish affairs  dated  from  the  days  of  his  secretaryship  to  William  III, 
at  the  end  of  his  reign1.  For  the  rest,  we  need  say  nothing  further 
here  as  to  Hanoverian  influence  on  British  political  action,  except  in 
the  instances  adverted  to  below  of  the  Bremen  and  Verden,  and  the 
Mecklenburg  episodes.  It  may,  however,  be  worth  observing  that 
the  leading  members  of  the  "Junta"  were  by  no  means  always  at 
one  with  each  other.  Bothmer's  star  seems  to  have  waned  as  Bern- 
storff's  rose  to  its  height,  which  it  reached  while  Stanhope's  Govern- 
ment could  still  be,  with  any  reason,  popularly  called  the  German 
Ministry.  Of  course,  the  Hanoverian  influence  was  far  more  fully 
asserted  in  the  affairs  of  Northern  than  in  those  of  Southern  Europe ; 
and  Bernstorff 's  political  principles  (as  well  as  his  personal  interests) 
long  obstructed  these  negotiations  with  Prussia,  the  success  of  which 
were,  in  1720,  followed  by  his  downfall,  the  end  of  the  Hanoverian 
era  proper,  and  the  reunion  of  the  Whigs. 

At  the  time  of  the  accession  of  George  I  to  the  British  Throne, 
the  Peace  recently  concluded  was  still  virtually  Great  Britain's  peace. 
The  Emperor  would  have  none  of  it,  even  after  he  had,  a  few  weeks 
later,  concluded  his  own  at  Baden.  The  Dutch  had  only  assented 
conditionally  on  a  satisfactory  Barrier  being  granted  them  by  the 
Emperor.  In  France,  the  Peace  was  regarded  with  a  sense  of  mingled 
relief  and  distrust.  At  home,  it  was  loudly  condemned  by  the  great  body 
of  the  Whigs ;  and,  both  here  and  across  the  water,  the  resumption 
of  the  War  seemed  for  a  time  on  the  cards,  even  before  King  Lewis 
XIV's  end  had  come  (September  ist,  1715).  To  Great  Britain  the 
old  Alliances  were  of  more  value  than  ever ;  and,  so  early  as  November, 

1  He  had  then  entered  the  Celle  service  and  had  (if  one  may  so  say)  become 
the  dme  dartmee  of  Bernstorff,  having  been  appointed  "Privy  Councillor  of  Em- 
bassy" at  Hanover,  and  continued  to  exercise  the  undefined  functions  of  this  office 
in  England  till  his  patron's  fall.  The  personalities  and  history  of  the  members  of 
the  "Hanoverian  Junta"  are  briefly  noticed  in  the  Appendix  to  Lecture  II  of  my 
Great  Britain  and  Hanover  (1899). 


62  INTRODUCTION 

1714,  Stanhope,  when,  at  Vienna,  he  sought  to  bring  about  the 
acceptance  of  a  Barrier  Treaty  which  would  satisfy  the  United 
Provinces,  confidentially  propounded,  in  the  first  instance,  to  Prince 
Eugene  the  conclusion  of  a  defensive  alliance,  to  be  afterwards 
joined  by  the  United  Provinces — the  germ  of  the  later  Triple  Al- 
liance. But  nothing  came  of  the  project  so  long  as  the  Third  Barrier 
Treaty  remained  unsigned.  As  has  been  seen,  the  jealousy  between 
the  Imperial  and  the  Dutch  Governments  continued  even  after 
this;  but,  in  the  meantime,  although  the  death  of  Lewis  XIV  had 
brought  France  under  the  rule  of  a  Government  favourable  to  Great 
Britain,  the  British  Throne  itself  had  been,  though  as  it  proved 
only  transitorily,  placed  in  a  position  of  danger.  Thus,  while  through 
the  efforts  of  British  diplomacy  the  Third  Barrier  Treaty  had  been 
brought  to  its  conclusion  under  British  guarantee  (November,  1715), 
there  remained  behind  the  urgent  expediency  of  securing  to  Great 
Britain  the  old  Allies — more  closely  tied  to  her  by  their  own  interests, 
and,  it  may  be  said  without  prejudice,  more  trustworthy  than  the 
existing  French  Government. 

The  relations  between  these  Allies — the  United  Provinces  and 
the  Emperor — were,  however,  even  after  the  signature  of  the  Barrier 
Treaty,  the  reverse  of  easy,  and  their  dissensions  about  the  time  of  the 
years  1715-6,  owing  to  incidents  connected  with  territorial  transfers, 
rose  to  such  a  pitch  that  a  joint  alliance  including  both  of  them  was  for 
the  present  out  of  the  question.  The  new  Austrian  Ambassador  in 
London  (no  official  of  his  rank  had  been  accredited  here  since  1712), 
was  a  most  unfortunate  choice;  and  thus  it  came  to  pass  that  the 
first  Treaty  of  Alliance  signed  by  the  British  Government  (February, 
1716)  was  with  the  States-General,  and  that  a  Treaty,  of  mutual  terri- 
torial guarantee,  with  the  Emperor  was  not  formally  signed  at  West- 
minster till  the  following  May.  To  this  second  Treaty,  though  declared 
by  the  Emperor  to  be  defensive  only,  the  Dutch  Government  never 
formally  signified  their  adhesion,  though  they  gradually  reconciled 
themselves  to  it,  the  more  readily  when  it  proved  not  to  be  incompat- 
ible with  the  Anglo-French  undertaking  that  was,  above  all  others,  of 
value  to  their  most  important  interests.  It  was  concluded  by  George  I, 
as  King  of  Great  Britain  only,  and  therefore  contained  no  guarantee 
of  Hanoverian  territories ;  moreover,  though  his  Hanoverian  Ministers 
had  taken  part  in  the  negotiations,  their  signatures  were  not  added  to 
the  Treaty.  But,  though  a  joint  alliance  with  both  the  Emperor  and 
the  United  Provinces  seemed  for  the  moment  impossible,  there  was 


ANGLO-SWEDISH  RELATIONS  63 

no  doubt  of  the  friendly  intentions  of  both  her  old  Allies  towards 
Great  Britain.  Of  the  two  storm-points  which,  in  the  early  years 
of  the  reign,  seemed  to  threaten  a  continued  disturbance  of  the  Peace 
of  Europe  and  a  consequent  interference  with  the  Hanoverian  Suc- 
cession included  among  its  conditions  at  Utrecht,  one  had  even  now 
not  yet  reached  its  final  stage.  A  considerable  change  had  gradually 
come  over  Great  Britain's  relations  with  the  Powers  engaged  in  the 
still  unfinished  great  Northern  War,  and  in  particular  with  the  mili- 
tant Baltic  Power  to  which  she  had  long  been  drawn  by  strong  re- 
ligious sympathies  as  well  as  by  important  commercial  interests. 

So  early  in  the  reign  of  Charles  XII  as  1700,  Sweden  had  con- 
cluded a  Treaty  of  mutual  defence  with  England  for  eighteen  years ; 
and  another  immediately  followed,  in  which  the  United  Provinces  of 
the  Netherlands  joined,  and  which,  in  a  secret  article,  bound  the 
Contracting  Powers  to  use  their  best  endeavours  for  preserving  the 
endangered  Peace  of  the  North.  By  virtue  of  this  compact,  Sweden, 
in  the  same  year,  1700,  obliged  Denmark  to  sign  the  Peace  of  Tra- 
vendal,  which  detached  that  Power  from  the  league  of  the  adver- 
saries of  the  young  Swedish  King.  During  the  eventful  years  of  his 
victorious  advance  that  followed,  Great  Britain  kept  her  hands  free 
from  engagements  on  either  side,  successfully  foiling  the  efforts  of 
Lewis  XIV  to  gain  over  the  Northern  hero  to  the  side  of  France  in 
her  own  War.  British  trade  with  Sweden  continued  brisk,  although 
its  volume  was  probably  not  more  than  half  that  of  the  Dutch,  the 
Swedish  exports  being,  practically,  confined  to  materials  for  ship- 
building. During  the  Northern  War,  Sweden  treated  neutral  com- 
merce with  a  high  hand,  so  that,  on  the  plea  that  they  had  carried 
contraband  of  war  into  Russian  ports — of  which  Sweden  had  de- 
clared a  blockade — many  British  merchantmen  were  seized  by 
Swedish  men-of-war  and  privateers.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  notice- 
able as  bearing  upon  the  future,  that  the  relations  between  Charles  XII 
and  the  Elector  George  Lewis  of  Hanover  had  always  been  excellent, 
and  had  stood  the  Swedish  King  in  good  stead  in  the  earlier  part  of 
his  course. 

Accordingly,  even  after  "Pultawa's  day,"  when  the  counter- 
current  of  revanche  gradually  overflowed  half  Europe,  Great  Britain 
held  her  hand,  and,  in  course  of  time,  non-intervention  in  the  North 
became  part  of  her  general  policy  of  peace.  Moreover,  so  long  as  the 
Spanish  Succession  War  was  still  afoot,  it  was  contrary  to  the  interest 
of  all  the  Allies,  though  of  course  to  that  of  the  Emperor  and  Empire 


64  INTRODUCTION 

in  particular,  to  allow  Germany  to  be  set  in  a  blaze  with  the  aid  of 
large  forces  still  indispensable  at  the  actual  theatre  of  war.  Accord- 
ingly, a  Convention  was  signed  at  the  Hague  (March  3ist,  1710) 
declaring  the  neutrality  of  the  German  Provinces  of  Sweden,  so  as 
to  protect  them,  if  necessary,  against  attack,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
prevent  their  serving  as  bases  of  counter-attack. 

One  of  the  most  wholehearted  supporters  of  this  Convention  was 
the  Elector  of  Hanover,  whose  dominions  were  bordered  in  part  by 
Swedish  annexations  which,  in  the  day  of  Sweden's  dire  distress, 
were  certain  to  become  so  many  coveted  prizes.  Among  these  were 
the  "duchies"  of  Bremen  and  Verden.  Apart  from  the  fact  that, 
when  succeeding  to  the  insecure  grandeur  of  the  British  Throne, 
George  I  had  excellent  reason  for  "cultivating"  what  he  left  behind 
him,  the  ownership  of  these  lands  was  a  matter  of  considerable  con- 
sequence, as  well  as  historic  interest,  to  the  Elector  of  Hanover.  The 
duchy,  formerly  belonging  to  the  archbishopric,  of  Bremen  had, 
after  the  Reformation,  been  held  by  cadets  of  neighbouring  princely 
Houses,  including  that  of  Brunswick-Liineburg,  but  in  the  Peace  of 
Westphalia  had  passed  as  a  secular  duchy  into  the  possession  of  the 
Swedish  Crown.  The  bishopric  of  Verden,  of  old  part  of  the  domin- 
ions of  Henry  the  Lion,  had  likewise  been  assigned  to  the  Swedish 
Crown  as  a  secular  principality.  The  duchy  of  Bremen  and  the  prin- 
cipality of  Verden,  respectively,  commanded  the  course  of  the  Weser 
from  Bremen  to  its  mouth  and  that  of  the  Elbe  to  the  sea  from 
the  vicinity  of  Hamburg,  Holstein  lying  to  the  north-west  of  the 
river;  above  Harburg,  the  Elbe  formed  the  north-eastern  boundary 
of  the  Brunswick-Liineburg  territories.  In  the  days  of  William  III 
and  Anne,  the  vigilance  of  the  Elector  of  Hanover  had  been  directed 
less  against  Sweden,  the  actual  mistress  of  Bremen  and  Verden,  than 
against  her  inveterate  foe  Denmark,  who,  should  she  possess  herself 
of  these  territories,  might,  because  of  their  immediate  vicinity  to 
Holstein,  prove  far  more  unwilling  at  any  time  to  relinquish  them. 

Thus,  before  the  question  of  the  future  of  the  Swedish  monarchy 
and  of  its  provinces  had  to  be  faced  by  Great  Britain  as  a  European 
Power,  a  very  direct  Hanoverian  interest  had  become  mixed  up  with 
it.  Tsar  Peter  I,  against  whom  about  this  time  (end  of  1709)  Charles 
XII  was  seeking  to  induce  the  Sultan  to  declare  war — while  he  was, 
also,  believed  to  be  in  communication  with  the  French  Government- 
was  intent  upon  ousting  Sweden  from  her  control  of  the  Baltic  and  from 
the  territories  still  belonging  to  her  in  Germany.  He  was  annoyed 


HANOVERIAN  ACQUISITION  OF  BREMEN  AND  VERDEN  65 

by  Prussia's  hesitation  about  asserting  her  dynasty's  claims  on  Stettin 
and  its  district ;  and  assiduously  worked  upon  the  Elector  of  Hanover, 
through  his  able  representative  there,  Prince  Boris  Kurakin,  to  press 
his  interest  in  Bremen  and  Verden.  But  the  first  actual  step  towards 
the  acquisition  of  the  "duchies"  was  not  taken  by  George  Lewis  till 
the  year  before  his  accession  to  the  British  Throne.  When  Frederick  IV 
of  Denmark,  notwithstanding  his  rout  in  Scania  (1710),  made  another 
attempt  to  carry  out  his  part  in  the  anti-Swedish  league  formed  after 
Pultawa,  and  to  this  end,  in  1713,  after  a  severe  struggle,  occupied 
the  duchy  of  Bremen,  the  fit  conjuncture  seemed  to  present  itself 
for  carrying  out  the  long-harboured  design.  In  the  same  year, 
George  Lewis  occupied  Verden,  with  Ottersburg,  just  across  the 
Bremen  boundary  and,  though  still  at  peace  with  the  Swedish 
Government,  announced  his  intention  of  continuing  to  hold  the 
lesser  territory,  so  long  as  the  Danes  held  the  larger.  Though,  even 
after  the  accession  of  George  I  and  the  arrival  of  Charles  XII  at 
Stralsund  (November,  1714),  cordial  messages  were  exchanged  be- 
tween them,  there  was  no  longer  any  mutual  confidence;  and,  though 
the  British  ships  sent  in  1715  took  no  actual  part  in  the  Dano- 
Prussian  siege  of  Stralsund,  the  continuance  of  eight  of  them  in  the 
Baltic  implied  the  approval  by  Great  Britain  of  the  Treaty  between 
Denmark  and  Hanover,  finally  ratified  in  July  of  this  year.  By  this 
compact,  the  duchy  of  Bremen  was  (in  return  for  a  payment  variously 
reckoned,  but  over  600,000  dollars)  to  be  given  up  to  the  Elector. 
The  transfer  was  accomplished  by  October,  and  the  Elector's  de- 
claration of  war  against  Sweden  immediately  followed.  On  the  other 
hand,  Sir  John  Norris,  while  carrying  out  a  demonstration  on  behalf 
of  trade  wrongs  at  the  head  of  a  fleet  composed  of  British,  Prussian 
and  Danish  ships,  carefully  kept  out  of  the  way  of  the  transaction 
concerning  the  "duchies,"  and  contributed  only  indirectly  to  the  fall 
of  Stralsund  (December).  As  for  the  duchies,  their  Estates  had  at  once 
done  homage  to  their  new  ruler.  The  Danes,  fearing  that  Charles  XII 
might  seek  to  purchase  the  friendship  of  the  King  of  Great  Britain 
by  a  voluntary  cession  of  the  duchies  to  the  Elector  of  Hanover,  had, 
without  loss  of  time,  safeguarded  the  transfer  by  means  of  Treaties 
with  Hanover  and  Prussia;  but  the  Hanoverian  possession  cf  them 
was  not  formally  recognised  by  Sweden  till  1719  (in  the  Peace  of 
Stockholm)  when  this  complicated,  and  not  altogether  ingenuous, 
transaction  was  at  last  wound  up.  When  the  Hanoverian  annexation 
of  Bremen  and  Verden  had  actually  been  perpetrated,  there  could,  of 
W.&G.I.  5 


66  INTRODUCTION 

course,  no  longer  be  any  thought  of  friendly  relations  between 
George  I  and  Charles  XII.  But  this  was  not  the  time  for  the  latter 
to  think  of  a  raid  on  any  part  of  the  British  dominions  on  his  own 
account,  and  the  Jacobite  insurrection  of  1715-6  collapsed  without 
a  serious  hope  or  fear  of  any  such  incident1. 

Meanwhile,  a  great  design  (if  this  historic  term  should  be  applied  to 
a  vast,  but  largely  shadowy,  web  of  intrigues  such  as  "  Gortz's  Plot") 
was  in  preparation,  which,  while  imperilling  the  continuance  of  the 
existing  British  Government  and  dynasty,  had  in  view  a  complete 
change  in  the  relations  between  Sweden  and  her  most  formidable 
enemy,  Russia.  The  ultimate  object  of  Gortz,  now  in  the  service  of 
Sweden  and  loyally  devoted  to  her  interests,  was  a  peace  between 
the  two  Baltic  Powers,  which  would  have  extinguished  the  anti- 
Swedish  league,  now,  as  has  been  seen,  virtually  including  Great 
Britain.  The  political  relations  between  George  I  and  the  Tsar  Peter 
had,  indeed,  become  friendly,  as  British  grievances  and  Hanoverian 
cupidity  jointly  increased  the  tension  with  Sweden;  and,  in  October, 
1715,  a  Treaty  had  been  agreed  upon  between  the  Tsar  and  the 
Elector  of  Hanover  at  Greifswald  mutually  guaranteeing  Bremen 
and  Verden  to  the  Elector  of  Hanover:  and  Esthonia,  with  Reval, 
to  the  Tsar.  But  to  this  Treaty  the  King  of  Great  Britain  could  not 
give  effect  without  the  assent  of  his  Parliament,  and.  since  the  British 
Ministers  were  not  prepared  for  joint  armed  action  against  Sweden, 
Bernstorff  informed  Kurakin  that  the  full  purpose  of  the  Treaty 
must  be  kept  secret  and  only  the  commercial  clauses  made  known 
at  present.  Meanwhile,  Peter  ruthlessly  excited  the  violent  wrath  of 
George  I  by  his  high-handed  interference  in  German  affairs,  and 
more  especially  by  taking  advantage  of  the  marriage  of  his  niece 
Catharine  to  Duke  Charles  Leopold  of  Mecklenburg  Schwerin,  to 
quarter  among  the  nobility  there,  traditionally  impatient  of  their 
Sovereign's  rule,  a  large  body  of  Russian  troops  intended  to  take 
part  in  the  Danish  invasion  of  Scania  agreed  upon  between  Peter  and 
Frederick  IV  at  Altona.  Prussia  (who  had  just  expelled  the  Swedes 
from  Wismar)  held  her  hand ;  but  Russia  could  depend  on  her  good- 
will, while  Hanover  and  Prussia  were  as  a  matter  of  course  at  odds. 
The  invasion  was  postponed,  though  Sir  John  Norris  was  in  the 

1  It  is,  by  the  way,  illustrative  of  the  entire  relations  between  England  and 
Scotland  after  the  Union,  that,  there  being  at  the  time  no  Treaty  of  Alliance  be- 
tween Great  Britain  and  Hanover,  while  a  subsidiary  treaty  would  no  doubt  have 
been  deemed  inadvisable,  Stair's  suggestion  of  shipping  some  Hanoverian  bat- 
talions to  Scotland  at  the  time  of  the  Insurrection  was  not  carried  out. 


DISCOVERY  OF  "GORTZ'S  PLOT"  67 

Baltic,  prepared  to  take  part  in  it;  and  King  George  was  with  diffi- 
culty prevented  from  sending  the  Admiral  orders  to  seize  on  the 
person  of  the  Tsar  in  requital  of  his  arbitrary  ways.  But  although 
the  British  Ministry  shared  the  desire  to  keep  Peter  and  his  designs 
in  check,  his  violation  of  German  territory  could  not  be  held  to  war- 
rant a  coup  de  main  by  the  British  fleet  against  a  Sovereign  who  was, 
virtually,  an  Ally1. 

Meanwhile,  "Gortz's  Plot,"  of  which  neither  the  genesis  nor  the 
ramifications  can  be  traced  here,  had  become  known  to  British  states- 
men, and  at  the  end  of  January,  1717,  was  discussed  in  Council.  In 
setting  it  in  motion,  the  arch-intriguer  Gortz  had  had  the  assistance 
of  the  Swedish  envoys,  Gyllenborg  in  London  and  Sparre  at  Paris, 
and  had  depended  on  the  connivance  of  the  scheming  Alberoni  at 
Madrid  and  of  the  Chevalier,  still  a  disposition  at  Avignon.  Nor  was 
he  altogether  out  of  touch  either  with  the  Regent  of  France  (in  the 
earlier  stages  of  the  affair),  or  with  the  Tsar.  The  discovery,  though  it 
rendered  the  plot  as  such  hopeless,  with  the  arrests,  and  the  intern- 
ment of  Gortz  in  Holland,  caused  a  sensation  almost  unparalleled  in 
modern  diplomatic  annals,  but  exercised  no  decisive  influence  upon 
British  policy.  Charles  XII  kept  silence,  and  the  Regent  Orleans' 
disclaimer  of  any  aggressive  intentions  against  Great  Britain  found 
willing  credence.  As  for  George  I  and  the  more  resolute  among  his 
Ministers,  they  had  already  made  up  their  minds  to  a  more  vigorous  and 
far-reaching  "system"  of  action,  which  would  place  Great  Britain  in 
a  firm  position  of  her  own  among  the  European  Powers,  unassailable 
by  machinations  such  as  those  of  either  Gortz  or  Alberoni. 

In  the  summer  of  1716,  Stanhope  had  accompanied  King  George 
on  the  pathetic  occasion  of  his  first  visit  home.  En  route,  the  Minister 
contrived  to  manage  the  earliest  of  his  celebrated  "unbuttoned" 
conversations  with  the  Abbe  Dubois,  the  trusted  intimate  of  the 
Regent  Orleans,  who  was  anxious  to  safeguard  his  personal  future 
against  the  Spanish  Bourbons  and  their  (never  wholly  impossible) 
speculations  as  to  the  French  Succession.  With  these  speculations 
the  designs  of  Alberoni,  inspired,  in  the  first  instance,  by  the  am- 
bition of  Queen  Elizabeth  (Farnese)  of  Spain,  were  interwoven,  and 
these  naturally  came  to  a  head  after  the  death  of  Lewis  XIV.  Their 

1  The  Mecklenburg  quarrel  had  an  interesting  sequel,  which,  however,  had  no 
direct  connexion  with  British  policy,  though  George  I  as  Elector  of  Hanover  was 
one  of  the  Princes  of  the  Empire  charged  with-  its  execution  against  Duke  Charles 
Leopold  in  1717,  and  though  its  results  led  to  complications  which  engaged  the 
attention  of  George  II  to  so  late  a  date  as  1735. 

»    5 — 2 


68  INTRODUCTION 

aim  was,  should  it  prove  impossible  to  secure  the  French  Throne  for 
the  Spanish  Bourbons,  at  all  events  to  revive  in  Elizabeth's  line  the 
Spanish  dominion  in  Italy.  While  the  resistance  of  the  Emperor 
would  of  course  be  the  obstacle-in-chief,  Great  Britain's  attention 
must  be  distracted  by  the  overthrow  of  her  new  dynasty.  For  the 
moment,  however,  since  the  working  out  of  such  a  scheme  required 
time,  Alberoni  was  in  no  hurry  to  break  with  Great  Britain,  and  was, 
indeed,  desirous  of  cultivating  her  goodwill,  especially  since  that  of 
the  French  Government  was  no  longer  at  the  service  of  the  Spanish. 
Hence  the  Anglo-Spanish  Commercial  Treaty  of  December,  1715, 
highly  favourable  to  British  interests,  negotiated  by  George  Bubb 
(afterwards  Lord  Melcombe  who,  before  entering  on  the  later  un- 
edifying  part  of  his  career  had  been  Sir  Paul  Methuen's  successor 
at  Madrid)  and  Alberoni,  though,  on  his  part,  neither  sincere  in 
conception  nor  effective  in  its  results.  Meanwhile,  the  British 
negotiations  with  France  had  been  all  but  brought  to  a  satisfactory 
conclusion.  Instead  of  being  conducted  through  the  Earl  of  Stair 
at  Paris  (whose  addiction  to  the  pomps  of  diplomacy  by  no  means 
rendered  him  averse  from  the  use  of  its  byeways),  the  business  was, 
in  August,  1716,  transferred  to  the  management  of  Stanhope  and 
the  ambitious  and  intriguing  Sunderland,  with  the  cooperation  of 
Bernstorff,  in  the  still  surroundings  of  Hanover.  Here  it  was  brought 
to  a  successful  issue  by  the  signing  of  an  agreement  between 
France  and  Great  Britain  confirmatory  of  those  portions  of  the 
Peace  of  Utrecht  which  concerned  their  respective  interests,  more 
especially  the  order  of  Succession  in  the  two  monarchies,  and 
guaranteeing  their  territorial  possessions  in  a  form  including  the 
new  acquisitions  of  the  House  of  Hanover.  The  Pretender  was 
excluded  from  France,  and  the  Mardyke  question  was,  with  some 
difficulty,  satisfactorily  settled.  The  complementary  assent  of  the 
Dutch  Government  had  been  assumed,  to  the  righteous  indignation 
of  the  British  Minister  at  the  Hague,  Horace  Walpole  (the  elder); 
but  it  arrived  on  January  4th  following,  and  the  "  Triple  Alliance  "  was 
now  complete.  It  was  the  work  of  Bernstorff  and  Stanhope  (to  write 
their  names  in  the  order  of  sequence  proposed  by  the  same  critic  at 
the  Hague).  Townshend,  the  absence  of  whose  countersignature  had 
been  suspiciously  noted  by  Dubois,  had  sent  it  in  time;  but  there 
could  be  no  doubt  that  he  had  looked  askance  upon  the  Alliance  and 
the  policy  of  warlike  operations  in  the  North  to  which  it  seemed  to 
him  to  point.  The  King,  moved  in  his  turn  by  angry  jealousy  of 


STANHOPE  AND  THE  QUADRUPLE  ALLIANCE     69 

Russia,  was  wholly  against  Townshend.  Hence,  a  split  among  the 
Whigs,  and  a  reconstruction  of  the  British  Ministry,  which  was  com- 
pleted when,  in  April,  1717,  Stanhope  became  First  Lord  of  the 
Treasury  and  Sunderland  Secretary  of  State  (1717),  Townshend 
having  accepted  the  Lord-Lieutenancy  of  Ireland,  but  being  sub- 
sequently dismissed  from  this  office  also.  (Stanhope  and  Sunder- 
land exchanged  offices  in  the  following  year,  1718.)  Finally,  whether 
or  not  the  treatment  of  the  Pretender  in  the  Triple  Alliance  offended 
the  chivalrous  spirit  of  the  Swedish  King,  the  British  Government 
more  directly  defied  him,  in  the  following  March,  by  prohibiting  all 
trade  with  Sweden,  and,  in  the  same  year  (1718),  sent  another  fleet 
into  the  Baltic. 

In  the  period  of  Stanhope's  Ministerial  ascendancy  which  ensued, 
the  " Quadruple  Alliance"  (August,  1718)  forms  his  most  momentous 
achievement.  It  might,  possibly,  not  have  been  carried  through  the 
difficulties  besetting  it,  but  for  the  active  part  played  in  the  negotia- 
tions of  the  years  1717  and  1718  by  Bernstorff  and  Bothmer1,  whose 
main  purpose  was  to  strengthen  the  authority  of  the  Emperor  in 
Germany  and  to  promote  the  intimate  relations  between  him  and  the 
House  of  Hanover.  Yet,  however  sorely  these  efforts  vexed  the  souls 
of  Sir  Robert  Walpole  and  the  section  of  the  Whigs  with  which  he 
acted,  the  plan  courageously  and  circumspectly  formed  by  Stanhope 
for  settling  the  affairs  of  Europe  was  successful,  in  the  face  of  reckless 
ambition  abroad  as  well  as  of  intelligible  distrust  at  home.  The  Triple 
Alliance,  well-omened  as  had  been  the  fact  of  its  conclusion,  stood 
on  no  firm  footing,  and  could  not  prove  an  enduring  safeguard  of  the 
Peace  of  Europe,  should  Spanish  policy,  urged  on  by  dynastic  and 
Ministerial  ambition,  venture  to  revive  the  quarrel  with  the  House 
of  Austria,  and  should  that  House  seize  the  opportunity  of  renewing 
its  pretensions  to  the  Spanish  Throne.  Cardinal  Alberoni,  the  em- 
bodiment of  the  new  Spanish  aspirations,  was,  accordingly,  the 
second  stormpoint  on  the  European  horizon,  which,  even  before 
the  Northern  War  had  become  extinct,  threatened  to  overwhelm  the 
European  order  of  things  established  by  the  Utrecht  and  supple- 
mentary Treaties,  and  including  the  settlement  in  Great  Britain. 

The  storm  broke,  in  this  quarter,  before  the  plan  of  action  de- 
vised by  Stanhope  and  Dubois  could  be  applied  as  a  prophylactic. 

1  Of  the  importance  attached  to  their  counsels,  more  especially  by  the  able 
Austrian  negotiator  Penterriedter,  we  have  ample  evidence  from  Bothmer's  own 
hand,  in  his  Memoir e  on  the  Quadruple  Alliance. 


7o  INTRODUCTION 

The  Emperor  was  harassed  by  his  Turkish  War;  and,  influenced 
perhaps  by  this  circumstance,  Alberoni,  though  aware  that  the  time 
was  hardly  ripe,  yielded  to  his  Sovereign's  resentment  of  an  accidental 
insult  offered  to  Spain  by  Imperial  officials,  and  seized  Sardinia  by  a 
coup  de  main  (August,  1717).  Emboldened  by  his  rapid  success,  he 
was  preparing  to  seize  Sicily  (now  under  Savoy  rule)  when  Stanhope 
intervened.  In  March,  1718,  his  kinsman  Colonel  William  Stanhope 
(afterwards  Earl  of  Harrington)  appeared  at  Madrid  to  offer  a  pro- 
test, which  was  (not  very  strenuously)  supported  by  France  and  the 
United  Provinces.  The  British  and  the  Spanish  Governments  were 
still  on  amicable  terms,  though  Alberoni  had  already  begun  to  dis- 
regard the  recent  Commercial  Treaty  with  Great  Britain,  besides 
rejecting  her  offer  of  good  offices  with  the  Emperor.  By  July,  how- 
ever, a  British  fleet  was  sent  into  the  Mediterranean,  to  deal  with 
Spanish  naval  operations  which  might  conceivably  have  been  fol- 
lowed up  by  a  demonstration  or  a  raid  on  the  British  shores.  About 
this  time,  too,  the  Emperor's  Turkish  War  was  brought  to  a  close, 
on  terms  satisfactory,  so  far  as  his  interests  in  this  quarter  were  con- 
cerned, by  the  Peace  of  Passarowitz  (July,  1718) — a  Treaty  to  be 
placed  mainly  to  the  credit  of  British  diplomacy,  whose  twofold 
object  seems  to  have  been  to  bring  about  an  immediate  close  of 
hostilities  between  the  Porte  and  the  Emperor  (so  as  to  enable  the 
latter  to  take  part  if  necessary  in  the  Western  conflicts)  and  to 
make  trouble  between  the  Porte  and  the  Tsar1. 

Thus,  in  the  midst  of  this  medley  of  East  and  West,  the  Anglo- 
French  Convention,  signed  in  July,  1718,  received  the  adhesion  of 
the  Emperor,  and  in  the  following  month  the  Quadruple  Alliance 
was  concluded  with  him  in  London.  Its  name — to  some  extent  a 
misnomer — was  due  to  the  adhesion  of  the  United  Provinces,  which 
was,  after  some  delay,  unwillingly  given  (February,  1719).  That  of 
Savoy  had  preceded  it,  though,  as  will  be  surmised  from  the  bargain 
proposed  to  her,  it  had  not  been  much  more  readily  accorded.  Victor 

1  The  policy  of  the  Peace  of  Passarowitz,  as  noted  above,  repeated  under  equally 
critical  circumstances,  that  of  Carlo witz  (1699),  concluded  under  the  mediation 
of  Great  Britain  at  a  time  when  William  III  was  anxious  to  put  an  end  to  a  War 
diverting  the  military  forces  of  the  Empire  from  the  Western  theatre  of  action. 
In  the  midst  of  the  Passarowitz  negotiations,  Prince  Eugene  took  Belgrade;  and 
the  Peace  marks  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  the  Eastern  question  and  especially  of 
Austria's  Eastern  policy,  besides  showing  the  interest  taken  in  these  matters  by 
Great  Britain  at  this  time,  largely  under  Hanoverian  inspiration.  The  fruits  of  the 
Peace  of  Passarowitz  were  largely  sacrificed  by  Austria  in  that  of  Belgrade  (1739), 
which  Russia  (then  her  Ally),  though  victorious,  had  to  follow  up  by  a  pacification 
of  her  own. 


SPAIN  AND  THE  QUADRUPLE  ALLIANCE          71 

AmadeusII  was  suspected  of  playing  a  double  game ;  but  the  traditional 
friendship  of  Great  Britain  for  the  House  of  Savoy  (which,  however, 
failed  to  show  the  steadfastness  of  that  of  Braganza)  prevailed  over 
the  wiles  of  the  Cardinal  at  Madrid.  The  negotiations  for  the  Alliance 
had  been  difficult  and  protracted;  for  both  the  French  and  the 
British-Hanoverian  counsels  lacked  unity  of  purpose ;  but,  thanks  to 
the  energy  of  Stanhope,  and  the  skill  of  his  subordinates1,  the  scheme 
of  which  he  was  the  primary  author  reached  its  consummation. 

The  essential  object  of  the  Quadruple  Alliance,  which  made  a 
direct  appeal  to  the  principles  of  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  and  the  Grand 
Alliance,  was  to  establish  these  agreements  on  an  enduring  basis,  or, 
if  the  expression  be  preferred,  to  give  to  them  their  logical  develop- 
ment. While  the  Emperor  was  to  renounce  definitively  all  pretensions 
to  Spain  and  the  Indies,  Spain,  in  her  turn,  was  to  relinquish  for 
the  future  any  claim  to  any  former  Spanish  province  now  under  the 
rule  of  the  Emperor.  Sicily  was  to  pass  into  his  possession  out  of 
that  of  the  House  of  Savoy,  which  was  to  receive,  instead,  the  island 
of  Sardinia,  with  the  title  of  King.  Finally,  the  Emperor  was  eventu- 
ally to  invest  Don  Carlos  (or  another  son  of  the  Queen  Elizabeth  of 
Spain)  with  the  duchies  of  Parma,  Piacenza  and  the  greater  part  of 
Tuscany,  but  on  condition  that  none  of  these  should  in  any  case 
become  part  of  the  Spanish  monarchy. 

Would  Spain,  under  a  guidance  which  wooed  Fortune  by  teme- 
rity, now  that  her  armada  was  at  sea  and  the  drift  of  her  audacious 
designs  becoming  manifest  to  the  world,  dare  to  proceed,  and  to  re- 
ject the  compromise  imposed  upon  her?  Or  would  these  designs, 
with  the  more  or  less  vague  hopes  of  support  with  which  they  were 
buoyed  up,  collapse  in  face  of  a  mandate  from  the  Powers  united  in 
the  Quadruple  Alliance?  To  decide  this  issue,  Stanhope  himself, 
immediately  after  the  signature  of  that  agreement,  betook  himself  to 
Madrid,  accompanied  by  Schaub.  In  one  hand,  he  brought  the  offer 
of  peace,  with  certain  concessions,  including  (though  with  what  ac- 
companying conditions,  seems  to  remain  unknown)  a  secret  proposal 
for  the  cession  of  Gibraltar2 — in  the  other,  war.  Alberoni  refused 
to  give  way,  even  when  (after  Stanhope's  departure)  the  startling 

1  One  of  these  was  St  Saphorin,  who  had  passed  from  the  Hanoverian  into  the 
British  service  and  was  British  Minister-resident  at  Vienna.    He  was  by  birth  a 
Swiss,  like  Sir  Luke  Schaub,  who,  after  varied  services,  became  Ambassador  at 
Paris  in  1721.  The  British  diplomatic  body,  never  more  notably  than  in  this  period, 
recruited  itself  by  the  admission  of  natives  of  other  countries. 

2  See  Lord  Stanhope,  vol.  I.  p.  310. 


72  INTRODUCTION 

news  had  arrived  of  the  destruction  of  all  the  Spanish  ships  by  the 
British  fleet  off  Cape  Passaro  on  the  Sicilian  coast  (August,  1718). 
But  the  die  had  been  cast.  Alberoni,  more  suo,  now  that  his  scheme 
of  anticipating  the  Italian  stipulations  of  the  Quadruple  Alliance  had 
failed,  and  that  it  had  been  joined  by  Savoy,  resorted  to  fresh  offen- 
sive plans.  In  France,  however,  the  discovery  of  the  Cellamare  plot 
against  the  Regent  put  an  end  to  any  elements  of  hesitation;  and 
when,  in  December,  1718,  the  Government  of  Great  Britain,  of 
which  Alberoni  was  planning  both  a  Spanish  and  Swedish  invasion, 
declared  war  against  Spain,  the  French  Government  speedily  fol- 
lowed suit  (January,  1719).  As  will  be  seen,  the  Cardinal  had  also 
in  mind  a  joint  attack  upon  Hanover  by  Sweden  and  Russia,  whose 
Governments  were  then  discussing  conditions  of  peace  in  the  Aland 
Islands.  The  Spanish  War — or  the  War  against  Alberoni — was  un- 
popular in  England,  except  for  the  losses  in  it  of  the  Spanish  navy; 
for  no  immediate  British  interests  were  involved  in  the  Emperor's 
desire  to  make  himself  master  of  Sicily. 

Before,  however,  it  began  its  course,  the  news  had  arrived  of  the 
death  of  Charles  XII  (December  nth,  1718);  and,  though  his  in- 
tentions had  remained  uncertain  to  the  last,  a  sudden  end  had  come 
to  the  designs  of  Gortz,  and  a  severe  blow  had  been  dealt  to  those 
of  Alberoni.  In  April,  1719,  the  Spanish  expedition  under  Ormond 
was  scattered  off  the  Irish  coast,  and,  in  the  same  month,  the  French 
began  their  invasion  of  Northern  Spain ,  seconded  by  a  British  raid  by 
sea.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Cardinal  was  encouraged  by  a  gleam  of 
success  which  had  attended  the  Spanish  arms  at  Franca  Villa  against 
the  Austrian  reinforcements  sent  to  Naples  (June),  to  hold  out  a 
little  longer.  The  persistency  of  the  British  and  French  Govern- 
ments, however,  prevailed.  In  December,  with  the  aid  of  a  series 
of  intrigues,  in  which  the  self-proffered  diplomacy  of  Peterborough 
made  itself  conspicuous,  the  Spanish  Prime-minister's  career  as  such, 
at  last  came  to  an  end.  Yet,  even  so,  the  tenacity  of  Philip  V — or, 
rather,  that  of  his  Consort — once  more  necessitated  the  personal 
intervention  of  Stanhope.  In  January,  1720,  he,  at  Paris,  joined  in 
a  declaration  on  behalf  of  Great  Britain,  France  and  the  Emperor, 
firmly  upholding  the  "system"  of  the  Quadruple  Alliance.  A  week 
later,  King  Philip  accepted  that  agreement,  subject  (secretly)  to  cer- 
tain points  left  over  for  the  decision  of  a  Congress,  to  be  held  at 
Cambray  in  1722.  The  Spanish  adhesion  to  the  Quadruple  Alliance 
was  followed  by  two  Treaties,  between  Spain  and  Great  Britain,  and 


TENSION  BETWEEN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  SWEDEN    73 

between  those  Powers  and  France  respectively  (1721),  intended,  with 
a  view  to  this  Congress,  as  a  sort  of  reinsurance  against  the  under- 
standing by  which  France  and  Spain,  distrustful  of  the  intentions 
of  the  Emperor,  had  thought  to  safeguard  themselves.  But  these 
Treaties  were  alike  concluded  after  Stanhope's  death.  The  political 
structure  which  he  had  raised  into  being  cannot,  in  itself,  be  described 
as  built  on  a  rock;  but  his  courage  and  resolution,  brought  home  alike 
to  foe  and  friend,  had  successfully  trodden  down  the  embers  which  the 
efforts  of  Spain  and  the  daring  enterprise  of  her  master-politician  had 
begun  to  rekindle  into  flame  in  Western  and  Southern  Europe. 

About  the  same  time ,  the  Northern  War ,  which ,  as  a  matter  of  course , 
had  considerably  affected  British  trade,  but  with  which  Hanoverian 
political  interests  had  latterly  become  inextricably  mixed  up,  had, 
at  last,  been  ended  by  the  Peace  of  Nystad  (1721).  Before  the  death 
of  Charles  XII  (December  nth,  1718),  while  the  effects  of  Gortz's 
now  patent  designs  had  not  yet  quite  died  out,  and  the  Swedish 
negotiations  with  Russia  in  the  Aland  Islands  were,  under  the  in- 
fluence of  these  projects,  still  pursuing  their  tortuous  course,  the  re- 
lations between  Sweden  and  Great  Britain  were  more  strained  than 
ever,  involving  most  of  the  discomfort,  with  much  of  the  cost,  of 
regular  warfare.  In  the  spring  of  this  year,  Norris  had  again  sailed 
into  the  Baltic,  ostensibly  in  order  to  redress  the  continued  grievances 
of  British  trade  and  navigation,  in  conjunction  with  the  Danes  (still 
at  war  with  Sweden),  and  with  the  less  certain  support  of  the  Dutch. 
He  had  instructions  to  present  himself  at  Petrograd,  where  he  might 
still  be  able  to  thwart  the  proposed  combination  between  Russia  and 
Sweden.  The  Tsar  Peter  had  never  swerved  from  his  purpose  of 
extending  his  dominions  along  the  Baltic.  To  this  end,  he  had  first 
joined  the  League  against  Charles  XII,  and  there  now  seemed  an 
opportunity  of  compassing  it  by  treaty.  But  the  Mecklenburg  trouble 
was  not  yet  over;  and  there  was  nothing  really  satisfactory  in  the 
assurances  of  the  Russian  Court.  Thus,  a  reconciliation  might,  not 
without  some  French  encouragement1,  have,  after  all,  taken  place 
between  Sweden  and  Russia,  which  would  have  furthered  neither 


1  The  Treaty  of  Amsterdam  of  the  previous  year  (1717)  was  the  work  of  the 
Regent's  Government,  anxious  to  play  the  part  of  Mediator ;  Great  Britain  had  no 
share  in  the  Treaty,  but  Russia's  proposed  Concert  against  Sweden  was  counter- 
acted by  the  effects  of  Prince  Eugene's  victory  at  Belgrade  and  Stanhope's  success 
in  bringing  about  the  Quadruple  Alliance;  and  Prussia,  whose  policy  was  more 
suspect  than  before  to  Great  Britain,  had,  for  the  moment,  to  fall  back  on  a  waiting 
game. 


74  INTRODUCTION 

British  nor  Hanoverian-Imperial  interests— but  for  the  catastrophe 
which  happened  near  the  end  of  the  year. 

The  death  of  Charles  XII  before  Frederikshald  (December  nth, 
1718)  was  one  of  those  catastrophes  which  bring  with  them  a  sense 
of  relief  to  half  the  world.  The  Swedish  Crown  descended  to  Charles's 
sister,  Ulrica  Eleanora,  to  the  disappointment  of  his  nephew,  Duke 
Charles  Frederick  of  Holstein-Gottorp  (afterwards  son-in-law  to  the 
Tsar  Peter) ;  but  its  diminished  authority  was  soon  made  over  to  her 
husband,  King  Frederick  I  (Prince  Frederick  of  Hesse- Cassel),  with 
whom  George  I  was  on  the  most  friendly  terms.  After  the  death  of 
Charles  XII,  Sweden  had  no  policy  left  but  one  of  peace.  Among 
the  many  claims  which  that  peace  would  have  to  meet,  Hanover's 
were  of  the  latest,  Denmark's  of  the  earliest,  date ;  Prussia  (intent  on 
the  acquisition  of  Stettin)  stood  firmly  by  her  Russian  ally. 

The  Emperor  Charles  VI,  whose  Congress  of  neutral  German 
Princes  had  sat  long  and  uselessly  at  Brunswick,  still  continued  as 
friendly  to  Hanover  as  he  was  adverse  to  Prussia.  In  this  sense  he  had, 
not  long  before  the  death  of  Charles  XII  became  known,  concluded 
with  Augustus  II  of  Poland  (Frederick  Augustus  I  of  Saxony)  and  the 
Elector  of  Hanover  (King  George  I)  an  agreement  for  the  defence  of 
their  German  territories.  The  Hanoverian  counsellors  of  King  George 
were  anxious  to  secure  the  support  of  the  British  fleet  in  the  execu- 
tion of  this  Treaty;  and  this  was  secured  by  a  diplomatic  ruse,  which, 
as  the  Treaty  never  came  to  be  carried  out,  only  threw  discredit  upon 
them  and  him1.  Since  the  French  Government  was  likewise  inclined 
to  favour  Swedish  rights  and  disregard  Prussian  claims  in  Germany, 
a  general  combination  adverse  to  Russia  and  Prussia  might  have  been 
formed,  which  would  have  prevented  the  Tsar  from  acquiring  the 
supreme  control  of  the  Baltic,  in  return  for  Sweden's  cession  of  all 
German  territories  belonging  to  her  by  Treaty.  But  George  I  and 
Bernstorff,  with  whose  policy  Stanhope's  was  in  partial  agreement, 
were  not  to  carry  through  their  scheme.  British  relations  with 
Prussia  became  friendlier,  and  the  policy  of  the  Tsar  in  the  end 
prevailed. 

Meanwhile,  the  efforts  of  British  diplomacy  at  Stockholm  had 

1  The  story  of  these  transactions  has,  for  the  first  time,  been  clearly  told  by 
W.  Michael  (vol.  11.  part  i.  pp.  461  ff.).  It  turns  on  the  omission,  in  the  copy  of 
the  Treaty  of  January  5th,  1719,  sent  for  ratification  to  London,  of  the  declaration 
binding  King  George  to  send  a  British  fleet  to  protect  Danzig  and  Elbing  in  case 
of  a  Prussian  attack.  The  daring  policy  was  the  King's ;  the  peccant  diplomatist  was 
St  Saphorin. 


CARTERET  AND  THE  SWEDISH  SETTLEMENT     75 

not  been  wanting  in  vigour.  A  leading  part  in  them  was  taken  by 
Lord  Carteret  in  June,  1719,  at  Stockholm,  where  he  was  actively 
assisted  in  the  Hanoverian  interest  by  the  Mecklenburger  Adolphus 
Frederick  von  Bassewitz.  Carteret  (afterwards  Earl  Granville  and 
Secretary  of  State)  was  a  statesman  of  extraordinary  ability  and  per- 
sonal charm,  and  had,  moreover,  gained  the  personal  confidence 
of  his  Sovereign  by  his  knowledge  of  the  German  tongue — an  ac- 
complishment then  unique  among  British  Ministers.  He  was,  also, 
supposed  to  exercise  a  potent  influence  over  the  counsels  of  the  Abbe 
Dubois  in  France.  But  at  the  root  of  his  successes  lay  his  self- trust; 
for  the  opinion  of  others  he  had  a  contempt  (by  no  means  only  in- 
spired by  burgundy)  which  easily  consoled  him  for  his  occasional 
failures. 

At  Stockholm,  Carteret,  with  Norris's  squadron  in  the  back- 
ground, lost  no  time  in  bringing  about,  with  the  assistance  of  his 
Hanoverian  colleague,  an  understanding  with  the  Swedish  Govern- 
ment, which,  in  the  form  of  a  Preliminary  Convention  (July,  1719), 
settled  the  matters  at  issue,  including  the  cession  of  Bremen  and 
Verden,  in  return  for  the  payment  of  a  million  crowns.  By  the  time 
when  the  ratifications  of  the  Treaty  which  carried  out  this  agree- 
ment in  a  modified  form,  and  provided  for  a  renewal  of  the  old 
friendship  and  Alliance,  were  exchanged  (February,  1720),  Carteret  at 
Stockholm  and  Sir  Charles  (afterwards  Lord)  Whitworth,  a  diplomatist 
of  notable  insight,  at  Berlin  had  succeeded  in  bringing  about  a  Treaty 
between  Sweden  and  Prussia,  by  which  on  payment  of  a  large  sum 
Stettin,  with  the  Pomeranian  region  between  Oder  and  Peene,  was  re- 
linquished by  Sweden  to  Prussia.  The  network  of  Treaties  was  now 
nearly  complete  and  the  anti- Swedish  League  had  been  all  but  trans- 
formed into  a  protective  combination  against  Russia.  Of  the  former, 
there  now  only  remained  its  earliest  member — Denmark.  In  this 
quarter,  the  efforts  of  British- Hanoverian  and  French  diplomacy  at 
last  (in  July,  1720)  prevailed  upon  King  Frederick  IV  (afraid  lest  the 
claims  of  the  Duke  of  Holstein-Gottorp  on  parts  of  Schleswig  should 
obtain  the  support  of  the  Tsar)  to  agree  on  terms  with  Sweden,  under 
a  British  and  French  guarantee  of  that  duchy1.  When,  in  this  year, 
Sir  John  Norris  arrived  with  instructions  to  notify  to  the  Russian 
Government  and  its  naval  and  military  commanders  Great  Britain's 

1  In  connexion  with  the  Schleswig-Holstein  question  of  later  times,  it  is  worth 
noting  that  this  (Frederiksborg)  guarantee  in  no  wise  affected  the  question  of  the 
Succession  to  the  whole  of  Schleswig. 


76  INTRODUCTION 

willingness  to  initiate  a  peace  with  Sweden,  but  in  any  case  to  con- 
cert operations  with  the  Swedish  fleet,  he  found  nothing  in  readiness 
at  Stockholm.  And,  though  there  was  a  strong  wish  that  Great 
Britain  should  exert  her  influence  with  the  other  Powers  to  bring 
about  a  Concert  in  opposition  to  Russia's  Baltic  policy,  it  proved 
impossible  in  face  of  the  Emperor's  non  possumus,  Prussia's  caution, 
the  religious  difficulties  in  Germany  which  placed  the  Lutheran 
Elector  of  Hanover  in  a  most  unwelcome  position  between  the  two 
chief  German  Powers,  and  the  uncertainty  of  the  policy  of  France. 
Probably,  the  decisive  element  in  the  resolution  ultimately  taken 
— to  abandon  the  naval  offensive  (August,  1719) — is  to  be  found  in 
considerations  which  could  only  be  usefully  discussed  in  a  Naval 
History.  But  a  great  political  opportunity  had  been  missed. 

Norris  sailed  home  again,  and  the  British  design  of  an  active 
intervention  in  the  settlement  of  the  North  had  come  to  naught. 
This  barren  result  of  a  long  episode  of  British  foreign  policy  was  not, 
however,  wholly  due  either  to  the  European  complexities  of  the  time, 
or  to  the  naval  difficulties  of  the  situation.  With  the  moment,  the 
spirit  needed  for  using  it  was  not  to  return.  The  end  of  1720,  in 
May  of  which  year  Norris  had  reappeared  in  the  Baltic,  dates  the 
Bursting  of  the  South  Sea  Bubble,  which,  in  more  ways  than  one, 
shook  the  stability  of  the  British  Cabinet.  In  the  midst  of  these 
troubles,  Stanhope  died  (February,  1721),  and,  in  April,  Walpole,  who 
had  rescued  the  country  from  the  consequences  of  the  crisis,  succeeded 
him  as  Head  of  the  Government.  Townshend,  from  whom  no  con- 
tinuation of  Stanhope's  actively  anti-Russian  policy  was  to  be  ex- 
pected, had, on  his  death,  been  appointed  to  his  Secretaryship  of  State. 

But  Sweden  had,  before  this,  ceased  to  reckon  any  longer  on  the 
direct  support  of  Great  Britain.  The  idea  of  a  British  League  with 
Prussia,  Denmark  and  Hesse-Cassel  on  behalf  of  Sweden  speedily 
collapsed,  and  the  Russian  ships  devastated  the  Swedish  coasts.  But, 
when  Norris  appeared  for  the  last  time  in  the  familiar  waters,  in 
April,  1721,  it  soon  came  to  be  understood  that  no  aid,  even  in  the 
form  of  further  subsidies,  was  to  be  expected  from  his  Government 
—at  all  events  for  the  present.  The  advice  of  Great  Britain  to 
Sweden  was  now  simply  cedere  malts.  In  the  following  month,  the 
Nystad  Peace  Conference  opened,  and  the  Tsar's  Plenipotentiary, 
RumyantsefF,  made  it  clear  that  if  his  Sovereign's  conditions  were 
accepted,  he  would  leave  the  Duke  of  Holstein-Gottorp's  pretensions 
to  the  Swedish  Throne  to  take  care  of  themselves.  In  the  Peace  of 


RUSSIAN  GAINS  AT  NYSTAD  77 

Nystad  (May),  the  Tsar  Peter  was  triumphant.  Livonia,  whose 
possession  implied  the  virtual  command  of  the  Baltic  trade1,  was, 
with  Esthonia  and  part  of  Carelia,  yielded  up  by  Sweden,  on  payment 
of  a  wholly  inadequate  money  compensation.  Finland  was  left  to 
her,  and  a  promise  given  that  Russia  would  not  interfere  in  her  home 
(dynastic)  affairs.  Great  Britain  was  not  mentioned  in  the  Treaty  as 
mediator,  guarantor  or  otherwise,  except  indirectly  as  an  Ally  of 
Sweden.  The  attempt  to  insert  a  clause  for  the  protection  of  the 
Lower- Saxon  Circle  (of  which  Bremen  and  Verden  formed  part)  had 
broken  down;  and  the  relations  between  the  British  and  Austrian 
Courts  and  Governments  had  become  so  uneasy,  that  BernstorfF, 
who  persistently  adhered  to  the  Emperor,  lost  his  credit  with  his 
own  Sovereign.  The  attempt  to  break  the  force  of  the  Peace  by  a 
quadruple  alliance  or  concert  between  the  Contracting  Powers 
(Russia  and  Sweden)  and  those  who  had  not  been  accepted  as 
Mediators  (Great  Britain  and  France),  of  course,  remained  a  phan- 
tasm. The  Tsar  Peter,  or  as  he  now  called  himself,  the  Emperor  of 
all  the  Russias,  was  master  of  a  dominion  comprising  some  of  the 
fairest  provinces  of  Sweden  and  clasping  Poland  in  its  deadly  em- 
brace; and  British  policy,  after  coming  into  conflict  with  Russian, 
for  the  first  time  in  the  hitherto  almost  wholly  secluded  action  of  the 
latter,  had  undergone  a  most  signal  rebuff,  which  estranged  the  two 
Powers  politically  for  the  better  part  of  a  generation2. 

This  signal  discomfiture  can,  at  least,  not  be  imputed  to  want 
either  of  prescience  or  of  activity.  One  of  its  causes  was,  no  doubt, 
the  coldness  between  the  British  and  the  Imperial  Courts,  due  in 
part  to  the  delays  in  the  investiture  of  the  Elector  with  Bremen  and 
Verden,  caused  in  its  turn  by  the  Emperor's  jealous  hesitation  as  to 
the  parallel  investiture  of  the  King  of  Prussia  with  Stettin,  and  in 
part  to  the  religious  disputes  in  the  Empire  mentioned  above.  So 
strangely  were  political  and  religious  difficulties  still  intertwined,  that 
the  blindness  to  its  own  future  interests  was  in  this  instance  on  the 
side  of  the  Empire.  As  for  Great  Britain,  the  Northern  policy  of 

1  Of  this  Riga,  more  and  more  distinctly,  became  the  centre ;  and  it  was  Livonia 
which  supplied  the  bulk  of  the  war  material  exported  from  the  Baltic  to  Great 
Britain. 

2  In  1742,  during  the  Russo-Swedish  War  which  ended  with  the  Peace  of  Abo 
and  the  humiliation  of  Sweden,  Great  Britain  concluded  with  Russia  the  Treaty 
of  Moscow.  This  was  the  period  of  the  ascendancy  of  Carteret  and  the  so-called 
"Drunken  Administration."     Commercially,  it  may  be  noticed,  the  Baltic  had 
become  of  less  importance  to  Great  Britain  in  the  matter  of  naval  materials,  after 
these  had  begun  to  be  imported  in  increasing  quantities  from  America. 


78  INTRODUCTION 

George  I  and  Stanhope,  as  it  may  be  described  without  injustice 
being  done  to  either,  had  failed,  though  not  more  conspicuously  so 
than  that  of  France.  It  would  be  futile  to  conjecture  what  use 
Cromwell,  with  the  support  of  English  Protestant  feeling,  would 
have  made  of  the  situation,  the  commercial  aspects  of  which  can 
hardly  be  said  to  be  quite  free  from  obscurity.  In  any  case,  the 
Emperor  had  not  been  induced  by  the  authors  of  the  Quadruple 
Alliance  to  play  an  effective  part  in  it;  but,  though  the  Alliance 
had  in  so  far  proved  a  failure,  the  cause  of  its  breakdown  is  not, 
in  this  case,  to  be  sought  in  Hanoverian  motives,  which  no  longer 
dominated,  though  they  had  not  ceased  to  influence,  British  foreign 
policy. 

After  Stanhope's  death,  the  conduct  of  British  affairs  inevitably 
passed  into  the  hands  of  Walpole  and  Townshend,  the  former  having, 
as  was  seen,  been  appointed  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  and  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer,  and  the  latter  one  of  the  Secretaries  of  State. 
Walpole,  whose  thoughts  were  as  entirely  English  as  his  ways,  and 
who  made  no  secret  either  of  his  personal  dislike  of  the  King's 
Hanoverian  counsellors,  or  of  his  distrust  of  the  House  of  Austria, 
could  not  pretend  to  any  diplomatic  training  and  at  first  affected  an 
indifference  to  foreign  policy,  in  the  narrower  sense  of  the  word. 
Townshend's  experience  was  therefore  indispensable  to  him,  and 
they  were  at  one  in  resisting  the  self-assertion  of  Carteret,  who  was  ap- 
pointed to  the  other  (Southern)  Secretaryship,  on  the  death,  hastened 
no  doubt  by  his  being  implicated  in  the  South  Sea  disaster,  of  the 
younger  Craggs.  For  a  time,  the  influence  of  Carteret  over  the  King 
seemed  paramount;  but,  before  long  (April,  1724),  a  dispute  between 
him  and  Townshend  (at  Hanover1)  brought  about  the  transfer  of  the 
Southern  Secretary  to  the  Lord  Lieutenancy  of  Ireland.  Carteret 's 
successor,  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  was  an  adherent  of  the  policy  of 
Walpole,  or  at  least  preferred  to  support  him  as  the  leader  of  the 
most  powerful  party  in  Parliament. 

Walpole  had,  however,  not  yet  taken  to  himself  the  chief  direction 
of  the  foreign  policy  of  Great  Britain,  when  his  Government  was  called 
upon  to  intervene  in  European  affairs,  which  seemed  to  be  experien- 
cing a  strange  metamorphosis.  Early  in  1720,  on  acceding  to  the  Quad- 
ruple Alliance,  Philip  V  of  Spain  had  left  over  some  of  the  perplexities 

1  The  intrigue  to  which  it  had  reference,  and  which  involved  both  the  French 
Court  and  the  Hanoverian  clique,  led  to  the  substitution  at  Paris  of  Horace  Walpole 
the  elder  for  Sir  Luke  Schaub. 


AUSTRO-SPANISH  UNDERSTANDING  79 

confronting  him  (including  the  perennial  question  of  Gibraltar)  to  be 
settled  by  the  Congress  of  Cambray,  which  however  did  not  actually 
meet  till  four  years  later,  and,  largely  because  of  the  matters  here 
noted,  broke  up  without  result.  Marriage  contracts  had  been  ar- 
ranged between  the  heir  to  the  Spanish  Throne  and  his  brother 
Charles  and  two  daughters  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  and  the  Infanta 
Maria  Anna  had,  at  a  very  early  age,  been  betrothed  to  the  young 
King  Lewis  XV  of  France.  But  the  ex- Regent  had  died,  and  had  been 
succeeded  in  the  control  of  French  affairs  by  the  Duke  of  Bourbon- 
Conde,  his  deadly  enemy.  A  few  months  later  (March,  1725)  the 
Duke  of  Bourbon,  by  sending  back  the  Infanta,  offered  an  unpardon- 
able insult  to  Spanish  pride.  When  it  was  found  that  the  British 
Government  would  not  abandon  the  French  Alliance,  the  Congress  of 
Cambray  was  broken  up  by  the  Spanish  Court,  and  Ripperda,  the  chief 
instrument  of  its  policy,  set  to  work  for  the  conclusion  of  a  league 
with  the  Emperor  against  the  original  members  of  the  Triple  Alliance, 
while  waiving  all  the  points  that  had  remained  in  dispute  between 
the  Spanish  and  Imperial  Governments. 

Not  only  had  the  Emperor  Charles  VI  been  with  great  difficulty 
induced  by  Great  Britain  to  join  in  the  Quadruple  Alliance,  seeming 
thus  to  shut  the  door  against  any  future  revision  of  the  Utrecht 
Settlement;  but  he  had  come  very  near  to  a  quarrel  with  Great 
Britain  herself  and  the  United  Provinces,  on  account  of  his  project 
for  the  development  of  the  commerce  of  the  Austrian  Netherlands 
by  the  establishment  of  an  East  India  Company  at  Ostend.  More- 
over— and  this  was  doubtless  the  main  motive  of  his  present  line  of 
action — he  was  most  anxious  to  take  advantage  of  the  present  isola- 
tion of  Spain  by  obtaining  from  her  a  guarantee  of  the  Pragmatic 
Sanction  of  his  daughter  Maria  Theresa's  succession  in  all  his 
dominions.  The  ambition  of  the  Spanish  Prime-minister,  the  newly 
created  Duke  of  Ripperda — an  Alberoni  of  a  very  inferior  type — 
met  the  Emperor's  cherished  desire  halfway;  and,  by  April,  1725, 
the  two  Governments  had  come  to  an  understanding  which  found 
expression  in  an  open  and  a  secret  Treaty  signed  at  Vienna.  In  the 
former,  which,  while  accepting  the  conditions  of  the  Quadruple 
Alliance  and  a  Spanish  guarantee  of  the  Pragmatic  Sanction,  also 
contained  an  Imperial  promise  of  good  offices  for  the  recovery  of 
Gibraltar  and  Minorca  by  Spain,  there  was  nothing  directly  pro- 
vocative to  Great  Britain;  but  the  secret  Treaty  was,  besides  pro- 
mising armed  assistance  for  their  recovery  and  continued  action  on 


8o  INTRODUCTION 

behalf  of  the  Stewart  Pretender,  understood  to  provide  for  the 
cementing  of  what  was  thus  converted  into  an  offensive  Alliance, 
by  arranging  for  the  marriage  of  the  Infante  Don  Carlos  and  his 
brother  with  two  Austrian  Archduchesses.  It  was  further  hoped 
that  the  Tsarina  Catharine,  who  had  in  this  year  succeeded  Peter  I, 
and  who  had  inherited  his  hatred  of  the  British  Government,  would 
join  in  the  Alliance.  Alberoni's  network  was  being  patched  up  again, 
though  by  a  far  less  able  hand;  and  once  more  England  was  rilled 
with  alarm.  Again,  British  interests,  political  and  commercial,  co- 
incided with  the  security  of  the  Hanoverian  dynasty,  and  prompt 
intervention  seemed  imperative. 

Thus  the  Alliance  of  Hanover,  signed  in  September  at  Herren- 
hausen,  though  negotiated  at  the  Hague,  was  a  necessary  and 
essentially  defensive  reply  to  the  Alliance  of  Vienna;  nor,  though 
Parliament  was  not  sitting  at  the  time,  could  it  be  asserted,  except  by 
party  spite,  that  this  important  transaction  was  under  the  control  of 
Hanoverian  influence;  indeed,  the  King  looked  upon  it  as  dangerous. 
The  main  credit  of  it  was  due  to  the  courage  of  Townshend ;  France 
and  Prussia  were  partners  in  the  Treaty,  though  the  accession  of 
the  latter  (who  in  the  same  year  concluded  the  wellknown  Treaty  of 
Wusterhausen)  was  secured  with  some  difficulty  and  contained  a 
reservation  of  Prussia's  relations  with  Russia,  who,  in  her  turn,  soon 
joined  the  Austro- Spanish  Alliance.  The  United  Provinces,  after 
vainly  attempting  to  secure  by  negotiation  a  stoppage  of  the  Ostend 
Company,  also  acceded  to  the  Austrian  Alliance. 

A  European  war  seemed,  in  the  circumstances,  inevitable;  and, 
in  accordance  with  the  obligations  undertaken  in  the  event  of  a 
declaration  of  war  by  the  Emperor  against  France,  the  British 
Government  concluded  a  Subsidy  Treaty  with  Hesse- Cassel.  The 
Spanish  Government  began  preparations  for  the  siege  of  Gibraltar; 
but,  in  the  meantime,  there  had  been  signs  of  a  change  in  the  general 
aspect  of  things  in  Europe.  In  1726  Ripperda  had  been  dismissed 
in  disgrace,  and  in  the  same  year  Cardinal  Fleury  became  Prime- 
minister  in  France,  whose  ascendancy  in  conjunction  with  that  of 
Walpole  brought  peace  in  its  train.  The  death  of  Catharine  I,  who 
had  so  faithfully  adhered  to  her  great  Consort's  principles  of  rule, 
followed  in  1727. 

Thus  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  Emperor  Charles  should  have 
given  way  to  the  new  current,  and  have  agreed  to  the  signing  of 
Preliminaries  of  Peace  with  Great  Britain,  France  and  the  United 


CONSISTENCY  OF  GEORGE  I's  FOREIGN  POLICY      81 

Provinces  at  Paris  (May  3ist,  1727).  While  all  Treaties  concluded 
before  1725  were  confirmed,  any  particular  questions  for  discussion 
were  referred  to  a  General  Congress ;  but — and  the  exception  shows,  so 
far  as  Great  Britain  is  concerned,  what  lay  at  the  root  of  the  so-called 
Alliance  of  Hanover — the  charter  of  the  Ostend  East  India  Company 
was  suspended  for  seven  years.  Spain  still  held  aloof,  but  her 
acceptance  of  the  Preliminaries  must  sooner  or  later  follow.  Little 
more  than  a  week  after  the  signing  of  these  Preliminaries,  King 
George  I  died  on  his  return  journey  from  Hanover.  The  foreign 
policy  of  his  reign  was,  at  the  moment,  in  a  critical  phase,  but  not 
in  one  foreboding  the  collapse  of  the  principles  it  had  followed,  and 
the  interests  it  had  served  with,  on  the  whole,  indisputable  con- 
sistency. After  the  conclusion  of  the  War  of  the  Spanish  Succession, 
Great  Britain  could  not  renounce  the  leading  part  she  was  called  upon 
to  play  in  general  European  politics.  The  Triple  and  the  Quadruple 
Alliance  made  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  a  reality,  and  the  ambition  of 
Spain,  not  once  but  twice,  both  when  opposed  to  and  when  tem- 
porarily reconciled  with  the  dynastic  purposes  of  the  House  of 
Austria,  broke  down  in  face  of  the  Alliance  between  Great  Britain 
and  France.  The  Alliance  had  not  sunk  very  deeply  into  the  soil ;  but 
it  seemed  more  likely  than  before  to  hold  out,  as,  in  its  general 
tendency,  the  conduct  of  affairs  in  both  countries,  united  in  resist- 
ance to  a  disturbance  of  the  existing  settlement,  became  more  clearly 
pacific.  In  the  North,  new  relations  between  the  Baltic  Powers,  of 
which  Great  Britain  had  in  vain  resisted  the  establishment,  had  taken 
the  place  of  the  old ;  but  towards  the  problems  certain  to  arise  from 
these  and  other  more  nearly  imminent  changes,  the  attitude  of  Great 
Britain  could  not  yet  be  determined. 

The  first  decade,  roughly  speaking,  of  the  reign  of  George  II 
(1727-37)  is  the  period  in  which  Walpole,  the  friend  of  peace, 
remained,  virtually,  undisturbed  in  his  Ministerial  sway.  While  the 
country  at  large  saw  in  him  its  ablest  financier,  who  had  rescued  it 
from  the  South  Sea  debacle,  his  action  in  the  Spanish-Austrian  crisis 
of  1726-7,  although  he  was  inclined  to  blame  Townshend  for  pre- 
cipitancy, had  materially  contributed  to  check  the  policy  of  Spain, 
which  had  already  begun  to  lay  siege  to  Gibraltar.  For,  without  Walpole, 
Parliament,  when  it  met  in  January,  1727,  would  not  have  shown,  by 
voting  supplies,  that  the  nation  was  prepared.  Peace  had  been  thus 
preserved,  though  the  eleventh  hour  might  seem  to  have  passed;  the 
Emperor  had  drawn  back;  and  the  Spanish  question  had  been 

w.  &G.I.  6 


82  INTRODUCTION 

reduced  to  that  of  the  time  needed  for  soothing  Spain's  ruffled 
pride,  and  reconciling  her  to  the  Concert. 

The  European  position  of  Great  Britain  in  these  years  was  greatly 
strengthened  by  the  cordial  relations  between  her  own  and  the  French 
Government.  Walpole's  brother,  the  elder  Horace,  at  that  time 
British  Ambassador  in  France,  had,  in  ready  deference  to  Fleury's  wish, 
crossed  the  Channel  to  second  Queen  Caroline  in  impressing  upon 
George  II  the  necessity  of  keeping  the  Minister  in  power.  This  was 
done,  though  no  serious  danger  would  probably  have,  at  least  for 
the  present,  threatened  the  security  of  the  Hanoverian  dynasty,  or 
that  of  the  British  interests  bound  up  with  it,  had  the  King  followed 
his  first  inclinations.  The  Jacobites  were,  as  usual,  quite  alive  to  the 
chances  of  the  situation,  but  really  unprepared  to  take  advantage  of 
them,  should  an  opportunity  present  itself.  The  Pretender  hurried 
from  Bologna  to  Nancy,  whence  he  was  formally  expelled  by  the 
French  Government,  and  had  to  take  refuge  at  Avignon,  and  then 
at  Rome.  The  Jacobite  faction  in  the  new  Parliament  (1728)  was 
impotent  for  action,  and,  when  the  arch-intriguer  Bolingbroke  ap- 
peared on  the  scene,  it  was  in  the  character  of  an  independent 
supporter  of  the  Hanoverian  Throne,  merely  desirous  that  it  should 
change  its  counsellors. 

Meanwhile,  the  pacification  of  Europe  which  had  seemed  so  near 
at  the  time  of  the  death  of  George  I  had  been,  though  but  slowly, 
accomplished.  The  mock  siege  of  Gibraltar  was  reluctantly  given  up ; 
nor  was  the  conduct  of  the  Emperor,  bound  as  he  was  by  his  Treaty 
with  Prussia,  altogether  loyal.  It  was  only  by  very  vigorous  proceed- 
ings on  the  part  of  the  British  Government  (which  by  means  of  the 
subsidy  Treaty  of  Wolfenbiittel  with  Brunswick  kept  that  duchy 
open  for  occupation  by  British  troops)  that  he  was  made  tc  under- 
stand the  seriousness  of  the  situation,  and  that  Spain  was  obliged  to 
relinquish  her  hope  of  a  resumption  of  the  Austro- Spanish  Alliance. 
Philip  V  signified  his  acceptance  of  the  Preliminaries  of  Paris  in  the 
Act  of  the  Pardo  (March,  1728),  in  which  an  ulterior  settlement  was 
referred  to  a  Congress  of  the  Powers. 

In  this  Congress,  originally  summoned  to  Aix-la-Chapelle,  and 
thence  transferred  in  the  following  June  to  Soissons,  where  it  sat  for 
several  months,  Great  Britain's  first  Plenipotentiary  was  Colonel 
William  Stanhope  (subsequently  Earl  of  Harrington,  and  after  the 
dissolution  of  the  Congress  one  of  the  Secretaries  of  State).  The 
main  question  for  settlement  here  was  the  satisfaction  of  Spain ;  for 


THE  "SECOND"  TREATY  OF  VIENNA  83 

the  Emperor,  intent  upon  using  the  opportunity  for  as  general  as 
possible  a  recognition  of  the  Pragmatic  Sanction,  had  given  up  both 
his  resistance  to  the  establishment  of  a  Spanish  Prince  in  the  North- 
Italian  duchies,  and  the  maintenance  of  the  Ostend  Company.  But 
it  was  the  Pragmatic  Sanction  which  Fleury,  in  accordance  with  the 
traditions  of  French  policy,  steadily  declined  to  recognise,  and  which 
the  Congress  left  where  it  found  it.  The  Spanish  Government,  here- 
upon, after  in  vain  seeking  to  exact  the  cession  of  Gibraltar  which 
British  public  opinion  showed  itself  determined  to  resist,  passed  over 
to  the  other  side,  and  concluded,  with  Great  Britain  and  France,  the 
Treaty  of  Seville,  the  United  Provinces,  as  was  their  custom,  acceding 
later.  This  Treaty  (November,  1730)  which  patched  up  the  trade 
relations  in  America  between  Spain  and  Great  Britain,  but  passed 
over  the  subject  of  Gibraltar  in  silence,  was  Townshend's  last  achieve- 
ment. It  was  much  approved  in  the  City,  whose  interests  had  been 
jeopardised  by  the  previous  attempt  of  the  Spanish  Government  to 
transfer  to  Austria  the  concessions  enjoyed  (since  Utrecht)  by  British 
trade ;  and  gratified  the  Court,  annoyed  by  the  recent  Austrian  rap- 
prochement to  Prussia  (for  securing  whose  friendship  Queen  Caroline 
had  already  formed  projects  of  her  own).  While,  however,  the  Em- 
peror seemed  the  loser,  he  contrived  to  possess  himself  of  the  Italian 
duchies  which  the  Treaty  had  intended  to  secure  to  Spain;  where- 
upon it  was  denounced  by  the  Spanish  Government  itself.  The 
British  now  once  more  returned  to  the  Imperial  alliance,  and,  in  the 
so-called  Second  Treaty  of  Vienna  (March,  1731)  guaranteed  the 
Pragmatic  Sanction,  the  Emperor  in  return  abolishing  the  Ostend 
Company.  When  he  further  agreed  to  the  succession  of  Don  Carlos 
in  the  Italian  duchies,  Philip  V  of  Spain,  for  his  part,  also  acceded  to 
the  Treaty  (July,  1731).  Since  it,  also,  received  the  adhesion  of  the 
Estates  of  the  Empire  and  finally  of  the  States- General  (1732)  a 
general  Concert  seemed  to  have  been  reached.  In  promoting  this 
settlement,  the  conciliatory  diplomacy  of  Earl  Waldegrave,  now 
British  Ambassador  at  Paris,  fully  carried  out  Walpole's  pacific 
policy.  At  the  same  time,  Droysen,  not  without  reason,  regards  the 
transaction  as  illustrating  the  "parliamentary"  style  of  foreign  policy 
characteristic  of  Walpole — a  policy  which  provides  for  the  day  and  the 
morrow,  and  leaves  the  day  after  to  take  care  of  itself.  While  by  this 
Treaty  the  real  gainer  was  the  Emperor  (as  his  concessions  in  return 
suffice  to  show),  it  was  concluded  without  the  assent  of  France;  and, 
at  a  time  when  the  relations  between  her  and  her  Ally  were  by  no 

6—2 


84  INTRODUCTION 

means  altogether  as  easy  as  Fleury  desired  them  to  be,  Great  Britain 
had,  in  order  that  Europe  should  obtain  peace  for  the  present,  yielded 
to  the  wishes  of  the  House  of  Austria  in  a  matter  of  vital  importance 
for  the  European  Balance  in  the  future.  France  had  taken  no  part  in 
the  Treaty.  On  the  other  side,  it  must  be  added  that  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  Provinces  were  afterwards  accused  of  having  failed 
to  carry  out  the  commercial  concessions  they  had  made  to  the  Austrian 
Netherlands  in  return  for  the  abandonment  of  the  Ostend  Company. 
With  regard  to  the  future,  France,  though  under  the  genuinely  pacific 
and  conciliatory  guidance  of  Fleury,  had  always  been  impatient  of 
pacific  Ministers,  and  to  a  generation  not  yet  oblivious  of  the  glories 
of  Lewis  XIV — even  to  Fleury  himself — a  realisation  of  the  Pragmatic 
Sanction  was  intolerable.  Thus,  the  disagreement  on  this  head 
between  France  and  Great  Britain  inevitably  tended  to  bring  about 
closer  relations  between  the  former  Power  and  Spain,  and  to  pro- 
mote the  signing,  so  early  as  November,  1733,  of  the  First  Bourbon 
"Family  Compact."  On  the  other  hand,  the  renewed  good  under- 
standing between  Great  Britain  and  the  Emperor  could,  in  the  end, 
hardly  fail  to  involve  this  country  in  the  conflict  between  Austria 
and  Prussia,  which,  although  they  had  in  1729  concluded  a  Perpetual 
Alliance,  could  no  longer  be  far  distant.  But,  for  the  present,  all 
seemed  to  promise  well ;  and  Walpole's  method  of  advancing  national 
prosperity  by  assuring  the  continuance  of  peace,  and  leaving  over 
remoter  difficulties,  commended  itself  to  public  opinion.  Great 
Britain  required  peace  after  the  long  strain  of  the  active  foreign  policy 
of  the  first  Hanoverian  reign ;  nor  is  it  easy  to  see  how,  without  the 
material  resources  accumulated  by  her  during  the  Walpolean  age,  she 
could  have  taken  upon  her  the  mighty  responsibilities  awaiting  her. 
Thus,  we  have  reached  a  chapter  of  modern  history  marked  by 
a  European  War  in  which  Great  Britain  took  no  part.  Notwith- 
standing the  efforts  of  the  Emperor  to  draw  her  (and  the  United 
Provinces)  into  the  War  of  the  Polish  Succession  (1733-8),  she  had 
contented  herself  with  offering  her  mediation,  after  (in  November, 
J733)  the  Government  of  Lewis  XV  had  agreed  to  a  Convention  at 
the  Hague,  by  which  it  undertook  to  refrain  from  invading  the 
Austrian  Netherlands.  The  War  and  the  so-called  Third  Treaty  of 
Vienna,  which  in  1738  definitively  terminated  it,  exhibit  the  most 
turbid  depths  of  eighteenth  century  diplomacy ;  and  it  was  only  with 
the  utmost  difficulty  that  Walpole  had  succeeded  in  restraining  King 
George  IFs  dynastic  and  military  aspirations  from  casting  a  line  into 


BOURBON  FAMILY  COMPACT  AND  GREAT  BRITAIN   85 

waters  so  troubled.  Nor  is  it  astonishing  that  the  Courts  of 
France  and  Spain  which — the  latter  on  acknowledging  the  Pragmatic 
Sanction — had  been  the  territorial  gainers  in  the  issue,  should  have 
cherished  the  thought,  developed  in  them  by  the  course  of  the  War, 
of  turning  their  united  strength  against  the  Power  whose  neutrality 
had  favoured  an  unprecedented  growth  of  its  commercial  prosperity. 
They  could  not  do  so  in  secrecy ;  for,  as  Seeley  has  pointed  out,  the 
Bourbon  Family  Compact  of  November,  1733,  which  showed  that 
France  was  weary  of  a  policy  of  peace,  was  known  from  the  first  to 
Walpole,  whose  own  policy  had  seemed  to  be  an  element  in  its 
prospects  of  success.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  purpose  of  this 
Compact,  besides  aiding  in  securing  the  position  of  Don  Carlos  in 
Italy,  was  to  resist  the  advances  of  Great  Britain  by  sea,  and,  while 
making  joint  war  upon  the  Emperor,  to  keep  Great  Britain  in  check 
by  naval  armaments.  At  all  events,  the  promise  of  French  aid  in  the 
efforts  of  Spain  to  recover  Gibraltar  was  included  in  the  agreement. 
For  the  rest,  the  encroachments  of  British  maritime  trade  offered  a 
constant  opportunity  for  Spanish  grievances ;  though  it  might  better 
suit  Walpole 's  parliamentary  adversaries  to  find  effective  opportunities 
of  attacking  him  in  the  Spanish  treatment  of  British  traders — oppor- 
tunities of  which,  in  1738,  they  availed  themselves  with  relentless 
factiousness.  If  Walpole  has  been  justly  charged  with  moulding  his 
foreign  policy  too  closely  upon  the  necessity  of  satisfying  Parliament, 
it  must  be  remembered  that  a  bitter  personal  hostility  to  himself  was 
the  guiding  motive  of  the  whole  Opposition  against  which  he  had 
long  stood  at  bay.  Carteret,  after  he  had  been  replaced  in  his  Secre- 
taryship by  Newcastle,  had  returned  to  the  Parliamentary  arena  in 
1730,  and,  an  attempt  at  reconciliation  with  Walpole  having  failed, 
he,  with  the  often  invaluable  aid  of  Chesterfield  in  the  House  of 
Lords,  and  that  of  Pulteney  in  the  Commons,  divided  the  conduct 
of  the  Opposition  between  them.  The  Jacobites  under  Wyndham, 
and  the  Boy  Patriots  clustered  round  Bolingbroke  (William  Pitt, 
from  1735,  among  them),  treated  foreign  affairs  as  they  treated 
domestic,  from  the  same  point  of  view — the  baiting  of  Walpole.  In 
the  face  of  such  an  Opposition,  no  harder  task  ever  fell  to  the  lot  of 
a  British  Minister.  To  his  honour,  Walpole  was  animated  by  a  sincere 
desire  for  peace ;  though  the  spirit  of  the  nation  had  been  effectually 
roused  against  Spain,  while  the  Spanish  Court,  with  the  Family 
Compact  to  fall  back  upon,  was  never  indisposed  to  war.  In  the  nego- 
tiations which  occupied  the  autumn  and  winter  of  1738,  Spain  showed 


86  INTRODUCTION 

herself  willing  to  give  satisfaction  for  past  transgressions,  but  not 
prepared  to  relinquish  the  right  of  search ;  "  No  Search  "  had  become 
the  demand  of  the  British  mercantile  interest,  and,  owing  to  the  per- 
sistence of  the  Opposition,  the  cry  of  British  public  opinion1. 

Quite  early  in  1739,  a  Convention  was  signed  at  the  Pardo  by 
the  Spanish  Minister  de  la  Quadra  and  Sir  Benjamin  Keene,  a 
diplomatist  who  represented  Great  Britain  at  Madrid  with  much 
ability  both  before  and  after  the  War2  which  broke  out  later  in  this 
year.  This  preliminary  agreement  stipulated  that,  before  the  execu- 
tion of  the  final  Treaty,  Spain  should  pay  to  Great  Britain  the  amount 
by  which  the  British  claims  exceeded  the  Spanish  counter-claims. 
Into  the  accompanying  reservations  and  protests  it  is  the  less  requisite 
to  enter  here,  since  public  opinion  in  England,  led  by  the  Opposition, 
would  in  no  case  have  been  satisfied  with  the  Convention,  which 
Walpole,  in  one  of  his  Pyrrhic  victories,  only  carried  by  small 
majorities  (March,  1739).  The  Opposition  hereupon  seceded,  thus 
enabling  the  Government  to  carry  a  Danish  Subsidy  Bill.  Whether 
the  object  of  this  measure  was  to  patch  up  a  Hanoverian  quarrel  or 
to  prevent  a  Danish  alliance  with  Sweden  and  France  and  thus  leave 
Great  Britain  without  an  ally  in  the  imminent  War,  the  incident  at 
all  events  illustrated  the  inconvenience  of  mingling  questions  of 
foreign  policy  with  party  manoeuvres.  Before  long,  it  became  evident 
that,  though  the  Opposition  was  unable  to  oust  Walpole  from  office  by 
their  onslaughts,  they  had  created  a  situation  involving  the  country 
in  the  War  to  the  avoidance  of  which  his  policy  had,  above  all,  been 
directed.  When  the  Spanish  Government  declared  that  negotiations 
could  proceed  on  no  other  basis  than  one  repudiated  by  British 
public  opinion,  and  that,  till  a  particular  Spanish  demand  (the  claim  on 
the  South  Sea  Company)  had  been  satisfied,  Spain  would  suspend 
the  Asiento,  the  chances  of  peace  had  been  reduced  to  nothing.  The 
usual  votes  followed  in  Supply ;  but  Carteret's  advice  to  conclude  an 
alliance  with  Prussia  was  not  followed.  Keene 's  ultimatum  was 
declined  by  Spain,  and  war  was  declared  (November,  1739).  France 
protested  her  pacific  intentions,  but  began  to  arm. 

The  outbreak  of  the  War  found  Great  Britain  without  an  ally 
(except  Denmark).  The  Emperor  Charles  VI  was  sick  to  death.  He 
had  consented  to  the  humiliating  Peace  of  Belgrade,  and  was  not  to 

Pitt  was,  in  course  of  time,  to  come  to  see  the  Spanish  side  of  the  argument. 

He  was  also  commissioned  at  Madrid  as  South  Sea  Agent.  It  was  Keene, 
who,  in  1757,  reluctantly  obeyed  Pitt's  instructions  to  offer  Spain  the  restoration 
of  Gibraltar,  if  she  would  join  Great  Britain  against  France. 


GREAT  BRITAIN  IN  THE  AUSTRIAN  SUCCESSION  WAR  87 

be  tempted  by  British  suggestions  as  to  the  recovery  of  Naples  and 
Sicily;  the  United  Provinces,  this  time,  stood  altogether  aloof; 
Frederick  William  I  (whose  death,  like  the  Emperor's,  followed  in 
1740)  would  give  no  encouragement  to  British  overtures,  being, 
above  all,  anxious  to  preserve  the  goodwill  of  France.  As  for  France, 
she  would  no  doubt  join  Spain  in  the  War  at  the  moment  most  con- 
venient to  herself;  and,  though  it  began  with  Admiral  Vernon's  naval 
exploit  (celebrated  at  home  as  a  party  triumph),  this  was  not  success- 
fully followed  up,  and  Anson's  brilliant  circuit  had  no  influence  on 
the  course  of  the  War:  the  conflict  between  two  European  Great 
Powers  could  not  be  decided  in  the  Pacific.  Thus  the  spirit  of  the 
Opposition  was  by  no  means  quelled.  In  1741,  what  Lord  Stanhope 
hardly  exaggerates  in  calling  the  "cry  for  the  blood  of  Walpole" 
went  up  louder  than  ever.  He  successfully  resisted  a  drastic  censure 
on  his  entire  foreign  policy  moved  in  the  Lords  by  Carteret  and  in 
the  Commons  by  Samuel  (afterwards  Lord)  Sandys ;  but,  immediately 
before  the  dissolution  of  Parliament,  he  had  felt  obliged  to  follow 
public  opinion,  with  which  part  of  the  Opposition  identified  itself, 
in  carrying  the  grant  of  a  subsidy  to  the  Queen  of  Hungary  (April). 
By  this  grant,  Great  Britain  became  a  participant  in  the  War  of 
the  Austrian  Succession,  for  which  Frederick  II's  invasion  of  Silesia 
in  December,  1740,  gave  the  signal,  and  which  was  destined  to 
dominate  the  next  epoch  of  European  politics.  Although  Carteret, 
a  consistent  friend  of  the  House  of  Austria,  hoped  from  the  first  that 
Maria  Theresa  would  come  to  terms  with  her  determined  assailant, 
the  subsidy  granted  sufficed  to  make  her  believe  that  Great  Britain 
would  support  her  to  the  end ;  and  Walpole's  plans  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  peace  fell  to  the  ground.  Thus,  the  battle  of  Chotusitz  (1742), 
which  ended  the  First  Silesian  War,  lost  two  provinces  to  her,  and, 
while  the  Alliance  of  Great  Britain  had  only  helped  her  to  conclude 
a  humiliating  peace,  the  result  had  still  further  increased  the 
unpopularity  of  Walpole  at  home.  Upon  him  too  fell  a  share  of  the 
indignation  aroused  by  the  Treaty  by  which,  in  September,  1741, 
the  Elector  of  Hanover  agreed  to  remain  neutral  in  the  War,  and  even 
to  abstain  from  voting  for  Maria  Theresa's  Consort  in  the  approach- 
ing election  to  the  Imperial  Throne.  The  Prime-minister's  position 
had  become  untenable1,  as  was  shown  by  Newcastle's  averted 

1  His  desperate,  or  at  least  paradoxical,  notions  of  recovering  popularity  by 
a  separation  of  Hanover  from  Great  Britain  on  the  King's  death,  and  of  obtaining 
Jacobite  support  by  overtures  to  the  Pretender,  had,  practically,  no  connexion  with 
his  foreign  policy. 


88  INTRODUCTION 

attitude;  and  though  his  was  not  the  last  instance  of  a  peace  Minister 
drifting  into  war,  Walpole's  sagacity  failed  him  more  signally  in 
1741  if  less  ignobly,  than  it  had  in  1739.  Carteret,  as  Secretary  of 
State,  guided  the  foreign  policy  of  the  new  Administration;  but  it 
was  only  at  sea  (by  forcing  Don  Carlos  at  Naples  to  remain  neutral) 
that  Great  Britain  interfered  effectively  in  the  European  conflict. 

The  Peace  of  Breslau  (June,  1742),  in  which  both  Russia  and 
Great  Britain  were  included  (the  former  continuing  for  the  present 
to  hold  aloof  from  the  struggle),  was  "  mediated  "  by  Lord  Hyndford, 
,as  representing  Great  Britain.  Although  in  truth  there  was  little  to 
effect  by  mediation,  the  friendly  spirit  of  Carteret 's  policy  had  found 
occasion  for  manifesting  itself;  and,  in  the  same  year,  an  enlarged 
subsidy  and  a  large  vote  in  Supply  testified  to  the  nation's  warlike 
enthusiasm,  though  as  yet  Great  Britain  and  France,  a  direct  contest 
between  whom  could  not  be  far  distant,  were  only  in  arms  against 
each  other  on  behalf,  respectively,  of  the  Queen  of  Hungary  and  of 
the  Nymphenburg  Alliance  against  her.  At  the  beginning  of  1743, 
a  brighter  prospect  seemed  opening  for  the  Queen  and  her  British 
sympathisers;  and  Carteret's  spirited  foreign  policy  steadily  (the 
adverb  is  perhaps  ill-chosen)  advanced  in  its  course.  Prussia  was 
satisfied,  so  long  as  she  was  left  in  possession  of  Silesia.  The  Tsarina 
Elizabeth  had  entered  into  an  Alliance  with  Great  Britain,  though 
this  was  not  to  extend  to  any  Russian  action  against  Turkey,  or  to 
any  British  intervention  against  Spain  in  Italy,  where  the  House  of 
Savoy  had  come  to  an  understanding  with  that  of  Austria.  Thus,  the 
time  seemed  to  have  arrived  at  last  when  the  British  nation,  weary 
of  a  condition  of  things  which  was  neither  peace  nor  war,  might  take  a 
leading  part  in  a  struggle  which  was  now  a  far  from  hopeless  one, 
and  when  King  George  II  might  satisfy  both  his  political  wishes  and 
his  military  impulses  by  leading  into  battle  a  "  Pragmatic  "  army,  com- 
posed of  both  Englishmen  and  Germans,  in  British  as  well  as  (to  do 
him  justice)  in  Hanoverian  pay.  In  the  face  of  vehement  opposition 
the  vote  was  carried  (December,  1742).  The  battle  of  Dettingen  was 
fought  (June,  1743),  and,  while  the  Nymphenburg  Alliance  was 
virtually  dissolved,  the  Treaty  of  Worms  (September)  united,  as  the 
Allies  of  Maria  Theresa,  Great  Britain,  the  United  Provinces,  Sar- 
dinia and  Saxony,  and  promised  an  annual  British  subsidy  "so  long 
as  the  necessity  of  her  affairs  should  require."  But  the  Treaty  was 
never  ratified,  and,  though  kept  secret,  confirmed  the  decision  at 
which,  though  against  his  own  wish,  George  II  had  arrived,  to  pass 


THE  SECOND  SILESIAN  WAR  89 

over  Carteret  in  the  choice  of  a  new  Prime-minister  (August) ;  for 
the  unpopularity  of  the  Crown  and  of  the  Hanoverian  interest  had 
reached  its  height,  and  Pitt's  thunder  already  filled  the  sky.  A  term 
was  thus  set  to  a  line  of  policy  which  was  easily  held  up  to  scorn  as 
subservient  to  Hanoverian  ends  or  motives,  but  in  truth  signified  a 
resumption  of  the  Whig  policy  in  Queen  Anne's  reign  as  opposed  to 
the  vague  peace  policy  of  Walpole,  and  exhibited,  curiously  enough, 
points  cf  resemblance  to  the  ideas  of  Bolingbroke.  Yet,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  Carteret's  "system"  would  not  fit  in  with  the  existing  rela- 
tions between  the  European  Powers  chiefly  concerned.  On  the  one 
hand,  the  two  principal  German  Powers  were  too  much  absorbed  in 
their  own  quarrels  to  care  for  a  close  cooperation  with  Great  Britain ; 
and  her  political  action  was  more  and  more  concentrating  itself  upon 
the  protection  of  her  own  trade,  whether  lawful  or  illicit.  She  was, 
in  fact,  a  Maritime  Power  before  everything  else,  and,  as  such, 
unable  to  combine  with  any  one  other  Power  in  an  alliance  like  the 
Family  Compact,  which  France  and  Spain  were  (still  quite  secretly) 
renewing  on  terms  of  the  closest  intimacy. 

The  outbreak  of  the  Second  Silesian  War  (1744-5),  m  which 
George  II  encouraged  Maria  Theresa  to  engage  ("ce  qui  est  bon  a 
prendre  est  bon  a  rendre"),  found  Great  Britain  firm  in  her  support. 
Though  Henry  Pelham,  the  younger  brother  of  the  Duke  of  Newcastle, 
and  himself  a  more  timid  statesman  of  Walpole 's  school,  was  now  at 
the  Head  of  the  Government,  Carteret  continued  to  conduct  foreign 
affairs  till  the  King  was  obliged  to  dismiss  him  (November,  1744), 
when  the  Earl  of  Harrington  was  appointed  in  his  place1.  Before 
this,  France,  no  longer  ruled  by  Fleury,  had  declared  war  against 
Great  Britain,  though  not  till  after  a  vain  attempt  had  been  made  to 
throw  an  army  on  her  shores,  promptly  answered  by  a  British  block- 
ade of  the  French  and  Spanish  ships  at  Toulon.  There  was  no  longer 
any  pacifist  opposition  in  England,  while  the  open  outbreak  of  war 
between  Great  Britain  and  France  seemed  once  more,  as  in  the  greater 
days  of  the  past,  to  promise  that  the  consent  of  all  loyal  parties  would 
enable  the  Crown  to  carry  out  its  policy  to  the  full.  But  the  case  was 
altered.  Perhaps,  had  Maria  Theresa's  only  Ally  encouraged  her  to 
persevere,  instead  of  concluding  the  Peace  of  Dresden  (December, 
1745)  she  might  have  successfully  prolonged  her  struggle;  but  public 
opinion  in  England,  because  it  was  now  less  under  the  influence 
of  sentiment,  had  taken  a  turn  less  favourable  to  her  cause  and  was 

1  Carteret  (Granville)'s  return  to  office  in  1746  lasted  only  four  days. 


9o  INTRODUCTION 

certainly  much  preoccupied  with  the  course  of  events  nearer 
home. 

Maria  Theresa's  prospect  of  recovering  Silesia  depended,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  on  the  continuance  of  British  subsidies;  and  in  the 
end,  she  had,  therefore,  to  content  herself  with  the  advice  of  George  II 

if  it  was  actually  proffered — to  wait  for  a  better  day.    In  Italy, 

Austria  was,  notwithstanding  the  assistance  of  a  British  fleet,  unable 
to  establish  her  claims.  But,  for  Great  Britain,  the  significance  of 
the  War,  into  which  a  generous  impulse  had  mainly  caused  her  to 
enter,  soon  concentrated  itself  upon  what  came  to  be  more  and  more 
clearly  recognised  as  the  beginning  of  a  struggle  with  France  for 
maritime,  Colonial  and  East  Indian  supremacy.  The  ultimate  break- 
down of  the  last  and  most  formidable  Jacobite  Insurrection  (1745-6) 
reacted  but  slightly  on  the  conduct  of  the  War  (only  in  so  far  as 
British  troops  had  to  be  transferred  from  Flanders).  On  the  other 
hand,  the  British  capture  of  Cape  Breton,  the  "Dunkirk  of  the 
West"  (1745),  was  a  serious  blow  to  France;  and  found  no  com- 
pensation in  the  surrender,  in  the  following  year,  of  Madras  and  its 
British  settlement,  which  after  a  long  and  gallant  contest  was  re- 
covered by  the  Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle.  In  1747,  two  great  British 
victories — off  Cape  Finisterre  and  near  the  Isle  of  Aix — placed  the 
superiority  of  the  British  navy  to  the  French  beyond  all  doubt;  and, 
in  the  following  winter,  peace  negotiations  began.  The  previous 
French  attempt,  in  the  Breda  Conferences  (1746),  to  cow  the  United 
Provinces,  who  had  little  stomach  for  joining  in  the  aggressive  policy 
of  Great  Britain,  had  failed;  but  the  consequent  French  invasion 
having  (notwithstanding  the  French  victory  of  Lauffeldt)  led  to  no 
decisive  result,  the  British  and  Dutch  Governments  now  entered 
jointly  into  these  negotiations. 

In  June,  1747,  Great  Britain  had  concluded  a  subsidy  Treaty  with 
Russia  (who  in  the  previous  year  had  concluded  a  defensive  Treaty 
with  Austria,  and  whose  troops  were  already  on  their  march),  and  to 
this  the  United  Provinces  had  acceded.  With  the  view,  no  doubt,  of 
putting  a  final  pressure  on  France,  the  two  Maritime  Powers,  at  the 
beginning  of  1748,  signed  a  Convention  at  the  Hague,  in  which 
Sardinia  was  included,  declaring  their  alliance  with  Austria.  Yet,  by 
now  negotiating  for  peace,  in  spite  of  the  martial  ardour  of  George  II 
and  the  Duke  of  Cumberland,  the  British  Ministry  attested  the  fact, 
to  which  they  could  no  longer  shut  their  eyes,  of  the  uselessness  of 
the  War,  as  undertaken  in  support  of  Maria  Theresa.  The  essential 


THE  PEACE  OF  AIX-LA-CHAPELLE  91 

condition  of  the  Preliminaries  insisted  on  by  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  Provinces  was  the  status  quo  ante  helium — the  restitution,  in 
other  words,  of  the  conquests  made  during  the  War,  including  the 
Barrier  Towns  recently  taken  by  the  French,  and  Madras. 

The  Peace  Conferences  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  began  in  April,  1748, 
and,  Maestricht  having  been  taken  early  in  their  course,  were  pro- 
longed during  the  summer.  On  October  i8th,  the  Peace  was  signed, 
its  terms  being  virtually  those  of  the  Preliminaries  and  not  more 
favourable  either  to  Maria  Theresa  or  to  her  Ally  Great  Britain  than 
they  would  have  been,  had  the  winding-up  of  the  peace  negotiations 
with  France,  Spain  and  their  Allies  not  been  delayed,  in  deference  to 
the  personal  wishes  of  George  II,  till  public  opinion  in  England  had 
rendered  it  imperative.  While  the  House  of  Austria  was  now  assured 
of  the  European  recognition  of  the  Pragmatic  Sanction,  and  Prussia 
(which  had  kept  out  of  the  Treaty,  leaving  the  care  of  her  interests 
to  France)  of  the  guaranteed  possession  of  Silesia,  Maria  Theresa 
had,  besides  losing  that  Province,  made  definite  cessions  in  Italy, 
and  had  been  grievously  disappointed  by  the  War  in  which  Great 
Britain  had  chivalrously  undertaken  to  support  her.  Great  Britain 
herself  issued  forth  from  the  War  with  little  clear  gain.  But  she 
had  well  sustained  her  military  repute,  and  stood  before  the  world 
as  the  all  but  undisputed  mistress  of  the  seas.  Thus,  she  had  proved 
equal  to  staying  the  revived  ambition  of  France,  even  when  that 
Power  commanded  the  allegiance  of  Spain — and  had  in  so  far  justified 
the  fears  of  Fleury. 

The  foreign  policy  of  the  Pelham  Administration  (1744-54) 
had,  up  to  the  conclusion  of  the  Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  lacked 
the  strength  of  which  the  true  foundations  lie  in  definite  political 
principle,  and  not  in  a  "broad  bottom"  of  caution  and  craft,  such  as 
respectively  marked  the  Prime-minister  and  his  brother,  the  Duke  of 
Newcastle.  Neither  of  them  had  proved  high-spirited  enough  to 
withstand  the  King's  tenacious  adherence  to  a  policy  of  war,  which 
Walpole  had  so  long  succeeded  in  restraining;  and  Chesterfield,  the 
only  member  of  the  Government  possessed  of  the  required  courage, 
had,  in  1745,  after  the  retirement  in  the  previous  year  of  Granville,  to 
whom  he  was  bitterly  opposed,  been,  after  a  successful  diplomatic 
mission  to  the  Hague,  transferred  to  Ireland. 

The  Peace  concluded  at  Aix-la-Chapelle  had  nearly  been  broken 
in  the  following  year  by  the  refusal  of  Spain  to  carry  out  a  com- 
pensation clause  for  war  losses  contained  in  it,  and  to  renew  the 


92  INTRODUCTION 

Asiento;  but  Great  Britain  proved  conciliatory,  and  the  trade  between 
the  two  countries  was  restored  to  the  conditions  which  had  pre- 
vailed in  the  reign  of  Charles  II  of  Spain.  In  other  respects,  the 
Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  far  from  glorious  as  it  was,  had  not  been 
concluded  too  soon  for  British  interests,  considering  the  incom- 
petence of  either  the  Government1  or  the  utterly  factious  Opposition 
to  rise  to  a  policy  alike  definite  and  reasonable.  The  German  question 
seemed  to  slumber ;  though  Hanoverian  influence  was  at  the  bottom 
of  the  protracted  manoeuvres  for  gaining  the  votes  of  the  Electors 
for  Archduke  Joseph  as  Roman  King2,  and  for  obtaining  grants  of 
subsidies  to  them  with  that  object  from  the  British  Parliament. 
French  diplomacy,  on  the  other  hand,  was  still  hampered  by  the 
reserve  maintained  by  King  Frederick  II  of  Prussia  in  his  relations 
with  France. 

The  Peace  of  Europe  had  now  been  restored ;  but  the  question  of 
its  endurance  was  full  of  uncertainty.  However  much  the  soul  of 
Maria  Theresa  had  been  vexed  by  the  behaviour  of  Great  Britain  in 
the  Aix-la-Chapelle  negotiations,  she  found  it  necessary  to  follow  the 
advice  of  the  majority  of  her  counsellors,  and  to  adhere  to  the  British 
(and  Dutch)  Alliance,  with  the  additional  security  (such  as  it  was)  of 
the  Defensive  Treaty  with  Russia  of  1746.  But,  already  before  the 
Treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  was  actually  signed,  Kaunitz,  the  Austrian 
Plenipotentiary  there,  had,  at  a  Secret  Council  held  by  the  Empress, 
declared  his  view  that  the  King  of  Prussia  was  her  most  dangerous  foe ; 
but  that,  since  the  Maritime  Powers  would  no  longer  come  to  her 
aid  against  him,  the  only  policy  left  open  to  her  was  to  invoke  the 
assistance  of  France.  In  this  counsel  we  have  the  germ  of  the  Seven 
Years'  War;  but  though,  so  early  as  1750,  Kaunitz  went  as  Am- 
bassador to  Paris,  it  was  not  till  three  years  later  that  he  was  actually 
called  to  the  conduct  of  Austria's  foreign  policy ;  and  even  then  no 
change  was  as  yet  made  in  its  system.  Thus,  the  idea  of  seeking  to 
recover  Silesia  was  not  resumed  as  a  practical  political  purpose  till 
complications  between  Great  Britain  and  France  obliged  the  former 
Power  to  consider  her  attitude  towards  what  might  still  be  called  the 
German  question3. 

Although  the  most  important  issues  decided  at  Aix-la-Chapelle 

1  Granville,  after  his  return  to  office  as  President  of  the  Council  in  1751,  no 
longer  influenced  the  course  of  affairs,  foreign  or  domestic. 

2  The  election,  however,  did  not  actually  take  place  till  after  the  close  of  the 
Seven  Years'  War. 

3  Cf.  A.  von  Arneth,  Geschichte  Maria  Theresia's,  vol.  iv.  (Vienna,  1870). 


CONTINUED  FRANCO-BRITISH  RIVALRY  93 

had  been  those  bearing  upon  the  contention  between  France  and 
Great  Britain  for  the  mastery  of  a  great  part  of  the  known  world,  the 
settlement  on  this  head  reached  in  the  Treaty  could  not  possibly  be 
regarded  as  definitive.  Great  Britain  had  deemed  it  so  important  to 
remove  the  French  garrisons  from  the  Dutch  Barrier-fortresses  that, 
by  way  of  compensation,  she  had  allowed  the  French  to  recover  their 
possessions  in  North  America — a  withdrawal  which  seemed  in- 
tolerable to  the  British  Colonists.  In  the  East  Indies,  the  warfare  be- 
tween the  Companies  continued;  while,  on  the  West  Coast  of  Africa 
and  in  the  Levant,  British  trade  was  outstripped  by  that  of  its  rival. 
In  Russia,  while  the  Baltic  trade  was  chiefly  in  British  hands,  in  the 
Black  Sea  region  France  consistently  kept  up  intimate  relations  with 
her  old  friend  the  Turk,  and  her  rivalry  was,  again,  dangerous.  In 
both  directions,  French  diplomacy — never  more  imaginatively  active 
than  at  this  season  of  internal  decline — sought  to  provide  for  the  pos- 
sibilities of  the  future,  keeping  the  Porte  in  hand  as  a  check  upon 
European  operations  of  the  Eastern  Powers,  and  intriguing  with  the 
dominant  party  in  Sweden  (the  *  Caps ')  for  a  defensive  alliance  against 
Great  Britain1.  In  Poland,  British  and  French  influence  were  at 
issue  on  the  burning  question  of  the  next  Succession  to  the  Throne. 
In  Denmark,  French,  in  Portugal,  British  influence  predominated, 
and  even  in  the  United  Provinces,  where,  after  the  death  of  the 
Stadholder  William  IV  (1751)  his  widow,  the  British  Princess  Anne, 
carried  on  the  functions  of  his  office  on  behalf  of  her  son,  a  French 
faction  asserted  itself,  which  here,  of  course,  was  in  favour  of  peace. 
On  the  other  hand — as  if  to  meet  paradox  by  paradox — in  Spain, 
where  internal  prosperity  was  the  chief  care  of  King  Ferdinand  VI 
and  his  Minister  Carvajal,  there  was  now  evident  friendliness  to 
Great  Britain,  partly  due  to  a  dispute  as  to  the  succession  in  the  Two 
Sicilies  between  the  Bourbon  lines,  which  had  in  its  turn  led  to  a 
combination  between  Spain  and  Austria. 

It  was  thus  inevitable  that  the  conflict  of  interests  between  the 
two  Powers  which  thus  divided  between  them  the  good-  and  the  ill- 
will  of  the  rest  of  Europe  should  declare  itself  with  peculiar  strength 
in  the  affairs  of  the  Germanic  Empire,  where  the  Sovereign  of  Great 
Britain  had  a  legitimate  standing  as  Elector  of  Hanover,  while  the 
intervention  of  France  in  them  had — for  a  century  past  at  all  events — 

1  The  British  relations  with  the  opposite  party,  the  'Hats,'  were  so  close  that  a 
rumour  actually  attributed  to  George  II  the  intention  of  bringing  about  the  eleva- 
tion to  the  Swedish  Throne  of  the  Duke  of  Cumberland. 


94  INTRODUCTION 

been  a  regular  element  in  her  political  action.  Great  Britain's  sub- 
sidies had,  as  noted,  continued,  so  late  as  1752,  to  flow  into  the 
Austrian  exchequer,  and  into  the  pockets  of  the  Electors  to  the 
Roman  Kingship,  and,  though  disliked  by  Pelham,  were  defended 
in  Parliament  by  his  brother,  who,  at  the  close  of  the  previous  year, 
had  succeeded  in  ousting  from  the  other  Secretaryship  of  State  the 
Duke  of  Bedford  and  putting  in  his  place  the  Earl  of  Holderness,  a 
diplomatist  not  possessed  of  the  Duke's  parliamentary  influence. 

But  it  was  not  in  Europe,  or  in  connexion  with  European  dis- 
putes, that  the  rivalry  which  constitutes  the  chief  political  interest  of 
the  years  following  on  the  Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  most  signally 
declared  itself.  That  Peace  had  failed  sufficiently  to  define  the 
boundaries  between  the  Colonial  dominions  of  France  and  Great 
Britain;  more  especially,  the  limits  of  the  Colony  of  Nova  Scotia 
(Acadia)  were  disputed,  and  the  frontier  between  Canada  and  New 
England.  On  the  peninsula  connecting  Nova  Scotia  with  the  main- 
land, both  Powers  had  constructed  forts  against  one  another,  while 
Virginia  was  up  in  arms  to  recover  a  fort  on  the  Ohio  captured  by 
the  French  (1754).  The  War  between  the  two  Governments  did  not 
actually  break  out  on  this  occasion ;  for  neither  side  was  eager  for  a 
precipitate  rupture.  But  there  were  other  Colonial  quarrels,  and  it 
was  felt  throughout  the  British  dominions  that  the  unbroken  main- 
tenance of  them  along  the  whole  line  must  be  very  soon  definitively 
settled.  At  such  seasons,  the  most  competent  diplomacy  may  find 
itself  incapable  of  doing  more  than  delay  for  a  time  or  hasten, 
according  as  it  may  suit  the  purpose  of  its  Government,  the  first 
unretraceable  step.  But  Great  Britain  seems  at  this  time  to  have 
been  singularly  ill-served  in  the  most  important  quarter.  The  British 
Ambassador  at  Paris,  as  Lord  Stanhope  reminds  us,  was  the  Earl  of 
Albemarle,  whom  Chesterfield  held  up  to  his  son  as  an  encouraging 
example  of  how  to  succeed  without  a  single  recommendation  except 
good  manners ;  and  his  political  secrets  were  carried  from  his  embassy 
to  the  French  Government.  In  1754,  the  year  in  which  this  diplo- 
matist was  removed  by  death,  Newcastle  succeeded  his  brother  as 
Prime-minister,  and  entered  upon  the  last  decade  of  nearly  half  a 
century  of  public  service.  On  his  personality  satire  has,  not  always 
quite  fairly,  exhausted  itself;  though  a  consistent  time-server,  he 
was  also  loyal  to  the  dynasty  on  the  Throne,  and,  while  he  corrupted 
others,  he,  at  least,  took  no  thought  of  personal  gains. 

In  choosing  a  Leader  of  the  House  of  Commons,  Newcastle  had 


IMMINENCE  OF  (THE  SEVEN  YEARS')  WAR        95 

been  virtually  reduced  to  the  choice  between  Henry  Fox  and  William 
Pitt,  of  whom  the  latter  had  entered  that  House  in  1735.  Since, 
however,  neither  of  these  politicians  would  submit  to  give  up  that 
side  of  the  conduct  of  affairs  which  he  most  prized,  Newcastle  offered 
the  Leadership,  together  with  a  Secretaryship  of  State,  to  Sir  Thomas 
Robinson,  who  possessed  diplomatic  experience  without  parliament- 
ary ability,  and  who  was  welcome  to  the  King  because  of  his  familiarity 
with  German  politics.  For  a  time,  Pitt  (whom  the  King  detested) 
and  Fox  hereupon  joined  hands  against  the  new  Leader  and  his 
master;  Robinson  retired  to  the  Mastership  of  the  Great  Wardrobe, 
and  Henry  Fox,  without  Pitt,  allied  himself  with  Newcastle1.  But 
even  this  makeshift  was  not  to  hold  out  for  long.  Already  the  storms 
were  lowering,  and  the  nation  was  looking  towards  its  destined  pilot. 
When  Parliament  met  at  the  close  of  1754,  the  King's  wishes  were 
met  by  an  Address  from  the  Commons  undertaking  to  support  him 
in  defending  his  rights  and  dominions  against  all  encroachments;  a 
credit  of  a  million  was  at  once  granted;  and,  had  he  not,  with  his 
customary  want  of  tact,  hereupon  immediately  set  out  for  Hanover, 
this  might  have  proved  the  season  of  his  greatest  popularity  since  he 
had  ascended  the  Throne.  On  the  following  day,  Admiral  Boscawen 
sailed  for  Newfoundland,  and  soon  afterwards  came  the  news  of 
General  Braddock's  catastrophe  on  the  Ohio,  which  was  speedily 
avenged.  The  brink  of  war  had  been  reached2. 

Few  wars,  as  statesmanship  knows  to  its  cost,  are  easily  localised; 
but  the  difficulties  besetting  the  process  were  nothing  short  of  in- 
superable in  the  case  of  the  present  struggle  between  Great  Britain 
and  France.  Apart  from  all  questions  of  Treaties  and  Alliances,  the 
Netherlands  could  not  but  be  involved  in  a  struggle  with  which  they 
must  be  brought  into  contact  by  both  sea  and  land;  and,  if  so, 
Germany  could  not  remain  outside  it.  But  there  were  of  course  now, 
as  there  have  so  often  been,  special  considerations  which  would 
implicate  severally  or  collectively  the  German  States  in  a  conflict 
between  the  Western  Powers ;  and  who,  at  the  close  of  the  year  1754 
could  have  reckoned  otherwise  than  that  in  the  War  now  imminent 
Prussia  would  take  the  side  of  France,  and  Austria  that  of  Great 
Britain? 

And  yet,  as  indicated  above,  the  Austro-British  Alliance  was, 

1  For  these  transactions  cf.  Earl  of  Ilchester,  Henry  Fox  (2  vols.  1920)  and  the 
Earl  of  Rosebery,  Chatham:  His  Early  Life  and  Correspondence,  1910. 

8  As  to  what  follows,  cf .  Ranke,  Der  Ursprung  des  Siebenjdhrigen  Krieges  (Leipzig, 
1871). 


96  INTRODUCTION 

notwithstanding,  on  the  eve  of  dissolution.  Apart  from  lesser  grounds 
of  complaint,  which  British  diplomacy  was  certainly  not  disposed  to 
minimise,  a  difference  of  great  historical  significance  seriously  dis- 
turbed the  relations  between  the  United  and  the  Austrian  Nether- 
lands. Much  importance  attached  to  the  view  taken  of  these  relations 
by  Austria,  which  had  grown  weary  of  the  conditions  on  which  she 
held  the  Provinces  now  called  by  her  name,  while  the  British  concep- 
tion of  the  proper  function  of  the  Low  Countries  in  the  political 
system  of  Europe  necessitated  as  close  as  possible  a  connexion  be- 
tween the  Austrian  and  the  United  Provinces.  Although  the  British, 
which  was  necessarily  also  the  Dutch,  view  had  prevailed  at  Aix-la- 
Chapelle,  the  Vienna  Government  had  administered  the  Austrian 
Netherlands  as  possessing  interests  of  their  own  and  free  from  the 
control  of  their  neighbours,  who  occupied  the  Barrier  fortresses,  and 
had  actively  promoted  Belgic  prosperity  on  these  lines.  When,  in 
August,  1754,  a  provisional  Treaty  was  proposed  for  the  adjustment 
of  these  differences,  it  was  rejected  through  the  influence  of  Kaunitz 
against  the  strenuous  efforts  of  the  British  Ambassador,  Keith.  A 
grievance  of  a  different  description  is  interesting,  inasmuch  as  it  illus- 
trates the  part  still  occasionally  played  by  the  old  religious  disputes  in 
the  philosophical  "eighteenth  century,"  and  the  importance  attached 
to  them  by  the  Hanoverian  dynasty,  whose  tenure  of  the  Throne,  after 
all,  depended  primarily  upon  its  Protestantism.  In  the  complicated 
quarrel  at  the  Germanic  Diet  in  1754  as  to  the  guarantee  demanded 
on  behalf  of  the  Hereditary  Prince  Frederick  of  Hesse-Cassel  (whose 
Consort  was  the  British  Princess  Mary),  George  II  and  the  King  of 
Prussia  were  alike  opposed  to  the  House  of  Austria.  But  these  and 
other  lesser  quarrels  apart,  Austria  would  certainly  not  adhere  to 
Great  Britain,  unless  the  latter  would  aid  in  the  recovery  of  Silesia 
and  could,  even  as  an  Ally,  be  of  no  assistance  to  her  except  by  making 
war  on  Prussia,  from  whom  Great  Britain,  in  her  turn,  had  nothing, 
and  even  Hanover,  at  this  time,  had  not  very  much,  to  fear.  In  other 
words,  the  interests  of  the  two  Allied  Powers  were  quite  divergent, 
and  while  certainly  much  British  treasure  had  been  spent  and  not  a 
little  English  blood  spilt,  purely  for  Austria's  sake,  Kaunitz  might, 
on  the  other  hand,  speciously  argue  that  the  Alliance  had  only  been 
carried  on  by  Great  Britain  so  long  as  it  served  her  own  purpose. 

Undeniably,  the  motives  for  maintaining  the  Austro-British  Alli- 
ance had  long  prevailed,  and  Great  Britain's  differences  with  France 
continued  to  be  regarded  as  the  beginnings  of  a  quarrel  in  which 


BRITISH  POLICY  AFTER  AIX-LA-CHAPELLE        97 

Austria's  own  part  was  marked  out  for  her  beforehand ;  while,  should 
France  attack  Great  Britain  by  way  of  Hanover,  Austria  was  doubly 
bound  to  contribute  to  the  defence  of  the  Electorate.  No  exception 
was  taken  in  England,  so  late  as  1755,  either  to  the  Subsidy  Treaty 
with  Hesse- Cassel  (where  there  was  an  easy  market  for  soldiers)  or 
to  a  Russian  Subsidy  Treaty,  in  which  the  Austrian  Government 
had  interested  itself.  If  Austria  and  Russia  remained  friendly,  there 
seemed  no  reason  why  the  present  situation  should  not  be  prolonged, 
provided  always  that,  as  in  the  last  year  of  the  War  of  the  Austrian 
Succession,  Prussia  remained  neutral.  Great  Britain  would  not  suffer, 
and,  so  far  as  the  game  of  Alliances  went,  France  would  have  gained 
nothing. 

But  this  calculation  was  absolutely  intolerable  to  Kaunitz  and  to 
his  Mistress,  who  had  made  up  their  minds  that,  after  despoiling  her 
monarchy,  Prussia  must  not  be  suffered  to  hold  by  its  side  the  position 
which  she  had  acquired  among  the  European  Powers.  Thus,  the  more 
surely  that  the  outbreak  of  war  between  France  and  Great  Britain 
announced  itself,  the  more  resolute  was  Kaunitz,  in  the  first  instance, 
to  turn  the  force  of  the  Austro-British  Alliance  against  the  "new 
Power,"  as  he  called  Prussia,  as  well  as  against  France. 


The  British  Government,  for  its  part,  had  no  intention  of  re- 
versing the  general  policy  it  had  pursued  up  to  Aix-la-Chapelle,  or, 
on  the  other  hand,  of  abandoning  the  guarantee  of  the  tenure  of 
Silesia  by  Prussia,  in  which  it  had  joined.  According  to  the  view 
duly  placed  before  the  Austrian  Government,  the  present  task  of 
Great  Britain  was  to  aid  in  the  defence  of  the  United  Provinces  and 
the  Hanoverian  Electorate;  and  Kaunitz  promised  to  augment  the 
Austrian  forces  in  the  Netherlands  and  to  assume  the  offensive 
against  Prussia,  should  her  troops  march  against  Hanover.  But 
Great  Britain  had  no  reason  for  apprehending  any  Prussian  attack 
of  the  kind  upon  the  Electoral  frontier.  And,  as  the  words  of  Holder- 
ness  (whose  intelligence  has  perhaps  been  underrated)  show,  the 
British  Government  was  beginning  to  understand,  that  Kaunitz  and 
the  Empress  meant  to  utilise  for  the  recovery  of  Silesia  the  Alliance 
desired  by  the  British  Government  for  the  purpose  of  its  contest 
with  France.  When  it  became  clear  that  Great  Britain  was  not  dis- 
posed to  fall  in  with  an  extension  of  her  plan  of  action,  and  that 
W.&G.I.  7 


98  INTRODUCTION 

Austria  would  therefore  not  find  her  account  in  joining  in  such  a  war, 
there  remained  for  her  only  the  choice  between  neutrality  (hardly 
possible,  in  view  of  the  situation  of  the  Austrian  Netherlands)  and 
the  radical  change  of  policy  long  and  explicitly  recommended  by 
Kaunitz1.  An  alliance  with  France  would  be  the  foundation  of  the 
new  policy;  the  cooperation  of  Russia,  and  probably  of  Sweden, 
Saxony  and  the  Palatinate,  might  be  secured;  and  the  division  of  the 
spoils  after  the  overthrow  of  Prussia  was  already  prospectively  planned. 
France  might  have  to  be  attracted  to  the  projected  alliance  by  a  terri- 
torial cession  either  in  Italy  or  in  Flanders  (the  complicated  details 
of  which  illustrate  the  imaginative  force  of  the  projector's  diplomacy) 
and  by  the  promise  of  Austrian  support  of  the  candidature  of  Prince 
Conti  for  the  Polish  Throne2.  Such  was  (of  course  in  barest  outline) 
the  great  design  of  Kaunitz ;  and  the  first  move  in  the  game  was  the 
audience  vouchsafed  to  the  Austrian  Ambassador  in  Paris,  Count 
Starhemberg,  with  Mme  de  Pompadour  (September,  1755).  At  the 
present  moment,  when  France  was  on  the  point  of  entering  into  an 
all-important  war  with  Great  Britain,  there  could  be  no  question  of 
the  simple  rejection,  by  Lewis  XV's  Government,  of  such  a  proposal 
on  the  part  of  Great  Britain's  historic  Ally — the  House  of  Austria. 
The  only  difficulty  in  the  way  of  its  acceptance  by  the  French 
Government — but  this,  at  first,  seemed  insuperable — was  the  im- 
probability of  the  renunciation,  by  Frederick  II,  of  the  French  in 
favour  of  a  British  Alliance ;  for  Austria  could  not  carry  on  negotia- 
tions with  France  on  any  basis  but  that  of  the  severance  of  her 
Alliance  with  Prussia. 

It  was  about  this  time  (summer  of  1755)  that  the  American  news 
already  referred  to  arrived  in  France,  where  the  remainder  of  the 
year  was  mainly  consumed  in  armaments  and  taxation.  An  invasion 
of  England  was  at  least  talked  of;  the  hopes  of  the  Jacobites  simmered 
up,  and  the  French  Government  resolved  to  fight  out  the  struggle 
against  Great  Britain  by  every  means  in  its  power.  True,  it  had  other 
support  in  view;  but  it  continued  to  think,  as  it  had  thought  in  1741, 
friendly  relations  with  Prussia,  to  whom,  in  her  turn,  the  French  Alli- 
ance must  be  indispensable,  the  basis  of  its  system.  Frederick  II,  on 
the  contrary,  even  apart  from  any  secret  evidence  he  might  possess  on 
the  subject, felt  his  position  insecure,  so  long  as  Austria  had  the  support 

1  See,  for  what  follows,  R.  Waddington,  Louis  XV,  et  le  Renversement  des 
Alliances  (Paris,  1896). 

*  On  this  head,  the  wishes  of  Lewis  XV  soon  began  to  cool. 


CHANGE  IN  PRUSSO-BRITISH  RELATIONS         99 

of  her  present  Continental  Allies,  and  so  long  as  France  was  weakened 
by  the  maritime  and  colonial  rivalry  of  Great  Britain,  as  well  as  by  the 
imsoundness  of  her  own  condition  at  home.  Thus,  for  Frederick  II 
of  Prussia  there  was  during  these  busy  years  (1748  to  middle  of  1755) 
but  one  way  of  staving  off  war — namely,  that  of  holding  himself  pre- 
pared for  it.  There  seems,  however,  no  reason  for  concluding  that, 
at  any  time  in  this  period,  he  intended  either  to  renew  the  War  with 
Austria,  or  to  become  implicated  in  that  imminent  between  Great 
Britain  and  France.  But,  as  we  know,  and  as  the  French  Govern- 
ment was  not  slow  to  point  out  to  Frederick  II,  this  latter  War  might 
bring  with  it  a  French  attack  upon  Hanover,  in  which  the  cooperation 
of  Prussia  would  be  of  very  direct  value  to  the  French.  Frederick  II, 
though  he  kept  his  own  counsel,  could  not  close  his  eyes  to  the  part, 
at  once  difficult  and  inglorious,  which  he  might  thus  find  himself 
called  upon  to  play. 

British  statesmanship,  while  loth  to  accept  Kaunitz's  view  that  a 
real  concert  with  Austria  required  Great  Britain  to  join  in  an  attack 
upon  Prussia,  also  perceived  that  Prussia  could  have  no  wish,  for  the 
sake  of  her  friendship  with  France,  to  cooperate  in  an  attack  upon 
Hanover.  The  situation  was  critical;  and  George  II's  visit  to  his 
electoral  dominions  in  the  summer  of  1755,  with  Holderness  in 
attendance,  accordingly  proved  the  first  step  towards  a  change  in 
the  relations  between  Great  Britain  and  Prussia  of  the  utmost  im- 
portance in  its  bearing  on  the  impending  European  War.  Taking 
advantage  of  the  friendly  relations  between  the  Prussian  Court  and 
Duke  Charles  of  Brunswick- Wolf enbiittel,  Holderness  contrived  to 
elicit  from  Frederick  II,  in  reply  to  the  question  whether  he  would 
refuse  to  prevent  the  defence  of  Hanover  against  a  French  invasion, 
the  reply  that  he  saw  no  objection  to  treaties  concluded  by  Hanover 
with  her  neighbours  for  this  purpose,  but  that  the  time  had  not  yet 
arrived  for  a  declaration  on  the  subject.  For  some  time  Frederick  II 
(whose  present  Defensive  Alliance  with  France  would  naturally  ter- 
minate in  1756)  would  go  no  further;  but  he  finally  made  up  his 
mind  that,  while  he  had  not  guaranteed  to  France  her  overseas  pos- 
sessions, the  relative  smallness  of  his  own  military  forces  would  not 
justify  him  in  going  to  war  against  an  Alliance  which  might  bring  the 
Russians  into  Germany.  Hence,  the  only  course  open  to  him  seemed 
to  be  to  enter  into  the  Treaty  of  Neutrality  as  to  Hanover  suggested  to 
him  by  Great  Britain,  without  on  that  account  breaking  with  France. 

Thus  it  came  to  pass  that,  in  the  Treaty  of  Neutrality  concluded 

7—2 


ioo  INTRODUCTION 

between  Great  Britain  and  Prussia  in  January,  1756,  and  sometimes 
called  the  Treaty  of  Westminster,  Frederick  II  and  the  British 
Government,  directly  instigated  this  time  by  the  Hanoverian  interests 
of  King  George  II,  met  halfway.  Henry  Fox  devised  the  expedient 
of  adding  this  Prussian  Treaty  to  a  Russian  (and  a  Hessian)  Subsidy 
Treaty,  which  he  carried  in  one  of  the  most  famous  debates  of  the 
age ;  Pitt,  who  had  accepted  the  Paymastership  of  the  Forces  in  the 
Government,  being  foremost  among  the  opponents  of  the  proposal. 
One  object  of  the  Anglo-Prussian  Treaty  was  declared  to  be  the  preser- 
vation of  the  Peace  of  the  Continent,  and  that  of  Germany  in  especial. 
Holderness  introduced  into  it  a  concise  guarantee  of  the  Prussian 
tenure  of  Silesia;  and  the  Prime-minister,  Newcastle,  proclaimed 
King  George  IPs  personal  anxiety  to  place  himself  on  an  amicable 
footing  with  King  Frederick  II.  Henry  Fox  was,  on  the  following  day 
(November  25th,  1755),  appointed  Secretary  of  State,  while  Pitt  was 
dismissed  from  office  with  other  opponents  of  the  Russian  Subsidy 
Treaty,  which  the  Prussian  Neutrality  deprived  of  its  force. 

For  the  "  Treaty  of  Westminster,"  drafted  as  proposed  by 
Frederick  II,  went  further  than  George  II,  and  his  Ministers  could 
have  at  first  anticipated.  By  it,  Great  Britain  agreed  not  to  permit 
the  entry  of  a  Russian  army,  or  Prussia  that  of  a  French,  into  Ger- 
many1. Even  so,  the  Treaty  appears  to  have  been  generally  approved 
in  England,  where  it  was  regarded  as  preventive  of  any  fear  of  trouble 
ensuing  on  account  of  Hanover,  and  the  funds  are  stated  to  have 
risen  on  its  conclusion.  Whatever  the  history  of  its  origin,  its  effect 
on  the  Court  of  Vienna  was  to  leave  no  doubt  that  British  aid  in  any 
attempt  to  recover  Silesia  was  now  altogether  out  of  the  question. 
But  could  Prussia,  after  arriving  at  this  friendly  understanding  with 
Great  Britain,  remain  on  good  terms  with  France?  The  Due  de 
Nivernais,  sent  to  Berlin  to  find  out  whether  French  interests  were 
in  any  way  prejudiced  by  the  guarantees  contained  in  the  Anglo- 
Prussian  Treaty  (from  which  Gibraltar  and  Minorca  were  expressly 
excepted),  made  it  clear  to  King  Frederick,  who  had  actually  thought 
of  patching  up  the  quarrel  between  France  and  Great  Britain,  that 
this  was  now  impossible.  And,  in  fact,  the  French  Government, 
while  seeking  (by  way  of  justification  or  pretext)  to  multiply  causes 

1  This  term  was  substituted  by  Frederick  II  for  'The  Germanic  Empire,'  after 
Podewils  had  pointed  out  that  the  wider  term  might  have  been  interpreted  by 
Great  Britain  to  comprise  the  Austrian  Netherlands,  which  the  King  of  Prussia 
had  certainly  no  wish  to  see  included  in  it. 


THE  FRANCO-PRUSSIAN  ALLIANCE  AT  AN  END      101 

of  quarrel  with  Great  Britain,  declared  itself  unable  to  assent  to  the 
principle  of  a  permanent  neutrality  for  Hanover.  Thus,  at  the  be- 
ginning of  1756,  it  had,  so  far  as  Frederick  IPs  relations  with  France 
and  Great  Britain  were  concerned,  become  more  than  doubtful 
whether  he  could  adhere  to  the  policy,  hitherto  followed  by  him,  of 
remaining  on  a  friendly  footing  with  both  Powers.  At  Vienna,  the 
Anglo-Prussian  Treaty  was  at  first  received  with  tranquillity ;  for  an 
Imperial  attack  in  conjunction  with  France  upon  Hanover  seemed 
wholly  out  of  the  question,  and  Russia's  only  complaint  against  Great 
Britain  was  that  she  should  have  entered  into  such  an  agreement  with- 
out informing  her  Allies.  But  so  rooted  were  the  jealousy  of  Prussia 
and  the  suspicion  of  the  advantageous  position  secured  by  her,  as 
between  France  and  Great  Britain,  entertained  by  Kaunitz  and  his 
Sovereign,  that  they  resolved  on  an  effective  counter-move  to  the 
Neutrality  Treaty;  and  their  overtures  fell  on  receptive  and  well- 
prepared  ground.  France  was  unwilling,  while  carrying  on  a  Naval 
War  with  Great  Britain,  to  lay  aside  what  had  long  been  a  primary 
part  of  her  policy — intervention  in  the  internal  affairs  of  Germany. 
The  negotiations  between  the  Austrian  and  French  Governments 
(represented  by  Starhemberg  and  Bernis)  at  Versailles  now  (Febru- 
ary, 1756)  treated  the  Prusso-French  Alliance  of  1741  as  at  an  end, 
and  passed  on  to  the  question  whether,  if  France  allowed  her 
Alliance  with  Prussia  to  drop  altogether,  Austria  would  in  turn 
consent  to  drop  hers  with  Great  Britain. 

Thus  the  advisers  of  Lewis  XV,  Bernis  in  particular,  may  be  said 
to  have  inspired  in  him  the  idea  of  avenging  upon  George  II  his 
Treaty  of  Neutrality  with  Prussia ;  while  to  the  arguments  by  which 
Kaunitz  persuaded  Maria  Theresa  to  put  an  end  to  the  long-lived 
Alliance  with  Great  Britain,  was  added  the  hope  that  the  example  of 
Austria  would  be  followed  by  Russia.  Austria,  the  Power  so  long 
identified  with  the  guardianship  of  the  Empire,  allowed  Prussia,  of 
whose  aggressiveness  it  stood  in  dread,  to  assume  this  time-honoured 
function,  while,  at  this  very  time,  itself  entering  into  an  Alliance  with 
France.  The  Franco -Prussian  Alliance  was  at  an  end ;  the  relations 
between  Austria  and  Russia  had,  on  the  other  hand,  become  friendlier, 
and  though  on  BestuchefFs  advice,  the  Tsarina  Elizabeth  had  reluc- 
tantly agreed  to  the  British  Subsidy  Treaty  of  September,  1755,  they 
were,  by  April,  1756,  shaping  towards  a  closer  Alliance.  But  the  effects 
of  such  an  Alliance,  more  especially  for  Great  Britain,  must  depend  on 
the  decision  of  France  as  to  her  own  action.  One  by  one,  the  obstacles 


102  INTRODUCTION 

in  the  way  of  the  actual  conclusion  of  an  Alliance  between  France, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  Austria,  with  Russia,  on  the  other,  disappeared. 
The  French  negotiators  would  have  been  ready  to  conclude  the  busi- 
ness, on  the  twofold  basis  that  Austria  might  make  war  upon  Prussia, 
and  France  upon  Great  Britain,  as  they  chose,  without  calling  upon 
each  other  for  offensive  cooperation.  But  the  Austrian  Government 
wanted  more  than  this — viz.,  the  offensive  cooperation  itself  (more 
especially  when  there  would  be  no  more  British  subsidies  forth- 
coming), and,  in  the  event  of  success,  a  territorial  repartition  which 
would  avenge  the  shameless  league  which,  on  the  death  of  Maria 
Theresa's  father,  had  proposed  to  divide  among  its  members  her 
inheritance. 

The  Austro- French  negotiations  were  resumed  in  April,  1756; 
and,  after  a  Ministerial  Council  had  been  held  at  Versailles,  and  on 
the  ground  chiefly  that  the  Austrian  Alliance  was  the  only  way  by 
which  the  King  of  France  could  use  his  right  of  attacking  Great 
Britain  through  the  Hanoverian  Electorate,  the  Ministry  approved 
the  conclusion  of  that  Alliance.  The  Two  Treaties,  known  as  that 
of  Versailles,  were  hereupon  signed,  on  May  ist,  1756.  The  first  of 
these  consisted  of  a  Convention  of  Neutrality,  whereby  the  Court  of 
Vienna  bound  itself  to  take  no  part  in  the  War  with  Great  Britain ; 
i.e.,  the  Imperial  Power  would  not  be  used  against  a  Sovereign  who 
was  Prince  of  the  Empire ;  while  France  promised  not  to  attack  either 
the  Austrian  Netherlands  or  any  other  part  of  the  Austrian  do- 
minions. This,  then,  was  the  Austro-French  answer  to  the  Anglo- 
Prussian  Treaty  of  Westminster,  which  had  been  the  motive  cause 
of  the  Austro-French  negotiations.  Its  effect  would  be  to  let  the 
French  into  Germany,  from  which  the  Westminster  Treaty  had  ex- 
cluded them,  without  any  resistance  on  the  part  of  the  Head  of  the 
Empire.  But  the  first  of  these  Versailles  Treaties  was  not  in  itself 
a  Treaty  of  Alliance,  and  even  the  second,  which  purported  to  be  a 
Treaty  of  Mutual  Defence  between  the  Contracting  Powers,  declared 
that  it  was  not  directed  against  any  other  Power ;  and  the  number  of 
troops  to  be  furnished  on  both  sides,  if  the  casus  foederis  should  arise, 
was  very  moderate  accordingly.  This  second  Treaty  contained,  how- 
ever, in  addition,  Secret  Articles  corresponding  more  closely  to  the 
motives  with  which  the  compact  had  been  concluded.  If,  during  the 
Anglo-French  War,  France  or  Austria  was  attacked  by  any  other 
Power,  the  Contracting  Power  so  attacked  should  be  entitled  to  the 
support  of  the  other  Contracting  Power.  And,  further,  a  revision  of 


BRITISH  DECLARATION  OF  WAR  WITH  FRANCE  103 

the  Treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  was  taken  into  contemplation;  so  that, 
though  the  Treaties  by  no  means  amounted  to  an  offensive  alliance 
for  the  recovery  of  Silesia  or  any  other  purpose,  they  contained  this 
ominous  reference  to  the  more  remote  future.  The  Treaties,  more 
especially  since  Russia  would  assuredly  be  invited  to  adhere  to  them, 
could  not  but  be  looked  upon  without  apprehension  in  England, 
though  they  by  no  means  implied  an  offensive  alliance  against  this 
country;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  the  religious,  or  con- 
fessional, aspect  of  the  combination  exercised  its  effect  now,  as  it  did 
when  Great  Britain  had  made  her  choice,  and  when  a  large  part  of 
her  population  regarded  Frederick  the  Great  as  "the  Protestant 
Hero." 

It  was  not  till  May,  1756,  that  Maria  Theresa,  in  giving  audience 
to  Sir  Robert  Keith,  the  British  Minister  at  Vienna,  who  had  been 
instructed  to  demand  explanations  of  the  Versailles  Treaty  or  Treaties, 
threw  the  blame  of  her  Alliance  with  France  upon  the  combination 
between  Great  Britain  and  Prussia — her  only  enemy  in  the  world,  as 
the  Empress  afterwards  confidentially  told  him,  besides  the  Turk. 
Undoubtedly,  this  attitude  on  the  part  of  the  Empress  Maria  Theresa, 
formerly  the  subject  of  so  much  admiring  sympathy  in  England, 
taken  together  with  the  ratification  which  speedily  followed  of  the 
Versailles  Treaties  (the  drift  of  whose  Secret  Clauses  was  sufficiently 
suspected),  roused  deep  indignation  against  a  Power,  now  the  Ally, 
under  whatever  conditions,  of  our  mortal  foe — after,  for  the  sake  of 
that  Power,  we  had  shown  so  much  forbearance  at  Aix-la-Chapelle, 
and  when  it  had  been  the  recipient  of  a  long  series  of  our  Subsidies. 
Popular  feeling  in  England  had,  throughout  the  winter  1755-6,  been 
in  so  excited  a  state  as  to  take  the  almost  inevitable  form  of  a  con- 
viction that  we  had  been  betrayed.  Apprehensions  had  actually  arisen 
of  a  French  invasion;  and  when,  at  last,  in  the  spring  of  1756,  the 
immediate  designs  of  France  had  declared  themselves,  Newcastle's 
Government  had  been  found  ill-informed.  Byng  had  failed  to  pro- 
tect Minorca,  and,  though  Newcastle,  after  sailing  with  the  blast  of 
popular  fury  against  the  Admiral  was  by  a  change  of  Ministry  to 
escape  from  the  responsibility  of  carrying  out  the  sentence  against 
him,  this  very  change  had  shown  that  a  vigorous  foreign  policy  was 
now  imperatively  demanded.  On  May  i8th,  1756,  Great  Britain 
declared  War  against  France.  Before  the  end  of  June,  Port  Mahon 
surrendered,  a  few  weeks  before  Frederick  II  began  his  War  against 
Austria  by  crossing  the  Saxon  frontier  (August). 


io4  INTRODUCTION 

Thus ,  Great  Britain  had  been  driven  into  open  hostilities  with  France 
at  a  time  when  her  ancient  Ally,  Austria,  had  entered  into  relations 
of  mutual  amity  with  that  Power,  and  when  an  estrangement  of  her 
from  Great  Britain  inevitably  followed.  There  remained  the  question 
whether  this  estrangement  necessarily  implied  a  corresponding  change 
of  relations  between  Great  Britain  and  Russia.  Such  had  not  been 
the  design  of  the  Tsarina  Elizabeth.  The  negotiations  concerning  the 
still-born  Russian  Subsidy  Treaty  had  not  been  allowed  to  drop ;  and 
the  brilliant  British  Ambassador  at  Petrograd,  Sir  Charles  Hanbury 
Williams,  who  had  consistently  promoted  (in  every  way)  the  Russian 
Subsidy  Treaty  and  the  Austrian  Alliance,  and  of  whose  diplomatic 
career  this  humiliating  episode  was  to  be  the  end,  had  been  kept  in 
the  dark  as  to  the  transactions  in  progress  between  Austria,  Russia 
and  France.  The  Russian  intentions  at  this  time  are  surrounded  by 
some  obscurity ;  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  Franco- Austrian 
negotiations  had  not  come  to  an  end  with  the  Versailles  Treaties. 
While  Kaunitz  and  Starhemberg  hoped  for  the  support  of  France  in 
the  reconquest  of  Silesia,  it  was  to  be  recompensed  by  the  transfer 
to  France  of  the  Austrian  Netherlands,  or  the  main  part  of  them,  in- 
cluding, in  view  of  the  struggle  between  France  and  Great  Britain, 
at  least  the  temporary  occupation  of  Ostend  and  Nieuport.  The 
Naval  War  between  the  two  Powers  was  already  in  progress,  and  at 
no  time  could  an  opportunity  of  establishing  her  ascendancy  in 
Flanders  have  been  more  welcome  to  France  than  at  present.  The 
French  "ideas"  for  a  "new  Europe"  suggested  in  1756  did  not  stop 
short  with  this.  As  for  the  North,  Bremen  and  Verden  might  be  cut 
out  of  Hanover  for  the  benefit  of  Denmark;  and,  as  for  the  Mediter- 
ranean, Gibraltar  might  be  taken  from  Great  Britain,  as  Minorca 
had  been ;  and  she  might  be  confined  to  the  possessions  of  her  own 
chalk-cliffs,  just  as  Prussia  would  again  be  reduced  to  the  dimensions 
of  a  meagre  Brandenburg  Electorate. 

But  it  was  not  till  May,  1757,  that  the  spirit  of  these  notions  was 
compressed  within  the  limits  of  a  Secret  Treaty;  and,  on  the  part  of 
Russia,  upon  whose  military  cooperation  the  execution  of  much  of  the 
airy  design  depended,  the  Tsarina  Elizabeth  and  BestuchefT  were  at 
this  time  unprepared  with  the  armaments  which  their  share  in  the 
process  would  have  required.  At  Potsdam,  on  the  other  hand, 
Frederick  II  reckoned  with  realities ;  and  he  had  by  his  side  the  British 
Envoy,  Sir  Andrew  Mitchell,  a  Scotsman  so  full  of  commonsense 
as  to  be  without  any  trace  of  Jacobitism,  and  yet  endowed  with  a 


OPENING  OF  THE  SEVEN  YEARS'  WAR          105 

power  of  sympathy  which  on  occasion  induced  the  King  to  reveal 
his  inmost  feelings  to  him1.  Frederick  II  had,  from  the  first,  sus- 
pected that  at  the  bottom  of  the  Versailles  Treaties  lay  the  thought 
of  an  attack  on  Hanover;  but  of  this,  he  considered,  neither  Great 
Britain  nor  Prussia  need  be  afraid  if  they  were  united  and  prepared. 
For  this  end  he  was  ready  to  make  any  sacrifice.  But  when  reports 
reached  him  of  a  triple  alliance  between  France,  Austria  and  Russia, 
when  they  were  corroborated  by  further  intelligence  derived  by  him 
partly  from  stolen  papers  in  the  Austrian  and  Saxon  Chanceries2, 
partly  from  other  communications  to  himself  and  Mitchell,  and  when 
Austrian  troops  began  to  be  massed  in  Bohemia  and  Moravia,  he 
began  to  recognise  that  he  was  sure  of  no  Alliance  but  the  British, 
whether  or  not  the  British  Government  still  succeeded  in  avoiding 
a  quarrel  with  Russia3.  He,  therefore,  resolved  to  explode  the  com- 
bination against  him  before  it  was  ripe  for  action,  arguing  to  himself 
that,  besides  France  and  Austria,  Russia  might,  in  a  year's  time,  be 
prepared  to  draw  the  sword.  Sir  Andrew  Mitchell,  anxious  that 
Frederick  II  should  do  nothing  to  affront  British  public  opinion, 
professed  himself  contented  with  Maria  Theresa's  assurance  that  the 
interests  of  the  other  Power — Great  Britain  being  of  course  the  only 
Power  in  question — would  not  suffer  from  the  measures  which  she 
had  commanded.  Frederick  II,  on  the  other  hand,  after  his  question, 
whether  Austria  would  promise  not  to  attack  him  in  the  current  or 
following  year,  had  remained  without  a  reply  from  Vienna,  started 
at  the  head  of  his  troops  (August  28th)  from  Potsdam  for  the  Saxon 
frontier. 

The  Seven  Years'  War  (1756-63)  which  had  now  opened  in  Old 
World  and  New,  was  essentially  a  double  war,  the  two  parts  or  sides 
of  which  had  each  a  different  origin  and  were  fought  (as  the  com- 
batants recognised)  with  distinct  objects.  Yet  the  successes  of  their 
Ally,  in  the  face  of  difficulties  altogether  unprecedented,  came  home 
so  closely  to  the  British  nation,  that  to  popular  feeling  here  this  War 
seemed  throughout  a  single  War,  and  that,  while  our  own  flag  waved 
victorious  over  every  sea,  and  our  arms  prospered  in  Asia  as  well  as 
in  America,  the  glory  cf  the  conflict  seemed  a  glory  earned  in  common. 
On  whomsoever  may  rest  the  responsibility  of  its  actual  opening,  the 

1  Cf.  Carlyle's  Frederick  the  Great,  Bk  xvm.  c.  5. 

2  These  are  the  so-called  "Menzel  Documents"  which  began  so  far  back  as 
1753- 

8  Saxony-Poland,  it  seems  necessary  to  add,  had  so  far,  notwithstanding  French 
overtures,  adhered  to  its  neutral  attitude. 


I06  INTRODUCTION 

Seven  Years'  War  as  a  whole  may  be  regarded  as  an  endeavour,  on 
the  part  of  France,  to  arrest,  and  if  possible  put  an  end  to,  the  grow- 
ing maritime  and  colonial  ascendancy  of  Great  Britain,  and,  on  the 
part  of  Austria,  to  deprive  Frederick  II  of  the  prize  which,  at  the  end 
of  the  previous  two  Silesian  Wars,  she  had  been  obliged  to  leave  in 
his  hands.  The  diplomacy  of  Kaunitz  had  succeeded  in  blending 
these  two  purposes  into  one.  This  purpose  was  compassed  before 
long ;  but  the  interests  for  which  France  contended  beyond  the  seas 
were  not  thereby  rendered  identical  with  those  for  which  her  armies 
fought  in  Germany.  Thus  it  came  to  pass,  that  the  year  (1759),  which 
may  be  regarded  as  the  climax  of  Austria's  attempt  to  lay  low  the 
power  and  the  ambition  of  Frederick  II,  was  also  that  in  which 
Great  Britain  gained  her  most  momentous  success  over  the  French 
in  Canada.  And,  when  the  Seven  Years'  War  came  to  an  end — in 
Great  Britain's  case  by  a  Peace  thoroughly  unpopular  at  home  and, 
in  that  of  her  solitary  Ally,  as  a  gift  of  good  fortune  as  well  as  the 
reward  of  heroic  perseverance — the  cup  of  national  glory  was  full  in 
each  case,  and  the  names  of  Frederick  the  Great  and  the  elder  Pitt 
were  linked  together  for  ever  as  emblematic  of  victory. 

We  are  here  only  concerned  with  the  policy  which  directed  the 
action  of  Great  Britain  in  the  successive  stages  of  the  conflict.  The 
gradual  unfolding  of  the  prospect  of  a  great  European  War,  and  the 
general  want  of  confidence,  deepened  by  the  course  of  the  miserable 
Byng  episode,  in  the  competence  of  the  Newcastle  Government 
proved  fatal  to  it.  Newcastle's  success  in  securing  Henry  Fox  as 
Secretary  of  State  was  as  ineffectual  as  it  was  transitory,  and  a 
series  of  overtures  and  manoeuvres  ended  in  his  being  left  without 
a  supporter  fit  to  cope  with  the  opposition  of  Pitt,  while  the  Duke 
still  retained  power — or  a  share  of  power — himself.  The  ensuing 
attempt  at  a  combination  between  Fox  and  Pitt,  having,  thereupon, 
broken  down,  the  Duke  of  Devonshire  formed  his  Administration 
(December,  1756  to  April,  1757),  of  which  Pitt,  at  the  King's  per- 
sonal request,  formed  part  as  one  of  the  Secretaries  of  State1.  New- 
castle's influence  being  still  predominant,  and  the  King  dissatisfied 
at  having  had  to  include  Pitt,  whose  personal  following  was  limited  to 
the  Grenvilles,  the  Ministry  was  not  so  strong  as  it  might  have  been. 

But  a  new  spirit  had  begun  to  reign  and  to  animate  the  foreign 
and  colonial  policy,  which  under  Pitt  were  from  the  first  blended. 

1  Pitt's  tenure  of  the  Southern,  and  Holderness's  of  the  Northern  Department, 
were  reversed  in  June,  1757. 


PITT'S  FIRST  MINISTRY  107 

And  after  the  King,  who  had  in  vain  negotiated  on  his  own  account 
for  the  assistance  of  other  German  Princes  in  maintaining  the  neu- 
trality of  his  Electorate,  had  spent  all  his  Hanoverian  income  on 
behalf  of  its  defence,  a  bolder  course  was  taken.  While,  with  the  aid 
of  Mitchell,  Frederick  concluded  a  Treaty  with  Brunswick  and  other 
smaller  States  for  the  defence  of  northern  Germany,  Pitt  proposed 
a  substantial  Parliamentary  grant  for  the  defence  of  Hanover,  and 
early  in  1757  the  Duke  of  Cumberland  was  appointed  to  the  com- 
mand of  the  British  troops  sent  out  to  take  part  in  the  operations. 
Thus  the  defence  of  Hanover  had  by  a  strange  fortune  become  the 
corner-stone  of  Pitt's  policy  in  the  European  part  of  the  War.  Yet, 
even  at  the  last,  it  was  not  without  great  difficulty  that  George  II 
had  been  persuaded  by  Frederick  IPs  Envoy  Schmettau  to  abandon 
the  neutrality  of  Hanover.  Before  Pitt's  hand  was  laid  on  the  helm, 
there  had  been  some  hesitation  and  some  ill-success — the  latter  in 
the  operations  to  prevent  the  French  seizure  of  Corsica  and  in  the 
fighting  in  Canada  in  the  region  of  the  Great  Lakes ;  while  the  dismal 
tidings  from  India  (the  massacre  of  the  Black  Hole)  were  soon  over- 
taken by  the  news  of  Clive's  great  victory  of  Plassey  (June,  1757). 

By  the  beginning  of  this  year  the  cards  were  at  last  all  on  the 
table.  The  French  Government  was  so  much  impressed  by  the  de- 
termined action  of  the  British  Government  as  to  signify,  by  way  of 
the  Hague,  its  willingness  to  conclude  peace  on  terms  proposed.  The 
answer  (February  8th),  made  at  a  time  when  affairs  in  Canada  were 
in  a  doubtful  position,  was  worthy  of  Great  Britain,  and  sufficiently 
verified  Frederick's  saying  that  she  had  at  last  found  a  man.  Great 
Britain,  the  King  was  assured,  would  never  assent  to  terms  of  peace 
in  which  he  was  not  included.  The  overture  was  evanescent,  and  the 
war  proceeded,  on  the  British  side  with  unprecedented  vigour,  after 
the  personal  intrigue  directed  by  Newcastle  against  the  control  of 
foreign  affairs  by  Pitt  had  brought  about  an  interregnum  which  was 
almost  an  anarchy,  and  after,  early  in  July,  1757,  Pitt  had  formed 
what  is  rightly  called  his  First  Ministry.  It  was,  in  a  word,  the  most 
powerful  Administration  the  country  had,  or  has,  ever  known. 
Parliamentary  opposition  was  at  a  standstill;  and  when,  little  more 
than  four  years  later,  Pitt  went  out  of  office  it  was  as  if  the  glory  of 
Great  Britain,  of  which  he  had  consummated  the  reestablishment, 
departed  with  him. 

The  unexampled  popularity  enjoyed  by  Pitt  from  the  time  on- 
wards in  which  the  conduct  of  the  country's  affairs,  foreign,  colonial 


io8  INTRODUCTION 

and  commercial,  blended  together,  at  last  came  under  his  immediate 
control,  cannot  be  analysed  in  a  few  sentences.  That  popularity  itself 
was  the  cause  as  well  as  a  consequence  of  the  consummation  not  pre- 
pared in  a  day.  So  far  back  as  1736,  The  Craftsman  had  commented 
on  his  close  study  of  foreign  affairs ;  and  though  he  had  to  cast  to 
the  winds  much  on  which  he  had  insisted  during  his  long  years  of 
Opposition,  partly  (as  he  afterwards  confessed)  for  Opposition's  sake, 
partly  from  ignorance,  he  had  come  into  power  with  a  mind  made 
up,  an  initial  plan  formed,  and  a  knowledge  of  British  as  well  as 
foreign  commercial  conditions  accumulated  and  well  arranged  in  his 
mind.  His  wonderful  power,  not  only  of  influencing  others  as  an 
orator,  but  inspiring  the  agents  of  his  policy  to  end  in  action,  did 
the  rest,  in  the  days  of  his  personal  supremacy — for  no  word  short 
of  this  would  be  appropriate.  He  had  at  his  command  the  devoted 
services  on  which  his  conduct  of  British  foreign  policy  depended — 
the  Foreign  Office  and  its  agents,  diplomatic  and  consular,  who 
suddenly  found  their  instructions  clear  and  precise,  instead  of  being 
left  like  servants  in  doubt  as  to  the  intention  of  their  masters,  the 
Admiralty  and  the  Board  of  Trade.  The  City  was  devoted  to  him 
throughout  almost  the  whole  of  his  career.  The  American  Colonists 
regarded  him  as  one  of  the  few  British  statesmen  who  understood 
colonial  affairs1,  although  it  is  only  just  to  the  memory  of  the  Duke  of 
Bedford,  whose  qualities  as  a  statesman  deserve  higher  recognition 
than  they  have  always  received,  to  remember  that  a  memorial  of  his 
to  Newcastle,  a  decade  before  Pitt  fully  described  his  American 
policy,  foreshadowed  it  in  its  comprehensiveness. 

During  the  Ministerial  interregnum  which,  in  the  spring  of  1757, 
had  preceded  Pitt's  assumption  of  full  power,  Frederick  II  had  sent 
to  him  assurances  of  his  unchanged  regard ;  but  the  British  Govern- 
ment had  not  ventured  to  press  on  George  II,  who  had  still  hoped  to 

1  See  the  admirable  summary  in  Miss  Kate  Hotblack's  Chatham's  Colonial 
Policy  (Routledge  and  Sons,  1917)  which  treats  the  several  parts  of  the  subject 
with  a  rare  combination  of  fulness  and  point.  Of  particular  value  in  the  present 
connexion  is  her  demonstration  of  the  economic  implications  of  Pitt's  foreign 
policy — and  of  his  efforts,  from  this  point  of  view,  to  frustrate  the  union  of  France 
and  Spain,  to  strengthen  the  Portuguese  Alliance,  to  stir  up  Italian  distrust  of  France, 
and  even  to  induce  the  Porte  to  embarrass  Austria  by  an  attack  upon  Hungary.  His 
continuous  purpose  was  that  of  enabling  Great  Britain,  without  self-exhaustion,  to 
outlast  France ;  his  conquests  beyond  sea  were  designed  to  pay  for  the  War ;  and 
the  union  of  the  great  variety  of  measures  which  he  crowded  into  action — from  the 
Senegal  expedition  of  1757  onwards — was  essential  to  the  total  of  success.  His 
carefully  managed  dealings  with  the  Barbary  States  (from  1757)  were  of  high 
importance  for  the  British  Mediterranean  trade  as  well  as  for  his  Spanish  policy. 


THE  FRANCO-AUSTRIAN  TREATY  OF  VERSAILLES  109 

play  a  mediating  part  between  the  two  chief  German  Powers,  the 
plan  of  Frederick  II,  against  whom  Imperial  Execution  had  been 
declared  by  the  Diet,  for  uniting  the  dissenting  Estates  in  resistance 
against  it.  Of  much  greater  importance  for  the  progress  of  the  War 
was  the  question  of  an  active  Alliance  between  Russia  and  Austria, 
which  after  some  delay  (owing  to  differences  of  opinion  at  Petrograd 
and  the  suggestion,  rejected  as  insufficient,  of  the  exclusion  of  British 
trade  from  Russian  ports)  was  actually  concluded  (January,  1757). 
By  it,  the  two  Empresses  bound  themselves  not  to  lay  down  arms  till 
Silesia  and  Glatz  should  have  been  restored  to  Maria  Theresa.  In 
March,  a  Franco- Swedish  Alliance  against  Prussia  followed,  and  in 
the  same  month  the  French  troops  crossed  the  German  frontier. 
The  British  Government,  under  the  influence  of  the  wishes  of  King 
George  II,  was  still  haggling  about  Hanoverian  neutrality  with  the 
Austrian,  when,  in  May,  the  Secret  Treaty  of  Alliance  between  France 
and  Austria — the  Partition  Treaty  of  Versailles — was  signed,  the 
final  hesitation  of  King  Lewis  XV  having  been  overcome  by  his 
being  shown  a  forged  Treaty  of  Alliance  between  Great  Britain  and 
Prussia.  The  Franco-Austrian  compact,  while  providing  for  Austria 's 
recovery  of  Silesia  and  for  the  transfer  to  Duke  Philip  of  Parma  of  the 
whole  of  the  Austrian  Netherlands,  except  Ostend,  Nieuport  and 
Mons,  ceded  to  France,  further  promised  the  Empress's  cooperation 
in  securing  Minorca  to  that  Power1.  The  accession  to  the  Treaty 
of  Russia  and  other  Powers  was  to  be  asked  in  due  course. 

The  House  of  Austria,  which  in  this  Treaty  had  in. fact  gained  all 
it  desired,  had  by  it  completely  detached  itself  from  the  time-honoured 
Alliance  of  Great  Britain,  but  had  neither  undertaken  to  enter  into  any 
active  operations  against  her,  nor  precluded  a  reconciliation  with  her 
at  some  future  date.  The  contents  of  this  Secret  Compact  remained 
for  some  time  unknown.  But,  inasmuch  as  its  designs,  when  they 
came  to  light,  showed  that  they  affected  the  future  of  nearly  the  whole 
of  Europe  (it  is  noteworthy  that  the  Treaty  itself  contained  no  men- 
tion of  the  Ottoman  Power), and  inasmuch  as  there  existed  between  the 
Contracting  Powers  no  international  bond  of  union  unless  the  Roman 
Catholic  religion  be  regarded  as  such,  the  War  which  it  converted 
into  a  European  War  was  surrounded  with  that  general  uncertainty 
which  challenges  the  use  of  all  the  resources  of  statesmanship.  And 
it  was  in  the  face  of  a  Europe  engaged  or  involved  in  such  a  War  as  this 

1  As  already  noted,  the  Utrecht  stipulations  as  to  Dunkirk  now  came  to  an 
end. 


no  INTRODUCTION 

that  Great  Britain  and  France  carried  on,  through  its  most  momentous 
stage,  their  own  struggle  for  empire  beyond  seas. 

Two  months  before  the  formation  of  Pitt's  first  Ministry  Frederick 
the  Great's  dearly  bought  victory  at  Prague  had  not  failed  to  exercise 
its  effects  in  England,  and  George  II  had  met  the  attempts  of  the 
Austrian  Ambassador  still  resident  at  his  Court  (Colloredo)  with  con- 
temptuous rudeness.  The  Austrian  victory  of  Kolin  (June  8th,  1757) 
had  been  followed  by  a  French  invasion  of  Germany  and  a  successful 
conflict  with  a  British  army;  Russia  and  Sweden  had  followed  suit. 
But,  by  this  time,  all  hesitation  was  at  an  end  in  the  counsels  of 
Great  Britain,  though  the  season  had  advanced  too  far  for  any 
material  effect  to  be  exercised  by  British  intervention  on  the  progress 
of  the  Continental  War.  Great  Britain  had  no  ships  to  spare  for  the 
protection  of  the  Prussian  coasts  against  Russia  and  Sweden;  and 
the  States- General  had,  after  the  shedding  of  some  tears  by  the 
Regent,  the  British  Princess  Anne,  allowed  the  transit  by  way  of 
Maestricht  of  French  troops,  who,  besides  garrisoning  Ostend  and 
Nieuport,  occupied  the  chief  towns  of  Westphalia.  The  Duke  of 
Cumberland  arrived  in  time  to  be  defeated,  though  not  decisively, 
at  Hastenbeck  and  to  sign  the  notorious  Convention  of  Kloster- 
Zeven  (September)  which  was,  in  reality,  a  capitulation.  Even  now, 
George  II  would  have  gladly  concluded  a  Treaty  of  Neutrality  for 
Hanover  with  France  and  Austria,  and  confidence  was  rising  at 
Vienna  and  Versailles;  but  Pitt,  who  had  his  own  plans  for  British 
cooperation  in  the  Continental  War,  would  not  hear  of  the  acceptance 
of  the  Convention.  The  ultimate  refusal  of  George  II  to  ratify  it, 
accordingly,  signified  the  final  and  complete  adoption  by  the  British 
Government  of  the  policy  of  active  cooperation  with  Prussia,  instead 
of  attempting  to  carry  out  a  Hanoverian,  side  by  side  with  its  own 
(British),  policy.  Before  the  year  1757  was  over,  the  most  brilliant 
of  Frederick's  victories,  Rossbach  (November),  sealed  the  compact  of 
mutual  confidence  and  relegated  into  political  oblivion  the  Capitulation 
of  Kloster-Zeven.  The  Duke  of  Cumberland  was  superseded  in  his 
military  command  by  Prince  Ferdinand  of  Brunswick;  the  Hano- 
verian army  was  taken  into  British  pay;  and  success  crowned  the 
recasting,  as  it  might  almost  be  called,  of  the  lines  of  the  Personal 
Union1. 

1  Not,  however,  so  as  to  cause  this  aspect  of  it  to  be  recognised  in  the  Peace 
which  ended  Great  Britain's  participation  in  the  War,  and  which,  while  abandoning 
Frederick  II,  ignored  Hanover. 


PITT  AND  THE  BRITISH  WAR  SPIRIT  in 

In  December,  1757,  there  followed  Frederick  IPs  second  great 
victory  gained  in  this  wonderful  year  of  military  history — the  battle  of 
Leuthen.  The  moral,  as  well  as  the  financial,  support  of  Great  Britain 
had  been  of  high  value  to  the  victor,  and  the  question  now  became :  in 
what  measure  was  his  Ally  prepared  to  help  him  to  carry  the  Conti- 
nental War  to  the  successful  end  which  his  military  genius  had  made 
possible.  For  the  British  enterprises  of  the  latter  part  of  the  year  had 
by  no  means  proved  successful;  the  Rochefort  expedition  had  been 
a  costly  failure ;  and  in  America  and  elsewhere  the  British  Navy  had 
not  asserted  its  superiority  over  the  French.  But  the  great  battles 
won  by  Frederick,  with  the  news  of  our  victorious  progress  in  India, 
enabled  the  high  spirit  of  Pitt  to  carry  Parliament  with  him  in  his 
forward  policy,  and  he  was  sanguine  enough  to  conceive,  and  to  em- 
body in  a  famous  despatch  composed  at  this  time  (end  of  1757),  the 
idea  of  an  alliance  with  Spain,  which  should  subsequently  be  extended 
to  Naples  and  Sardinia.  Gibraltar  was  once  more  to  be  the  price  paid. 
But  the  scheme  was  as  inopportune  as  it  was  unsound,  and  the  good- 
will towards  it  of  the  Spanish  Minister,  Wall,  proved  a  broken  reed. 

Yet,  when  Parliament  met  in  the  last  month  of  1757,  the  German 
news  had,  together  with  the  Indian,  raised  popular  enthusiasm  to  the 
highest  pitch  in  favour  of  the  War  and  Pitt,  though  neither  of  the 
early  policy  of  Clive,  nor  of  the  victory  which  crowned  it  in  Bengal, 
can  the  credit  be  claimed  for  the  British  statesman.  In  1758-9,  how- 
ever, his  plans  against  France  were  in  organic  cooperation  with  the 
action  of  the  East  India  Company,  though  his  design  upon  Mauritius 
was  diverted.  (The  capture  of  Manilla  was  not  carried  out  till  after 
his  resignation.)  Nor  should  it  be  overlooked  that  the  material  pros- 
perity of  Great  Britain  had  not  suffered  from  her  warlike  exertions 
and  preparations;  her  credit  stood  high,  and  British  trade,  the  in- 
terests of  which  were  from  the  first  at  the  bottom  of  Pitt's  foreign 
policy,  prospered  under  his  care.  The  British  fleet  were  masters  of 
the  Mediterranean,  French  trade  with  the  Levant  was  checked,  and 
Dutch  trade  in  the  West  Indies,  at  the  risk  of  a  serious  collision  with 
the  States-General,  was  subjected  to  a  strict  application  of  the  right 
of  search1.  Pitt's  vigilance  was  unsleeping;  nor  could  any  notion  be 

1  The  difficulties  as  to  the  Dutch  trade  with  the  French  West  Indies  by  way  of 
the  Dutch  West  Indian  Islands  gave  rise  to  a  prolonged  dispute,  which  really 
defied  settlement,  so  long  as  there  was  no  agreement  as  to  the  principles  of  inter- 
national maritime  law.  There  were  similar  disputes  with  the  Danish  Government, 
which,  however,  was  less  pertinacious.  (Sweden's  attitude  towards  Great  Britain 
was  hostile.) 


II2  INTRODUCTION 

more  futile  than  that  of  his  eloquence  having  been  his  main  contri- 
bution to  the  progress  of  the  War. 

For  the  campaign  of  1758  Pitt  was  ready  to  furnish  Frederick  II 
with  the  promised  subsidies ;  and  the  demand  for  military  and  naval 
support,  pressed  by  him  after  the  Russians  had  occupied  Konigsberg, 
was  (after  acrimonious  discussion  with  Fox)  met  by  the  Subsidy 
Treaty  and  the  accompanying  Declaration  (April),  which  made  the 
aid  of  troops  and  ships  conditional  upon  the  requirements  of  British 
action  in  America.  This  carefully  drawn  *  Declaration  of  London '  is  of 
the  highest  importance  as  marking  the  progress  of  the  Anglo-Prussian 
Alliance  from  its  first  to  its  second  stage ;  but  it  shows,  at  the  same  time, 
beyond  what  length  Pitt  was  unprepared  to  go,  well  aware  as  he  was 
of  the  outcry  to  be  eventually  expected  against  the  employment  of 
men  and  ships  needed  for  home  and  colonial  defence  on  the  expulsion 
of  the  French  from  Hanover  and  the  sweeping  the  Baltic  clear  of 
Russian  vessels.  This  latter  service,  therefore,  except  in  the  interests 
of  both  the  Allies,  the  Declaration  expressly  declined  on  the  part  of 
Great  Britain. 

The  year  1758,  marked  by  British  successes  beyond  the  seas  (the 
reduction  of  Cape  Breton  and  the  capture  of  Duquesne,  now  re- 
named Pittsburg),  brought  no  decisive  results  to  Frederick  II;  for 
the  occupation  of  Prussian  provinces  by  his  adversaries  was,  in  a 
manner,  balanced  by  his  continued  tenure  of  Saxony.  The  presence 
and  successes  of  the  Hanoverian  army  under  Ferdinand  of  Bruns- 
wick, however,  freed  him  from  the  obligation  of  keeping  watch  and 
ward  against  the  French  and  their  German  mercenaries,  and  materi- 
ally contributed  to  strengthen  the  Alliance.  The  Austrian  Nether- 
lands were  in  serious  danger;  and,  if  the  British  Government  had 
chosen  to  support  Prince  Ferdinand  by  a  naval  descent  upon  the 
Belgian  coast,  a  momentous  effect  might  have  been  exercised  upon 
the  progress  of  the  War.  But  the  resources  at  hand  were  expended 
upon  two  of  those  lesser  expeditions  (St  Malo  and  Cherbourg),  which 
must  be  reckoned  among  the  mistakes  in  Pitt's  conduct  of  the  War. 
On  the  other  hand — for  his  sway  was  absolute  in  all  directions,  both 
before  and  after  he  and  Holderness  exchanged  Departments — his 
Russian  policy  at  this  time  aimed  at  inducing  the  Tsarina  Elizabeth, 
whose  forces  had  occupied  the  Prussian  North-East,  to  conclude 
peace  with  Frederick  II;  and  the  instructions  of  Sir  Robert  Keith 
(who  remained  British  Ambassador  at  Petrograd  till  the  crisis  of 
1 762)  were  so  intended .  But ,  though  he  had  consulted  King  Frederick , 


THE  AUSTRO-FRENCH  ALLIANCE  CONFIRMED       113 

he  found  the  political  situation  unmanageable.  He  had,  therefore,  to 
turn  to  the  secondary  purpose  of  his  mission,  the  conclusion  of  a 
Commercial  Treaty  with  Russia,  whose  trade  had  suffered  grievously 
from  British  privateers,  and  who  in  her  turn  was  suspected  of  designs 
in  which  she  would  command  the  support  of  Sweden  and  Denmark 
(with  both  of  whom  France  had  signed  Subsidy  Treaties)  and  might 
thus  ultimately  acquire  the  control  of  the  navigation  of  the  Baltic.  It 
was  not  till  after  much  manoeuvring,  nor  until  after  the  accession  of 
Catharine  II,  that  the  Commercial  Treaty  was  signed.  But  between 
Sweden  and  Great  Britain  a  rupture  of  diplomatic  relations  had  taken 
place  in  1758  (March),  and  it  was  only  the  prudence  of  Pitt  which,  in 
this  instance,  avoided  serious  complications  for  British  policy. 

Thus,  in  1758,  while  on  the  whole  the  British  arms  had  made 
progress  both  in  Canada  and  in  Bengal,  the  course  of  the  campaigns 
in  Germany  had  (notwithstanding  Hochkirch)  been  such  as  to  afford 
a  kind  of  negative  encouragement  to  Frederick  II,  and  to  raise  serious 
doubts  in  influential  quarters  in  France — even  in  Cardinal  de  Bernis, 
formerly  one  of  the  chief  promoters  of  the  Austrian  Alliance — as  to  the 
expediency  of  seeking  peace.  But  the  hesitation  was  overcome ;  the 
Tsarina  Elizabeth  stood  firm  by  the  Partition  Treaty ;  after  making 
some  pacific  overtures  to  Great  Britain  through  Denmark,  Bernis 
was  banished  (December),  and  in  the  last  days  of  the  year  a  new  Treaty 
was  concluded  between  Austria  and  France.  This  compact  upheld 
the  promise  of  France  as  to  the  recovery  of  Silesia,  and  made  the 
conclusion  of  a  French  Peace  with  Great  Britain  conditional  on  re- 
gard for  Austrian  interests ;  but  it  otherwise  considerably  diminished 
her  obligations  under  the  Partition  Treaty  of  1757,  to  which  a  Secret 
Agreement  now  put  an  end.  This  "diplomatic  masterpiece"  of 
Choiseul — for  he  was  now  in  entire  control  of  the  foreign  policy  of 
France — amounted  to  no  very  considerable  improvement  of  the  position 
to  which  that  Power  had  been  reduced  by  Madame  de  Pompadour's 
friends ;  and  it  left  unchanged  the  essence  of  the  situation.  In  other 
words,  the  Austro-French  Alliance  continued,  while,  so  long  as  Pitt 
was  in  power,  there  was  no  fear  of  the  bond  between  Great  Britain 
and  Prussia  being  broken.  On  the  contrary :  though  Frederick  II  could 
not  but  long  for  as  early  as  possible  a  peace  through  victory,  Pitt,  as 
the  triumph  of  British  arms  by  land  and  sea  assumed  wider  dimen- 
sions, perceived  that  fullest  advantage  must  be  taken  of  the  oppor- 
tunity for  utterly  overthrowing  the  naval  and  colonial  power  of  France ; 
and  George  II  was,  after  his  wont,  speculating  on  an  enlargement  of 

W.&G.I.  8 


n4  INTRODUCTION 

his  Electorate  in  the  direction  of  Westphalia.  But,  for  the  present, 
a  new  Subsidy  Treaty  passed  the  House  of  Commons  (December), 
Pitt  taking  occasion  to  defy  the  Austrians,  as  if  they  were  treacherous 
conspirators  against  the  honour  of  the  British  nation. 

The  year  which  followed  (1759)  splendidly  vindicated  his  con- 
fidence. For  it  was  the  year  of  the  capture  of  Quebec — a  heroic 
memory — though  it  was  not  till  the  following  year  (1760)  that,  by 
the  capitulation  of  Montreal,  the  whole  of  Canada  fell  into  British 
hands,  and  the  possessions  of  France  in  America  were  reduced  to 
Louisiana  alone.  The  fall  of  Quebec  was  only  one  of  a  long  series  of 
British  victories  at  a  stage  in  the  War  intended  by  Choiseul  to  have 
been  marked  by  the  invasion  of  England — in  lieu  of  which  the  French 
coasts  were  subjected  to  a  complete  blockade.  Later  in  the  year 
(November),  Hawke's  great  exploit  at  Quiberon  Bay  followed;  and, 
after  this  victory,  Pitt's  foresight  in  ignoring  the  hopes  placed  by 
France  on  the  cooperation  of  the  Italian  States  was  justified,  and  the 
gallant  Thurot's  invasion  of  Ireland  ended  in  death  and  disaster 
(February,  1760).  So  far  as  Great  Britain  was  concerned,  the  main 
result  of  the  War,  the  establishment  of  her  naval  supremacy,  had 
been  already  achieved,  though  part  of  Pitt's  American  design  was  in 
his  eyes  still  unaccomplished,  so  long  as  the  fishing  monopoly  which 
he  wished  to  establish  for  Great  Britain  in  the  Gulf  of  Newfoundland 
was  not  in  her  possession. 

Meanwhile,  the  year  1759  had  seemed  to  bring  Great  Britain's 
Ally  to  the  verge  of  ruin ;  his  resources  were  all  but  reduced  to  his 
requisitions  in  Saxony  and  some  petty  Saxon  States,  and  to  the 
British  subsidies.  The  moral  advantage  of  Great  Britain's  maritime 
and  American  successes  contributed  to  sustain  him  in  resisting  what 
seemed  his  doom ;  and  Prince  Ferdinand  of  Brunswick,  though  the 
effects  of  his  victory  of  Minden  (August)  fell  short  of  what  they  should 
have  been,  much  more  than  held  his  own  against  the  Western  foe. 
It  is  not  surprising  that  the  vicissitudes  of  the  German  campaigns 
in  this  year  should  have  overshadowed  other  aspects  in  the  history 
of  the  Alliance;  but  the  projects,  independently  conceived  by  both 
Frederick  II  and  Pitt,  directed  to  the  permanent  exclusion  of  Austrian 
dominion  and  influence  from  Italy,  should  not  be  overlooked.  The 
death  of  Ferdinand  VI  had  brought  to  the  Spanish  Throne  his  brother 
Charles  III,  whose  goodwill  was  of  so  much  importance  that  France 
and  Austria  were  alike  willing  to  promote  a  drastic  revision  in  his 
favour  (or  in  that  of  his  third  son,  Ferdinand)  of  the  settlement  of  Italy 


FAILURE  OF  PITT'S  ITALIAN  SCHEME  115 

agreed  upon  at  Aix-la-Chapelle.  The  House  of  Savoy  (with  its  wonted 
vigilance)  declined  to  fall  in  with  the  arrangement ;  and  this  suggested 
to  Pitt  a  scheme  which  should  at  the  same  time  satisfy  that  House  and 
the  Spanish  dynasty,  and  involve  Austria  in  a  war  on  behalf  of  her 
Italian  interests.  While  the  Spanish  infante  Don  Philip  of  Parma  was 
to  be  indemnified  by  Tuscany,  Charles  Emmanuel  of  Sardinia  was  to 
acquire  Milan,  and  the  North- Italian  duchies,  with  the  title  of  King 
of  Lombardy1.  But  Charles  III,  who  (not  inexplicably)  hated  Great 
Britain  in  his  heart,  had  no  intention  of  allying  himself  with  her  and 
entering  into  a  war,  of  which  the  chief  Italian  gain  would  accrue  to  his 
Sardinian  rival,  whose  desire  for  territory  equalled  his  own.  He  was 
secretly  longing  for  the  day  when,  by  the  side  of  Great  Britain's  present 
chief  adversary,  he  might  take  revenge  upon  her  and  her  dictatorial 
policy  towards  his  monarchy  and  himself.  The  British  proposals  were 
refused  at  Naples,  where,  according  to  the  Treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle, 
Philip  of  Parma  was  to  have  succeeded  Charles  III  on  his  mounting 
the  Spanish  Throne ;  and,  when  subsequently  repeated  by  Frederick 
II,  they  met  with  a  similar  rebuff.  But  the  new  King  of  Spain 
thought  it  well  at  present  to  conceal  his  enmity  to  Great  Britain, 
although  he  made  no  secret  of  it  to  the  French  Government,  whose 
plans  of  an  invasion  of  England  in  this  year  (1759)  he  warmly  ap- 
proved. He  was,  indeed,  intending  to  proceed  to  his  new  Throne  at 
Madrid  by  way  of  France,  in  response  to  an  invitation  from  Lewis  XV, 
and  with  a  view  to  confirming  or  renewing  the  Bourbon  Family  Com- 
pact2, when  he  was  restrained,  partly  by  the  fear  of  offending  Spanish 
pride,  partly  by  the  tidings  of  recent  brilliant  successes.  At  Madrid, 
he  found  feeling  very  strong  against  Great  Britain,  more  especially 
on  account  of  offences  against  Spanish  neutrality  imputed  to  British 
vessels.  The  Spanish  Government,  which,  at  the  close  of  1759,  had 
offered  its  mediation  between  Great  Britain  and  France,  in  the  follow- 
ing year  sent  a  memorial  to  London  reciting  all  the  Spanish  grievances. 
Pitt  received  it  with  surprise,  as  he  had  the  offer  made  by  Don 
Ricardo  Wall  with  indignation — for  he  was  well  aware  of  the  real  aim  of 
Spanish  policy.  He  had,  before  this,  judiciously  declined  the  suggestion 
of  Frederick  II,  that  the  former  Jacobite  Earl  Marischal,  now  Prussian 
Ambassador  at  Madrid,  should  proffer  his  mediatory  services. 

On  the  other  hand,  Great  Britain  and  Prussia  had  agreed,  towards 

1  See  R.  Waddington,  La  Guerre  de  Sept  Ans,  vol.  ill.  p.  451. 

2  This  was  effected  in  August,  1761,  when  the  most  important  of  the  three 
agreements  known  under  the  name  of  the  Family  Compact  was  signed  at  Paris. 

8—2 


n6  INTRODUCTION 

the  end  of  1759,  on  the  expediency  of  proposing  to  the  Powers  at 
war  with  them  the  assembling,  in  regular  form,  of  a  Peace  Congress. 
This  they  did  by  handing  to  the  Envoy  of  these  Powers  at  the  Hague 
through  Duke  Lewis  Ernest  of  Brunswick-Bevern  (guardian  of  the 
Hereditary  Stadholder  William  V),  the  so-called  Declaration  of  Rys- 
wyk  (November).  But  it  remained  ineffective,  and  was  in  truth  de- 
signed to  conciliate  public  opinion  in  England  by  taking  advantage 
of  the  popular  craving  for  peace  in  France,  which  Choiseul,  like 
Bernis  before  him,  could  no  longer  gainsay,  and  which  (March,  1760) 
actually  induced  him  to  carry  on  at  the  Hague  secret  negotiations 
with  the  British  Government  for  a  separate  peace.  But,  while  France 
was  negotiating  without  her  Allies — Austria  having  declared  it  neces- 
sary to  arrive,  in  the  first  instance,  at  an  understanding  with  Russia, 
and  the  Tsarina  Elizabeth  having  sent  a  point-blank  refusal  to  discuss 
the  subject — Great  Britain,  from  the  first,  loyally  declared  that  her 
Ally  should  be  apprised  of  every  step  in  the  negotiation.  And  Pitt 
held  to  his  promise,  while  Frederick  II,  also,  kept  himself  in- 
formed through  a  secret  channel — no  other  than  his  friend  Voltaire — 
and  then  directly  through  a  Prussian  agent,  and,  in  the  stress  under 
which  he  was  placed,  showed  himself  not  averse  from  the  proposal 
of  a  separate  peace  between  France  and  Great  Britain.  But  Pitt 
judged  more  correctly  (as  his  Ally  was  afterwards  fain  to  acknowledge) 
and  insisted  on  the  inclusion  of  Prussia  in  the  peace  as  indispensable. 
The  negotiations,  hereupon,  broke  down,  and  (April,  1760)  the  three 
Allies,  once  more  united,  presented  to  the  Regent  of  the  United  Pro- 
vinces the  "  Counter-declaration  of  Ryswyk,"  which,  while  stating  that 
the  King  of  France  was  prepared  to  negotiate  with  the  King  of  Great 
Britain  through  the  King  of  Spain,  accepted  a  Congress  on  Peace 
with  Prussia  only  on  condition  of  the  admission  of  the  representa- 
tives of  the  other  Powers  at  war  with  her  (Poland  and  Sweden).  All 
hopes  of  peace  were  now  at  an  end ;  and  the  proverbial  tenacity  of  the 
House  of  Habsburg  had  succeeded  in  keeping  its  Allies  under  arms 
together. 

But,  though  Austria  had  thus  been  enabled  to  resume  the  design, 
with  which  she  had  entered  into  the  War,  of  crushing  her  archfoe, 
and  though  bankrupt  France  had  to  continue  her  twofold  struggle, 
Russia's  adhesion  to  her  Allies,  albeit  assured,  for  the  period  of  her 
reign,  by  the  Tsarina's  determination,  was  not  accorded  without 
promises  of  future  gains  in  the  event  of  common  victory.  In  March, 
1760,  these  were  secured  to  her  by  the  so-called  Schouvaloff  Treaties 


RUSSIAN  ACTION  IN  THE  WAR  117 

with  Austria  (ratified  in  July),  which,  while  signifying  Russia's 
accession  to  the  Versailles  Treaty  between  Austria  and  France  of 
December,  1758,  in  a  Secret  Article  laid  down  the  obligations  under- 
taken by  the  two  Powers  for  their  respective  satisfaction  at  the  end 
of  the  War.  In  the  event  of  Austria's  recovery  of  Silesia — but  not 
otherwise — Austria  bound  herself  to  secure  the  acquisition  by  Russia 
of  "Prussia,"  i.e.  Ducal  Prussia,  with  the  addition  of  Danzig ;  Poland, 
helpless  as  usual,  notwithstanding  the  friendship  of  France,  being 
compensated  by  some  lesser  cessions.  When  it  is  remembered  that  in 
the  previous  year  (March,  1759)  Russia  had  concluded  a  Treaty  with 
Sweden  for  the  effective  maintenance,  for  trade  purposes,  of  Baltic 
neutrality,  and  that  Denmark  was  obliged  to  adhere  to  this  agree- 
ment in  the  following  year,  it  will  be  seen  how,  in  the  event  of  a 
victorious  issue  of  the  War,  the  power  of  Russia  would  have  been 
rendered  irresistible  in  the  Baltic. 

It  was  against  an  Alliance  thus  extended  in  its  aims  as  well  as 
strengthened  in  its  cohesion  that  Pitt  and  Great  Britain  prepared  to 
take  part  in  the  progress  of  the  struggle,  when  it  reopened  in  the 
spring  of  1760.  Pitt's  Government,  in  order  not  to  interfere  with  the 
British  trade  in  the  Baltic,  declined  to  send  a  fleet  into  those  waters, 
where  it  would  have  been  welcomed  by  the  Danes ;  so  that  the  Rus- 
sians and  Swedes  had  their  hands  free  for  operating  there  against 
Prussia,  while  her  Allied  enemies  could,  with  the  exception  of  France, 
address  themselves  with  renewed  energy  to  the  German  War.  Maria 
Theresa  had  made  up  her  mind  to  carry  it  to  a  decisive  issue.  But 
there  were  differences  of  plan  between  Austria  and  Russia;  and  in 
the  end  Laudon  had  to  raise  the  siege  of  Breslau  (August)  though 
the  Russians  for  a  few  days  (October)  occupied  Berlin.  The  con- 
fidence of  Maria  Theresa  was  severely  shaken  by  the  Austrian  defeat 
(at  first  reported  a  victory)  at  Torgau  (November);  and,  while 
Frederick  II  remained  in  his  headquarters  at  Dresden,  no  important 
result  had  been  reached  by  his  adversaries'  campaign  against  him  in 
eastern  and  central  Germany.  In  the  west,  Prince  Ferdinand  had, 
partly  in  consequence  of  the  numerical  inferiority  of  his  forces,  been 
unable  to  deal  any  effective  blow;  but,  at  least  from  the  British  point 
of  view,  he  had  not  carried  on  the  fight  in  vain,  having  kept  the 
French  forces  out  of  Hanover  and  done  his  best  to  exhaust  the  re- 
sources of  the  enemy.  Thus,  Great  Britain  was  the  better  able  to 
continue  her  efforts  against  the  same  foe  beyond  sea,  where  the  French 
siege  of  Quebec  was  raised  and  Montreal  capitulated. 


n8  INTRODUCTION 

The  indecisive  character  of  the  German  campaigns  of  1760,  and 
the  extensive  losses  of  the  French  Power  in  the  East  Indies  and  the 
New  World,  rendered  Choiseul  anxious  to  bring  about  negotiations 
in  the  direction  of  peace  with  the  Prussian  and  British  Governments. 
But,  afraid  of  challenging  Austrian  (and  Jesuit)  influences  at  Court, 
he  once  more  had  resort  to  King  Charles  III  of  Spain.  The  latter  at 
this  time  gave  much  of  his  confidence  to  Marquis  Grimaldi,  who  had 
convinced  himself  that,  instead  of  continuing  to  mix  herself  up  in 
the  German  War,  France  ought,  in  close  alliance  with  Spain,  to 
apply  all  her  energies  to  the  War  with  Great  Britain.  Spain,  of  whose 
grievances  mention  has  been  already  made,  actually  began  to  arm, 
and  a  diplomatic  contention  followed  between  the  Spanish  Ambas- 
sador at  the  Court  of  St  James'  and  Pitt.  Though  France  still  hesi- 
tated about  changing  her  policy  and  concluding  peace  with  Prussia, 
it  seemed  as  if  the  year  1760  was  not  to  end  without  the  outbreak  of 
hostilities  between  Spain  and  Great  Britain.  But  the  death  of  the 
bellicose  Spanish  Queen  (Maria  Amalia)  and,  far  more  signally,  a 
month  afterwards,  that  of  King  George  II  of  Great  Britain,  led  to 
a  change — the  latter  event  to  an  all-important  one — in  the  situation. 

King  George  II  died — on  October  27th,  1760 — as  the  Ally  of  a 
Prince  whom  he  detested  almost  more  than  any  other,  and  counselled 
by  a  Minister  from  whom  he  shrank  with  unconquerable  aversion. 
But  it  was  the  nation  which  had  sustained  Walpole  so  long  as  its 
mind  was  bent  on  peace;  and  the  nation,  not  King  George  II,  had 
brought  Pitt  into  favour  and  kept  him  there,  so  long  as  its  mind  was 
set  on  war.  The  change  in  the  system  of  government  which  began 
with  the  accession  of  George  III  was,  in  the  first  instance,  fatal  to 
the  complete  ascendancy  of  Pitt,  and  could  not  but  become  so  to  the 
continuation  of  the  foreign  policy  with  which  he  was  identified.  At  the 
very  time  when  the  War  was  extending  itself  towards  the  participa- 
tion in  it  of  Spain,  Pitt  was  on  the  eve  of  having  to  resign  power  into 
the  hands  of  a  royal  favourite,  who  was  prepared  to  conclude  a  peace 
short  of  the  measure  of  aggrandisement  which  Great  Britain  had 
actually  achieved,  and  which  would  have  satisfied  the  nation.  On  the 
very  first  day  of  his  reign,  George  III  proposed  to  appoint  Bute 
one  of  the  Secretaries  of  State,  though  it  was  not  till  six  months 
afterwards  that,  Holderness  having  made  way  for  the  favourite,  the 
offer  was  reluctantly  accepted  by  him.  (Bute  had  been  at  once  ad- 
mitted by  the  new  Sovereign  into  the  Privy  Council.)  On  opening 
his  first  Parliament  (November  2nd)  George  III  announced  his  inten- 


PROPOSED  PEACE  NEGOTIATIONS  WITH  FRANCE    119 

tion  of  steadily  pressing  on  the  victorious  War,  and  Frederick  II  was 
so  sure  of  the  bona  fides  of  the  British  Government,  so  long  as  Pitt  was 
at  its  head,  that  he  even  declared  his  readiness  to  acquiesce  in  a  separate 
peace  between  Great  Britain  and  France,  provided  that  limits  were  set 
to  French  assistance  to  Austria.  Moreover,  he  remained  in  control  of 
the  greater  part  of  the  army  of  Prince  Ferdinand.  Thus,  the  proposed 
revision  of  the  Anglo-Prussian  Treaty  of  Alliance  came  to  nothing,  and 
the  old  Subsidy  Treaty  was  renewed.  But  some  of  Pitt's  followers, 
as  well  as  "the  King's  Friends,"  were  inclining  to  the  view  that  the 
War  had  accomplished  enough ;  and  Bute's  acceptance  of  the  Secretary- 
ship, with  certain  other  Governmental  changes,  no  doubt  weakened 
Pitt's  position.  He  was  ready  to  make  peace  with  France,  though  he 
still  pressed  on  British  conquests  in  order  to  command  what  were,  in 
his  judgment,  reasonable  terms,  and,  being  aware  of  the  intimate  rela- 
tions between  France  and  Spain,  he  was  anxious  to  take  advantage  of 
Choiseul's  increased  anxiety  to  conclude  a  tolerable  peace.  Influenced, 
among  other  pacific  symptoms,  by  the  Swedish  popular  dislike  of  the 
War,  Choiseul  pressed  his  views  in  favour  of  peace  on  Maria  Theresa, 
who  for  the  first  time  in  the  course  of  the  War,  showed  signs  of  dis- 
couragement; but  Kaunitz  and  Russian  influence  prevailed,  and  his 
notion  of  a  Congress  was  in  the  end  accepted  by  Choiseul,  in  lieu  of 
the  plan  of  a  separate  negotiation  between  France  and  Great  Britain. 
Thus,  the  campaigns  of  1761  began  without  any  actual  movement  in 
favour  of  peace,  and,  though  Pitt's  willingness  to  entertain  the  notion 
of  concluding  it  with  France  on  his  terms  had  been  in  vain,  his 
alternative  of  pressing  on  the  War  till  these  terms  should  have 
become  possible  remained  and  justified  itself. 

For,  while,  in  1761,  the  struggle  of  Prussia  against  Austria  and 
Russia  remained  undecided,  want  of  money,  though  not  of  men,  having 
delayed  an  agreement  between  the  Allies  on  a  joint  plan  of  action, 
and  Lau don's  brilliant  surprise  of  Schweidnitz  (October)  having  then 
reduced  Frederick  II  to  the  defensive  in  Lower  Silesia,  things  had  gone 
badly  for  the  French  in  the  west.  Here  the  French  armies  had  been 
unable  either  to  drive  Prince  Ferdinand  out  of  Westphalia  or  to  en- 
croach further  on  Hanoverian  territory.  These  failures  had  increased 
the  longing  for  peace  in  France,  and,  though  the  ill-judged  Belle-Isle 
expedition,  a  lesser  effort  of  the  sort  on  which  Pitt  at  times  set  his 
heart,  and  intended  to  secure  an  eventual  equivalent  for  Minorca,  was 
allowed  by  him  to  delay  the  assembling  of  the  proposed  Peace  Con- 
gress at  Augsburg,  he  saw  no  objection  to  secret  communications 


I20  INTRODUCTION 

with  France  in  the  same  direction  in  Paris  (through  Hans  Stanley) 
and  in  London  (through  de  Bussy).  In  these  negotiations,  Pitt  let 
it  be  known  that  no  separate  peace  with  France  would  be  allowed  by 
Great  Britain  to  prevent  her  from  continuing  effective  aid  to  her 
Prussian  Ally.  But  the  Austrian  Government  succeeded  in  stiffening 
ChoiseuPs  attitude,  and  even  in  insisting  on  a  guarantee  to  Spain 
being  attached  to  any  Treaty  with  Great  Britain.  Thus,  through  the 
efforts  of  Grimaldi,  Choiseul,  in  his  Memorial  of  July  i5th,  formu- 
lated the  Spanish  claims  against  Great  Britain  and  implicitly  adopted 
them.  Pitt's  Government  on  the  other  hand,  declared  their  inclusion 
in  any  Peace  Treaty  with  France  wholly  inadmissible.  The  temper  of 
the  nation,  encouraged  by  the  news  from  the  Indies  both  East  and 
West,  was  still  high;  and  peace  with  France  was  still  out  of  the 
question,  so  long  at  least  as  Pitt  was  at  the  helm. 

On  July  25th  the  British  Government  forwarded  its  own  con- 
ditions to  the  French;  they  proposed  that  Great  Britain  should  be 
allowed  to  assist  her  Prussian  Ally  in  accordance  with  her  Treaty 
obligations ;  but  the  real  difficulty  lay  in  Choiseul's  mind  being  now 
obsessed  by  the  idea  of  the  Spanish  Alliance.  The  Third  Family 
Compact  between  France  and  Spain,  in  whose  mutual  guarantee  the 
Bourbon  Princes  in  Italy  took  part,  was  signed  on  August  i5th.  It 
contained  a  Secret  Article,  of  even  greater  moment  than  the  public 
agreement,  binding  Spain  to  declare  war  against  Great  Britain  on 
May  ist,  1762,  should  that  Power  then  still  be  at  war  with  France, 
and,  in  this  event,  promising  the  restoration  of  Minorca  to  Spain. 
The  point  of  the  Compact  was  obviously  directed  against  Great 
Britain ;  but  by  concluding  it  France  violated  the  Versailles  Treaty 
of  May  ist,  1756  with  Austria,  who  had  been  left  without  so  much 
as  cognisance  of  it.  As  for  the  British  peace  negotiations  with  France, 
they  were  broken  off,  though  not  till  October,  and  the  Congress  of 
Augsburg,  for  which  the  Plenipotentiaries  had  already  been  named, 
collapsed  in  its  birth. 

But,  on  finding  the  preservation  of  peace  with  Spain  impossible, 
Pitt,  as  if  desirous  of  taking  a  leaf  out  of  the  book  of  his  Ally,  and 
(if  it  may  be  so  put)  anticipating  the  inevitable,  gained  an  advantage 
over  the  now  accomplished  Alliance  at  the  outset.  Reckoning  that 
the  seizure  of  Spanish  ships  could,  if  rapidly  effected,  be  carried 
out  without  any  augmentation  of  the  British  navy,  and  at  the  same 
time  lead  to  the  seizure  of  Spanish  Colonies,  he,  so  early  as  September 
i8th,  1761,  proposed  to  the  Cabinet  to  declare  war  against  Spain. 


RESIGNATION  OF  PITT.— WAR  WITH  SPAIN       121 

But  the  proposal  appalled  the  whole  Ministry,  except  Temple,  and 
was  resisted  by  Bute,  who  thought  that  the  opportunity  had  at  last 
arrived  for  overthrowing  the  Ministry's  master.  The  question  was 
debated  in  three  Cabinet  meetings,  and  on  October  2nd  was  finally 
decided  against  Pitt.  On  December  5th,  he  resigned,  Temple  fol- 
lowing him  out  of  office. 

Bute  had  now  the  leading  voice  in  the  Government,  though 
Newcastle  remained  its  nominal  head  till  1762.  Lord  Egremont, 
who  had  been  designated  as  Plenipotentiary  at  Augsburg,  and  who 
was  regarded  as  wholly  under  Bute's  influence,  took  Pitt's  place  as 
Secretary  of  State.  He  perceived  at  once  that,  popular  as  the  great 
war  Minister  had  been,  there  was  no  other  way  of  ending  that  popu- 
larity than  the  conclusion  of  that  Peace  which  Pitt  had  declined  to 
seek  to  bring  about  prematurely,  but  which  was  favoured  by  the 
majority  of  the  new  Parliament  (November),  whether  through  the 
influence  of  the  Court  or  through  the  manipulation  of  Newcastle, 
or  both.  The  Speech  from  the  Throne  made  no  mention  of  Spain; 
but  the  Spanish  Government  vindicated  the  insight  of  Pitt  by  throw- 
ing off  the  mask.  Its  military  preparations  were  hurried  on,  and  Wall 
now  propounded  a  long  series  of  grievances  against  Great  Britain, 
accompanied  by  an  indignant  message  of  sympathy  with  France. 
The  request  for  information  of  the  Earl  of  Bristol,  the  British  Am- 
bassador at  Madrid,  as  to  the  Family  Compact  was  received  with 
cynical  boldness,  and,  when  a  formal  reply  was  made  five  weeks 
later,  its  tone  was  unaltered.  Immediately  afterwards,  the  Spanish 
reply  to  the  British  ultimatum,  enquiring  whether  or  not  King 
Charles  III  designed  to  ally  himself  with  the  foes  of  Great  Britain, 
arrived  in  London;  and  on  January  4th,  1762,  there  followed  the 
British  Declaration  of  War  against  Spain.  In  March,  a  peremptory 
joint  Spanish  and  French  Note  was  despatched  to  the  King  of 
Portugal,  desiring  him  to  put  an  end  to  all  correspondence  and  com- 
merce with  Great  Britain,  and,  on  the  demand  being  refused,  a 
Spanish  army  entered  Portugal  (April). 

But  while,  in  this  quarter,  the  British  Government  had  done 
what  seemed  indispensable,  it  had  taken  the  momentous  negative 
step  of  leaving  the  Subsidy  Treaty  with  Prussia  unrenewed.  This, 
indeed,  did  not  amount  to  her  abandoning  Prussia  to  her  foes,  and 
was  not  so  regarded  by  Frederick  II,  who  at  this  late  stage  was 
formulating  proposals  as  to  the  terms  on  which,  as  he  hoped,  Great 
Britain  would  insist  on  his  behalf  in  the  event  of  her  concluding  a 


i22  INTRODUCTION 

separate  Treaty  with  France.  Nothing,  however,  came  of  this 
negotiation;  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  Frederick's  recent 
ill-success  had,  about  the  turn  of  the  years  1761-2,  inclined  Bute 
and  those  who  thought  with  him,  or  who,  like  Bedford,  went  even 
further  in  their  desire  for  peace  than  he,  to  place  very  little  store  on 
the  continuation  of  the  Prussian  Alliance,  or  to  favour  its  abandon- 
ment. At  the  beginning  of  1762,  Frederick  II  was,  though  with  a 
much  reduced  army,  still  holding  out,  and  his  best  chance  of  recover- 
ing himself  lay  in  the  growing  French  weariness  of  the  burden  of 
the  Austrian  Alliance.  But,  of  a  sudden,  the  whole  situation  changed 
by  the  death  of  the  Tsarina  Elizabeth  (January  5th,  1762)  which 
abruptly  transferred  Russia's  support  of  the  Austrian  Alliance  to 
Frederick  II.  In  the  next  month  (February),  the  new  Tsar  Peter  III 
issued  a  formal  Declaration  in  favour  of  peace  throughout  Europe 
(February).  To  Bute  and  the  friends  of  peace  in  England  this  utter 
change  in  Russian  policy  came  at  a  most  inopportune  moment;  and 
he  revealed  his  ulterior  intention  of  leaving  Prussia  out  of  account 
in  the  impending  peace  negotiations  by  proposing  to  her  that  an 
annual  grant  should  take  the  place  of  the  renewal  of  the  Subsidy 
Treaty.  Before  Frederick's  answer  arrived,  the  changed  attitude  of 
the  British  Government  had  been  made  clear  to  him  by  the  resigna- 
tion of  Newcastle  (May),  who  had  objected  to  the  insufficiency  of 
the  grant  asked  for  the  expenses  of  the  War  (including  that  to 
Prussia),  while  Bute  insisted  that  the  perilous  position  of  Portugal, 
which  in  this  month  declared  war  against  France  and  Spain,  was 
now  the  matter  of  chief  moment  to  Great  Britain.  In  vain,  Pitt  had 
protested  that  even  Portugal  could  be  best  protected  by  upholding 
the  Prussian  Alliance.  The  "  King's  Friends"  now  had  the  ball  under 
their  feet,  and  prospectively,  there  was  no  doubt  of  Prussia  being 
left  by  Great  Britain  to  her  new  friendship.  About  the  same  time, 
Russia  entered  into  an  Alliance  with  Prussia,  and  Sweden  concluded 
Peace  with  her.  The  complications  which  ensued  with  Denmark 
need  not  occupy  us.  On  the  deposition  and  assassination  of  Tsar 
Peter  III  (July),  his  Consort  and  successor,  Catharine  II,  did  not 
renew  the  alliance  with  Prussia.  But,  in  substance,  the  relations 
between  the  two  Powers  remained  unchanged  till  the  close  of  the 
War,  when,  in  circumstances  of  altered  significance  for  Great  Britain, 
they  were  reformulated  as  an  actual  Alliance 


1  Treaty  of  St  Petersburg,  April,  1764.  With  this  Treaty,  accompanied  by  a 
Secret  Convention  concerning  Poland,  the  British  Government  had  no  concern. 


BRITISH  MARITIME  AND  COLONIAL  SUCCESSES    123 

The  Prussian  campaigns  of  the  year  1762  had  ended  successfully 
for  Frederick  II  at  Schweidnitz  and  Freiberg  (October),  and  in  the 
west  Prince  Ferdinand  had  by  the  capture  of  Cassel  (November) 
victoriously  closed  his  brilliant  military  career.  Bute,  who  lacked 
courage  rather  than  insight,  had  not  as  yet  dared  to  interfere  openly 
with  the  prosecution  of  the  War;  but,  while  Prince  Ferdinand  was 
still  about  to  push  his  advance,  the  news  arrived  that,  as  will  be  seen 
immediately,  the  British  negotiations  with  France  and  Spain  had 
resulted  in  the  conclusion  of  Preliminaries  of  Peace.  ChoiseuFs 
policy  of  prolonging  the  War  in  Germany,  in  order,  at  the  last 
moment,  to  carry  on  effectively  the  War  against  Great  Britain  with 
the  aid  of  Spain  had  rapidly  broken  down,  even  after  this  joint  effort 
had  been  practically  restricted  to  an  attack  on  Portugal — a  failure  in 
the  end,  thanks  partly  to  British  supplementation  of  the  national 
resources.  The  British  supremacy  by  sea  had  in  this  year  been  every- 
where maintained.  In  the  West  Indies,  where,  with  the  solitary 
exception  of  the  capture  of  San  Domingo  (1761),  warlike  operations 
had  for  some  time  been  suspended,  in  order  to  spare  Spanish  sus- 
ceptibilities, there  was,  of  course,  no  reason  for  showing  considera- 
tion for  an  open  enemy.  Martinique  was  taken  (February,  1762), 
and  in  accordance  with  a  design  of  Pitt's,  the  whole  of  the  Windward 
Islands  were  now  under  British  rule.  Havana  was  captured  (August), 
and  before  long  (October)  the  Philippines  in  the  Eastern  Seas  were 
added  to  the  Western  gains — or  rather,  would  have  been  added,  had 
not  the  British  Government  already  placed  both  these  acquisitions  on 
the  list  of  those  of  which  it  was  prepared  to  make  a  present  to  Spain. 

The  War  was  virtually  over,  so  far  as  Great  Britain  was  concerned. 
She  had  been  victorious  in  almost  every  quarter  of  the  globe;  but 
her  Sovereign  and  his  Minister  had  made  up  their  minds  for  peace 
with  France  and  Spain,  and  almost  dreaded  successes  which  might 
seem  to  oblige  them  to  raise  their  terms  as  towards  these  Powers. 
About  April  (1762),  diplomatic  correspondence  on  the  subject  had 
been  resumed  with  France,  Spain  being  taken  into  confidence.  The 
negotiation  was  kept  carefully  secret  from  Prussia,  though  Shelburne, 
who  had  boldly  demanded  the  withdrawal  of  our  troops  from  Ger- 
many1, was  informed  that  the  Government  had  no  intention  of  further 
carrying  on  the  German,  in  addition  to  the  Spanish  War.  But,  as 
the  business  proceeded,  Choiseul  thought  it  desirable  (May)  con- 
fidentially to  apprise  the  Austrian  Government,  which  was  pressing 

1  Cf.  Lord  Fitzmaurice's  Life  of  Shelburne,  vol.  I  (1875),  p.  124. 


I24 


INTRODUCTION 


Great  Britain  for  aid,  of  the  design  of  a  separate  Peace  between  the 
Western  Powers ;  when  it  was  found  that,  though  the  assembling  of 
a  Congress  might  have  seemed  more  favourable  to  her  interests,  Maria 
Theresa  and  her  counsellors  were  prepared  to  transact  directly,  and 
to  seek  to  obtain  fair  conditions  for  herself  (the  retention  of  Glatz) 
and  her  Saxo-Polish  ally.  The  persistence  of  her  foe,  the  desertion  of 
her  by  Russia,  and  the  coolness  of  France,  had  at  last  overcome  her 
resistance.  It  now  only  remained  to  inform  Frederick  II  of  the  con- 
ditions under  which  she  was  prepared  to  make  peace  with  him,  if 
the  Army  of  the  West  were  withdrawn  from  Germany  during  the  pre- 
sent War.  Frederick  II,  still  professing  his  disbelief  in  the  willing- 
ness of  his  Ally  Great  Britain  to  safeguard  his  interests,  asked  for  a 
direct  communication  from  the  Austrian  Government  as  to  its  in- 
tentions. The  opening  of  official  negotiations  between  France  and 
Great  Britain,  hereupon,  followed  (September),  Frederick's  old 
acquaintance  the  Due  de  Nivernais  being  sent  to  London,  and  the 
Duke  of  Bedford,  a  firm  friend  of  peace,  to  Paris. 

The  Cabinet,  on  which  the  final  settlement  of  one  of  the  most 
momentous  questions  that  a  British  Ministry  has  ever  been  called 
upon  to  determine,  had  recently  undergone  certain  changes.  Bute, 
who,  on  the  resignation  of  Newcastle,  had,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
become  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  had  appointed  George  Grenville, 
in  whose  valuable  support  he  placed  great  trust,  one  of  the  Secre- 
taries of  State  in  his  place ;  and  it  now  appeared  that  both  he  and  his 
fellow  Secretary,  the  Earl  of  Egremont,  insisted  that,  before  signing 
the  Preliminaries,  Bedford,  who  had  a  strong  will  of  his  own,  should 
submit  them  to  the  Cabinet.  The  news  of  the  British  success  at 
Martinique  added  to  the  arguments  in  favour  of  this  view,  and  Bute 
had  to  bow  to  it,  though  he  took  his  revenge  by  transferring  the 
seals  from  Egremont  to  Halifax  and  shifting  Grenville  to  the  Ad- 
miralty. The  transaction  of  the  Preliminaries  was  accordingly  pushed 
on,  and,  on  November  3rd,  the  Preliminaries  of  Peace  between  Great 
Britain,  France  and  Spain  were  signed  at  Fontainebleau.  Six  days 
later  they  were  approved  by  Parliament,  after  Pitt  had  liberated  his 
soul  in  a  speech  of  three  hours  and  a  half,  a  majority  of  319  to  65 
supporting  an  address  of  thanks  to  the  Crown.  On  February  icth, 
1763,  the  Peace  of  Paris,  based  on  these  Preliminaries,  was  signed. 

This  Peace  replaced  Great  Britain  in  possession  of  Minorca,  and 
left  in  British  hands  the  whole  of  Canada,  with  Cape  Breton  and 
the  other  islands  (except  two)  in  the  Gulf  of  St  Lawrence ;  certain 


THE  PEACE  OF  PARIS  125 

religious  rights  were  reserved  for  the  Roman  Catholics  of  Canada,  and 
certain  rights  of  fishery  in  the  Bay  of  Newfoundland  (the  nursery, 
as  it  has  been  called,  of  the  French  navy)  were  left  to  the  French. 
On  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  Florida  and  Louisiana,  except  New  Orleans 
and  its  district,  became  British — partly  as  an  equivalent  for  Havana. 
In  the  West  Indies  there  was  a  partition,  and  in  Africa,  Great  Britain 
obtained  Senegal,  but  gave  up  Goree.  In  the  East  Indies,  France 
recovered  possession  of  certain  factories  and  settlements  in  Bengal, 
but  only  on  the  undertaking  to  keep  no  troops  and  raise  no  fortifica- 
tions there.  In  general,  it  was  agreed  that  all  conquests  "not  yet 
known"  should  be  restored  without  compensation,  so  that  Havana 
and  the  Philippines  were  alike  surrendered.  On  the  other  hand, 
Spain  waived  all  the  claims  on  which  her  participation  in  the  War 
had  been  founded. 

Notwithstanding  the  signal  moderation  shown  by  the  British 
Government  in  agreeing  to  these  terms,  King  George  III  must  be 
allowed  to  have  had,  in  more  ways  than  one,  reason  for  declaring 
that  Great  Britain  had  never  before  concluded  such  a  peace,  and  that 
perhaps  no  other  European  Power  had  ever  concluded  another  like 
it.  It  established  British  maritime  supremacy  in  both  hemispheres; 
it  placed  Great  Britain  in  the  position  of  the  foremost  Colonial  Power 
in  the  world;  and  it  opened  for  British  commerce  an  incomparable 
prospect  of  expansion.  But  this  Peace,  at  the  same  time,  wore  a  more 
dubious  aspect,  with  regard  to  its  provisions  connected  with  Great 
Britain's  participation  in  the  recent  European  War.  W7hether,  even 
so,  it  contained  in  it  the  germs  of  national  animosities  for  whose  out- 
break the  course  of  time  could  not  fail  to  provide  opportunities,  was 
a  question  which  history  would  be  called  upon  to  solve;  but,  most 
assuredly,  an  insistence  upon  the  policy  of  Pitt — the  policy  of  abso- 
lute commercial  monopoly — would  not  have  been  accepted  by  France 
except  at  a  stage  which  the  late  War  had  not  reached — that  of  her 
absolute  prostration. 

It  is  impossible,  from  this  point  of  view,  not  to  compare  the 
Peace  of  Paris  with  the  Peace  of  Utrecht,  or  to  gainsay  that,  in  both 
instances,  the  motives  impelling  the  British  Government  to  press  a 
pacific  conclusion  were  those  of  political  partisanship,  and  jealousy 
on  the  part  of  the  Crown  and  its  followers  of  one  great  man  pre- 
eminently fitted  to  carry  on  the  War  and  associated  by  public  opinion 
with  its  continuance1.  Nevertheless,  Great  Britain  cannot  justly  be 

1  In  a  powerful  passage  in  Lecky's  History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century, 
vol.  HI.  (ed.  of  1882),  pp.  44  ff. 


i26  INTRODUCTION 

said  to  have  at  Paris,  as  she  had  at  Utrecht,  purchased  for  herself 
whatever  advantages  accrued  to  her  from  the  Peace  at  the  cost  of 
her  Allies.  Portugal  recovered  all  that  she  had  lost  by  the  War,  and 
— which  is,  of  course,  the  main  question  at  issue — Great  Britain's 
conduct  to  Prussia,  though  inevitably  resented  by  Frederick  II  (in 
whatever  measure  he  may  have  expected  it)  cannot  fairly  be  described 
as  desertion.  By  a  strange  coincidence,  the  Article  of  the  Treaty  pro- 
viding for  the  restoration  by  France  of  the  territory  and  strong  places 
in  her  occupation  omitted  to  specify  the  Powers  to  whom  they  were 
to  be  given  up;  and,  but  for  Frederick's  vigilance,  Austria  might 
have  taken  advantage  of  this  lapse.  But  the  real  defence  of  Great 
Britain's  action  towards  Prussia  consists  neither  in  this  omission, 
nor  even  in  the  fact  that  Great  Britain  was  under  no  formal  obliga- 
tion (as  Frederick  had  been  made  aware)  to  continue  indefinitely  her 
Annual  Subsidy  to  him.  It  lay  in  the  complete  change  of  the  cir- 
cumstances from  those  in  which  her  Alliance  with  him  had  been 
concluded.  Austria  and  Saxony  apart,  he  was  now  on  the  friendliest 
of  terms  with  Russia ;  Sweden  was  following  suit,  the  great  league 
against  him  was  dissolved,  and  France  alone,  from  whom  he  had 
little  or  nothing  to  fear,  and  who  in  the  Peace  undertook  to  give 
no  fresh  assistance  to  her  Allies  still  involved  in  the  German  War, 
remained  unreconciled1. 

We  leave  aside  the  disentanglement  of  the  relations  between 
France  and  her  Allies  in  Germany.  The  British  Government  had 
devised  a  scheme  of  its  own  for  solving  the  difficulties  which  attended 
the  process  by  proclaiming — with  a  resolution  savouring  of  Pitt 
rather  than  his  successor — the  neutrality  of  the  Prussian  Rhinelands 
during  the  remainder  of  the  War,  when  the  news  of  the  conclusion 
of  the  Peace  of  Hubertusburg  rendered  the  acceptance  of  the  scheme 
superfluous  (February  i5th,  1763).  The  Prussian  and  Austrian 
Governments  had  rapidly  reached  the  conclusion  that  the  time  had 
come  for  them  to  settle  their  differences  directly,  while  keeping  in 
good  humour  the  new  Tsarina  in  her  own  right,  who  was  anxious  to 
assume  the  part  of  Mediatrix.  The  Peace  of  Hubertusburg,  which 
left  the  Austrian,  Prussian  and  Saxon  dominions  precisely  the  same 
in  extent  as  they  had  been  before  the  War,  while  Prussia  made  certain 
concessions  of  no  primary  significance  to  the  Houses  of  Austria  and 

1  Frederick  put  faith  in  the  report  that  Bute  had  held  out  hopes  of  British 
support  of  demands  from  Prussia  of  territorial  compensation  for  Austria ;  but  this 
gravamen  rests  on  the  uncorroborated  evidence  of  Prince  Galitzin,  Russian  Am- 
bassador in  London,  and  need  hardly  be  taken  into  account. 


RECEPTION  OF  THE  PEACE  IN  ENGLAND        127 

Saxony,  was  regarded  by  Frederick  IPs  contemporaries  as  a  masterly 
close  to  a  masterly  War,  and  he  and  Kaunitz  were  at  one  in  their 
satisfaction  at  its  having  been  reached  without  actual  foreign  (i.e. 
Russian)  intervention.  George  III  was  included  in  it  among  the 
Allies  of  Prussia  both  as  King  of  Great  Britain  and  as  Elector  of 
Hanover.  No  warmer  congratulations  on  this  Peace  attended 
Frederick  II  than  those  of  Mitchell,  who  during  the  most  critical 
part  of  the  War  had  adhered  to  him  and  upheld  his  action  with  un- 
flagging energy;  and  when,  after  nightfall  on  March  3Oth,  the  great 
King  entered  Berlin,  there  rode  by  his  side  Prince  Ferdinand,  whose 
prowess  had  lifted  from  his  shoulders  a  great  part  of  the  burden. 
And  though  there  was  truth  in  his  boast,  "I  made  the  War" — for 
in  his  self-reliance  at  the  supreme  crises  of  his  course  lay  the  final 
cause  of  his  victory — there  were  also  on  his  side  the  forces  by  which 
history  works,  and  of  which  the  greatest  of  warriors  and  statesmen 
are  but  the  agents. 

In  England,  if  the  Peace  of  Paris  had  been  carried  through  in  a 
different  spirit,  and  by  other  statesmen,  it  might  have  been  welcomed 
with  acclamations.  As  it  was,  the  hopes  of  the  Court  party  that  the 
assurance  implied  in  the  Peace  of  the  young  King's  having,  in  the 
conclusion  of  it,  been  moved  by  no  German  sympathies  would  cover 
him  with  popularity  were  to  be  speedily  disappointed  As  for  his 
chosen  Minister,  though  the  charge  of  having  been  induced  to  make 
the  Peace  by  a  French  bribe  was  momentarily  bruited  abroad,  he  was 
severely  handled  in  the  Lords,  and,  with  an  insight  into  the  situation 
creditable  to  his  loyalty  as  well  as  to  his  good  sense,  unexpectedly 
resigned  his  office  as  early  as  April.  It  is  significant  that,  in  the  most 
notorious  effort  of  the  demagogues  who  virulently  attacked  him  and 
his  regime — in  No.  45  of  Wilkes's  North  Briton,  published  a  few  days 
after  Bute's  resignation — the  abandonment  of  Frederick  II  and  the 
inadequate  conditions  of  the  Peace  are  among  the  charges  urged 
against  the  fallen,  but  even  now  by  no  means  powerless,  Minister. 

VI 

The  intrigues  which  followed  scarcely  concern  us  here.  Bute  was 
succeeded  by  George  Grenville,  the  conduct  of  foreign  affairs  being 
left  to  Egremont  (whose  influence  among  the  Tories  was  consider- 
able) and  to  Halifax,  personally  popular,  but  not  a  statesman  of  high 
mark.  After  Egremont 's  death,  the  King  was  forced  to  have  recourse 


I28  INTRODUCTION 

to  the  counsel  of  Pitt,  who,  while  advocating  the  exclusion  from  office 
of  all  who  had  taken  part  in  the  Peace  negotiations,  dwelt  on  the 
necessity  of  giving  the  great  Whig  families  their  share  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  public  affairs.  The  illogical  result  was  the  inclusion 
in  the  Ministry  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford  (September),  and,  after  further 
difficulties,  which  the  King  had  made  yet  another  effort  to  overcome 
with  Pitt's  aid,  Grenville  and  Bedford  were  superseded  in  office  by 
the  Marquis  of  Rockingham,  the  leader,  respectable  according  to  any 
use  of  the  word,  of  the  main  body  of  the  Whigs  (1765). 

Within  the  closing  months  of  Grenville's  Government  falls  the 
event — the  passing  of  the  Stamp  Act — with  which  a  new  period 
begins  in  the  history  of  British  foreign  policy.  For,  as  was  soon  to 
become  manifest,  it  was  henceforth  constantly  affected,  and  for  many 
a  long  day  dominated,  by  the  relations  between  the  Colonies  and  the 
mother-country.  Hitherto,  the  North  American  Colonies,  which  are 
primarily  in  question,  had  in  times  of  peace  been  virtually  left  to 
themselves ;  and  Grenville's  Stamp  Act,  by  which  half  North  America 
was  lost  to  Great  Britain,  was  an  almost  incidental  result  of  his  en- 
deavour to  utilise  discreetly  for  the  defence  of  Great  Britain  what  he 
looked  upon  as  her  resources  beyond  seas.  In  the  process  legalised 
by  this  Act  there  is  nothing  altogether  new;  but  the  application  of 
its  principles — which  of  old  Walpole  had  said  he  would  "leave  to  a 
braver  man  " — proved  the  supreme  test  of  Pitt's  colonial  statesman- 
ship1. During  the  earlier  stages  of  the  Anglo-French  warfare  in 
North  America,  the  British  Colonists  had  fought  bravely  with  little 
help  from  home.  The  formation  of  a  central  authority  to  direct  their 
efforts  had,  accordingly,  been  felt  so  strongly  that,  on  the  eve  of  the 
Seven  Years*  War,  a  Congress  had  been  summoned  to  Albany  (1754) 
by  the  Colonial  Governor,  to  discuss  a  common  organisation  of  defence 
and  a  central  fund  for  supplying  the  necessary  means.  But  the  War, 
while  it  preserved  the  Colonies  from  French  dominion,  almost  ruined 
them  by  putting  an  end  to  their  unlawful  trade  with  their  French  and 
other  foreign  neighbours,  as  well  as  by  the  exhaustion  of  their  own 
resources;  and  Grenville's  proposal  to  raise  by  parliamentary  tax- 
ation of  them  part  at  least  of  the  money  necessary  for  the  permanent 
establishment  of  a  force  in  North  America  was  as  inopportune  as  it  was 
offensive,  while  it  might  very  possibly  prove  inadequate  to  its  purpose. 

The  history  of  the  Stamp  Act,  which,  while  passing  with  very 
little  notice  in  England,  at  once  aroused  the  most  violent  opposition 

1  See  Miss  Hotblack,  u.s.,  in  the  chapter  "  Stamp  Act." 


REPEAL  OF  THE  STAMP  ACT.    THE  TEA  DUTY      129 

in  the  Colonies,  and  that  of  its  Repeal,  supported  by  Burke  and 
opposed  by  Pitt  (February,  1766),  must  not  detain  us.  The  Repeal 
was  accompanied  by  a  Declaratory  Act,  asserting  that  the  taxing 
power  of  the  British  Parliament  extended  to  the  Colonies.  Pitt, 
though  seeking  to  maintain  a  distinction  between  legislation  and 
taxing  powers,  declined  to  bind  the  Colonies  by  an  absolute  declara- 
tion of  right.  The  Repeal,  however,  was  accepted  in  America  as  a 
binding  measure,  though  the  wound  still  smarted.  On  every  ground, 
the  remembrance  of  it  should  have  been  left  to  die  out  as  speedily 
as  possible. 

In  the  following  July  (1766),  the  King  dismissed  Rockingham  and 
recalled  Pitt,  now  created  Earl  of  Chatham,  into  office  as  Lord  Privy 
Seal.  The  Duke  of  Grafton,  who  had  resigned  the  Secretaryship 
of  State  under  Rockingham,  had  been  persuaded  to  accept  the 
nominal  headship  of  the  Government,  while  Shelburne  and  Conway, 
both  strong  adversaries  of  the  Stamp  Act,  were  appointed  Secretaries1. 
But,  though  Chatham  remained  a  member  of  the  Government  till 
1768,  he  was  such  in  name  only;  and  his  life  had  already  lapsed  into 
that  of  an  invalid  in  retirement,  with  fitful  emergings  into  the  light 
of  public  day — its  normal  condition  in  his  later  years.  His  Colonial 
policy,  which  he  clearly  expounded  to  the  House  of  Commons  on 
the  eve  of  the  War  of  Independence  (February,  1775),  underwent 
no  fundamental  change;  and  he  held  fast  to  the  principle  that  the 
legislative  authority  of  Great  Britain  must  remain  supreme,  with  the 
rider  that  no  tax  should  be  imposed  on  a  Colony  without  the  assent 
of  an  assembly  duly  convened  there  to  vote  supply  for  imperial  uses. 
Grafton's  Government,  to  which  Chatham  had  for  a  time  given  the 
support  of  his  name,  had,  in  the  meantime,  carried  out  the  policy 
of  the  (repealed)  Stamp  Act  through  Charles  Townshend's  im- 
position on  the  Colonies  of  a  port  duty  on  tea — the  occasion,  as  it 
proved,  of  the  outbreak  which  led  to  the  War  of  Independence.  After 
Townshend's  death,  his  successor  as  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 
Lord  North,  who  in  1770  became  First  Lord  and  virtual  Prime- 
Minister,  continued  the  same  policy,  of  which  the  primary  inspi- 
ration was  the  will  of  the  King. 

1  It  is  worth  noticing,  as  showing  the  increased  importance  attached  to  British 
North  America,  that,  in  1768,  the  Earl  of  Hillsborough  (afterwards  Marquis  of 
Downshire),  who  had  served  under  Grenville  as  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade, 
but  whose  sympathies  were  Tory,  was  appointed  Secretary  of  State  for  the  Colonies. 
But  the  office  was  abolished  in  1782 — a  proof  of  the  difficulty,  in  this  period,  of 
distinguishing  Colonial  from  Foreign  Affairs. 

W.  &G.  i.  9 


1 3o  INTRODUCTION 

It  would  serve  no  purpose  to  touch  here  on  the  personal  incidents 
and  influences  more  or  less  affecting  British  Colonial  and  foreign  policy 
in  this  period  of  rampant  faction,  and  of  the  prostration  of  the  powers 
of  guidance  to  which  Parliament  and  nation  had,  during  four  glorious 
years,  accustomed  themselves  to  look.  "The  late  frequent  changes  in 
England,"  wrote,  about  the  end  of  1767,  Sir  Andrew  Mitchell,  whom 
experience  had  taught  what  his  country  could  achieve  under  a  great 
leader,  "have  created  a  degree  of  diffidence  in  foreign  Powers  which 
renders  all  negotiation  with  them  difficult  and  disagreeable."  While 
in  America  discontent  and  disaffection  were  becoming  more  and  more 
formidable,  and  while  at  home  the  attention  of  the  public  was  con- 
centrated upon  domestic  agitation,  the  regard  paid  to  Great  Britain 
by  the  European  Powers  was  rapidly  sinking1.  Significant  of  this 
decline,  though,  of  course,  its  importance  was  much  exaggerated  by 
Burke  when  he  represented  it  as  changing  the  Balance  of  Power  in 
the  Mediterranean,  was  the  ignoring  by  France  of  the  protest  of  the 
British  Government  against  her  purchase  of  Corsica  and  enforcement 
of  it,  after  the  heroic  struggle  of  the  islanders  under  Paoli  against  their 
Genoese  oppressors2.  Much  about  the  same  time,  an  essentially 
Colonial  question,  that  of  the  Falkland  Islands,  brought  Great  Britain 
to  the  verge  of  war  with  Spain.  The  first  British  design  of  a  settle- 
ment on  these  barren  islands  (valuable  because  of  their  nearness  to 
Chili)  had  been  formed  in  1748,  but  abandoned  in  consequence  of  a 
protest  by  Wall.  In  1766,  a  formal  attempt  was  made  to  take  possession 
of  one  of  them  (now  called  Port  Egmont)3  for  Great  Britain;  but,  in 
1770,  a  strong  Spanish  expedition  captured  the  British  garrison, 
detained  a  British  frigate,  and  for  a  moment  assumed  the  mastery 
of  the  South  Seas.  Since  Spain,  also,  refused  to  pay  the  money  due  for 
Manilla,  war  seemed  unavoidable,  but  was  averted  by  the  skilful 
diplomacy  at  Madrid  of  the  British  Charge  d'affaires,  James  Harris 
(afterwards  Earl  of  Malmesbury)  and  the  apprehension  of  Grimaldi 
that  war  with  Great  Britain,  on  which  Choiseul  had  determined,  could 
not  be  carried  to  a  successful  issue.  But  it  was  an  untoward  incident 
for  the  British  Government,  and  seems  to  have  led  to  the  resignation 

1  The  only  step  of  importance  taken  at  this  time  by  Great  Britain  with  regard  to 
India  was  the  enquiry  into  the  affairs  of  the  East  India  Company,  instituted  before 
Chatham  was  wholly  disabled  by  illness. 

2  Corsica  was  actually  annexed  to  France  in  1769. 

3  France  had  effected  a  settlement  on  another  (Port  Louis).    For  a  full  account 
of  the  Falkland  Islands  affair,  see  Winstanley,  Lord  Chatham  and  the  Whig  Ministry 
(Cambridge,  1912). 


THE  AMERICAN  WAR  OF  INDEPENDENCE         131 

of  Lord  Weymouth  (who  had  succeeded  Conway  as  one  of  the  Secre- 
taries of  State).  On  the  other  hand,  it  likewise  led  to  the  dismissal 
by  Lewis  XV  of  Choiseul.  Chatham's  laments  over  the  decadence 
of  Great  Britain,  when  he  found  strength  to  make  them,  resounded 
in  vain,  and  with  the  recovery  of  his  bodily  powers  he  had  only 
partially  recovered  his  personal  authority ;  so  that,  although  he  could 
help  for  a  time  to  weaken  Lord  North's  Ministry,  he  was  unable 
either  to  prevent  the  American  War  or  to  agree  with  Burke  as  to  the 
conditions  of  maintaining  the  union  with  the  American  Colonies, 
which  they  were  both  unprepared  to  sacrifice. 

In  1775,  without  any  wish  on  the  American  side  for  separation 
from  Great  Britain,  and  with  very  little  belief  in  the  British  of  the 
power  of  the  Colonists  to  carry  through  the  resistance  on  which  they 
had  determined,  the  War  of  Independence  broke  out.  There  existed, 
at  the  time,  no  kind  of  understanding  between  the  Americans,  or  the 
majority  of  them  resolved  on  resistance,  and  any  of  the  European 
Powers ;  but  there  was  a  cooperation,  unseen  and  unnoticed,  between 
the  historic  forces  at  work  in  very  different  regions  of  the  world.  As 
has  been  well  said,  Europe  was  strewn  with  the  wrecks  of  the  liberties 
of  the  past,  and  all  the  great  or  leading  States  were  under  the  sway 
of  despotisms,  benevolent  or  other.  In  the  United  Provinces,  where 
the  House  of  Orange  had  recovered  a  quasi-royal  position,  corruption 
and  decadence  were  visible  on  all  sides.  Poland  was  already  in  the 
throes  of  anarchy,  and  in  1772  underwent  her  First  Partition1,  of 
which  the  Powers  that  had  perpetrated  it  obtained  a  formal  recogni- 
tion from  the  Republic  itself.  The  prospects  of  Constitutional  liberty 
were  almost  universally  enshrouded  in  gloom ;  and  during  the  Ameri- 
can War  not  a  few  Whig  politicians  were  haunted  by  the  belief — 
though  this  fear  acted  in  different  ways  on  different  minds — that 
the  defeat  of  the  American  Colonists  would  be  followed  by  a  sub- 
version of  the  foundations  of  the  British  Constitution. 

It  was  after  the  British  Government  had  resolved  to  bargain  with 
certain  German  Princes,  in  order  to  raise  the  King's  forces  to  what 
seemed  the  requisite  minimum,  but  before,  in  July,  1776,  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  had  been  voted  by  Congress,  that  the  advanced  party 
among  the  leaders  of  American  opinion  took  into  serious  considera- 
tion the  question  of  foreign  assistance.  In  the  first  instance,  at  all 
events,  this  could  be  no  other  than  that  of  France2.  Hitherto,  France 

1  "  England,"  Frederick  II,  had  in  the  previous  year  written  to  his  Envoy  in 
London,  "  need  not  worry  herself  about  Poland." 

2  See  for  a  full  exposition  of  the  situation,  in  this  respect,  Lecky,  iv. 

9—2 


I32 


INTRODUCTION 


had  been  regarded  as  the  natural  enemy  in  the  American  Colonies  even 
more  distinctly  than  in  England  itself;  but  the  early  course  of  the  War, 
and  the  manifest  fact  that  the  Colonists  were  far  from  united  in  their 
resistance,  or, outside  New  England,  had  made  so  much  as  an  approach 
to  unanimity,  soon  placed  it  beyond  doubt  that  the  action  of  France 
must  determine  the  result  of  the  struggle.  That  intervention  was  by 
no  means  a  mere  question  of  revanche ;  for  it  was  the  evident  interest 
of  France  to  obtain  for  herself  a  share  of  the  commerce  from  which 
she  had  been  excluded  since  the  time  of  the  Navigation  Act,  to  re- 
cover the  losses  which  she  had  suffered  through  the  deliberate  policy 
of  Pitt,  and  to  gain  comparative  security  for  her  West  India  Islands. 
French  political  opinion,  which  had  of  late  become  very  active, 
anxiously  noted  the  alteration  in  the  conditions  of  the  European 
equilibrium — more  especially  the  augmentation  of  Russian,  and  of 
Prussian,  power  and  influence  by  such  a  process  as  the  First  Par- 
tition of  Poland.  So  early  as  1776,  Vergennes  in  his  Memorial  on 
American  affairs,  while  affecting  to  deprecate  war  with  Great  Britain, 
urged  the  adoption  by  both  France  and  Spain  of  a  policy  which  would 
secretly  encourage  and  assist  the  Americans  in  their  struggle;  and, 
though  Turgot,  when  called  upon  to  report  on  this  Memorial,  in- 
sisted on  the  maintenance  of  peace  as  the  immediate  and  pressing 
necessity  for  France,  the  more  active  policy  prevailed,  and  the 
Government  of  Lewis  XVI,  while  duping  the  British  Ministry,  sub- 
sidised the  American  Revolt. 

Spain,  partly  under  the  influence  of  France,  partly  on  her  own 
account — for  she  could  not  have  entertained  any  real  desire  to  foster 
Colonial  independence — supplied  the  American  Colonies  with  money 
and  gunpowder,  and  allowed  their  ships  ampler  trade  privileges  than 
she  granted  to  those  of  any  other  country.  Grand- duke  Leopold  II 
of  Tuscany  secretly  did  away  with  all  duties  impeding  American  com- 
merce with  his  dominions,  besides  giving  open  expression  of  his 
goodwill  to  the  American  cause.  And  a  still  more  *  intelligent '  despot, 
Frederick  the  Great,  who  had  never  forgotten  Great  Britain's  con- 
duct towards  him  at  the  close  of  the  Seven  Years'  War,  without  com- 
mitting himself  publicly,  or  even  consenting  to  receive  an  American 
diplomatic  representative,  threw  every  obstacle  in  the  way  of  British 
enlistments  in  Germany,  and  took  pains  to  assure  France  that,  if  she 
went  to  war  with  Great  Britain,  he  proposed  to  remain  neutral.  The 
Emperor  Joseph  II  (Co-regent  with  his  mother  since  1765),  hostile 
to  Frederick  II  on  all  other  points,  agreed  with  him  as  to  discouraging 


RESTRICTED  BRITISH  PROPOSALS  TO  AMERICANS    133 

the  British  enlistment  of  German  recruits  for  the  American  War. 
Finally,  the  United  Provinces  found  a  single-minded  satisfaction  in 
obtaining  a  new  market  in  America,  and  organising  the  little  Dutch 
West  Indian  island  of  St  Eustatius  as  a  station  for  supplying  the 
needs  of  the  insurgents.  Thus,  French  sympathies  were  the  reverse 
of  isolated  in  their  varied  manifestations  on  behalf  of  the  War — one 
of  them  being  a  flow  of  French  officers  into  the  American  army. 
For  a  time,  the  resolution  of  the  French  Government  wavered,  and 
the  counsels  of  Spain  (who  was  engaged  in  a  brief  War  with  Portu- 
gal) were  against  opening  hostilities  with  Great  Britain.  But,  at 
the  close  of  the  year  1777,  after  the  British  disaster  at  Saratoga,  the 
American  Commissioners  at  Paris  were  informed  that  France  was 
prepared  to  enter  into  a  Commercial  Treaty  with  the  American 
Government,  and  to  acknowledge  and  support  its  Independence,  on 
the  sole  condition  that  the  Americans  would  conclude  no  peace  with 
Great  Britain,  which  did  not  include  the  actual  recognition  of  that 
Independence.  No  advantage  was  asked  for  France  in  the  Treaties 
formally  signed  at  Paris  in  February,  1778;  France  was  to  have  her 
place  in  the  sun — her  due  share  in  American  commerce — and  Great 
Britain's  monopoly  of  it  was  to  be  ended  by  the  severance  of  the 
political  tie  between  her  and  the  Colonies  now  in  revolt. 

The  recognition  of  their  independence  was  precisely  the  basis  on 
which  George  III  had  made  up  his  mind  not  to  treat  with  the  Ameri- 
cans. In  deference  to  a  unanimous  vote  of  the  Cabinet,  he  at  last 
consented  that  new  proposals  should  be  made  to  the  American  Com- 
missioners, and  in  February,  1778,  North  moved  and  passed  Bills  of 
Conciliation,  which  yielded  all  the  points  originally  in  dispute,  but 
maintained  the  political  union  between  the  Colonies  and  the  mother- 
country.  The  final  oratorical  effort  of  Chatham,  true  to  his  point  of 
view,  and  true  to  his  policy  of  resistance  to  France,  was  in  support 
of  this  principle1.  But  when  the  British  Commissioners,  recently  ap- 
pointed2, reached  America  in  May,  they  found  all  doors  closed  against 
them,  and,  after  they  had  appealed  to  the  nation  from  Congress, 
returned  home.  For,  in  the  same  month,  the  French  Treaties  of 
Commerce  and  Alliance,  signed  in  February  at  Paris,  but  kept  secret 

1  April  7th,  1778,  against  the  Duke  of  Richmond's  notice  of  an  Address.    See, 
as  to  the  extreme  probability  that  had  he  survived,  he  must  have  been  called  to 
office,  Stanhope's  History  of  England,  chap.  LVII,  where  the   historian  defends 
Chatham's  policy  against  Croker  and  Macaulay. 

2  The  Earl  of  Carlisle,  William  Eden  (afterwards  Lord  Auckland),  George 
Johnstone. 


134 


INTRODUCTION 


for  some  time,  had  become  known  in  America;  and,  by  June,  France 
and  Great  Britain  were  at  war.  Great  Britain  had  entered  into  the 
last  phase  of  the  struggle  without  an  ally ;  but  it  can  neither  be  denied 
that  the  challenge  of  France  for  a  time  strengthened  the  Govern- 
ment by  arousing  the  national  indignation,  nor  that  Chatham's  death 
gave  unity  to  the  Opposition  led  by  Rockingham,  who  were  now 
unanimous  in  advocating  the  concession  of  complete  American 
Independence. 

At  first,  the  clouds  seemed  to  gather  more  and  more  darkly,  and 
the  foreign  policy  of  Great  Britain  to  be  reduced  to  an  anxious  de- 
fensive, though  in  America  the  fortunes  of  war  were  in  her  favour. 
French  naval  enterprise  appeared  to  be  reviving:  in  1779,  a  French 
squadron  seized  the  British  possessions  in  Senegal,  and  in  the  same 
year  a  combined  French  and  Spanish  fleet  sailed  up  the  Channel,  as 
the  Dutch  had,  rather  more  than  a  century  before.  For  the  Bourbon 
Family  Compact,  and  the  irritation,  old  and  new,  provoked  by  British 
self-assertion  at  sea,  with  the  hope  of  recovering  losses  of  which  that 
of  Gibraltar  transcended  all  others,  had  once  more  prevailed  A 
proposal  made  by  the  Government  of  Charles  III,  who,  with  his 
Minister  Florida  Blanca,  had  sho\vn  pacific  tendencies,  to  mediate 
between  Great  Britain  and  France  having  fallen  through,  a  Conven- 
tion between  France  and  Spain,  in  which  each  Power  stated  the  ob- 
jects it  desired  to  secure,  and  the  Spanish  Government  stipulated  that 
no  peace  should  be  signed  till  Gibraltar  had  been  restored,  was  signed 
in  April,  1779 ;  and,  in  June,  Spain  declared  war  against  Great  Britain. 
The  combined  fleets,  as  noted,  appeared  in  the  Channel;  but,  ere 
the  day  of  peace  had  dawned  once  more,  Rodney  had  brilliantly  re- 
asserted British  naval  supremacy  in  both  hemispheres,  and,  before  his 
final  victory  over  de  Grasse  in  the  West  Indies  (April,  1782),  the  last 
assault  upon  Gibraltar  had,  after  being  prolonged  for  three  years, 
hopelessly  broken  down. 

While  North's  Ministry  still  held  out,  British  diplomacy  had  been 
much  occupied  with  the  relations  between  Great  Britain  and  the 
Powers  not  involved  in  the  momentous  conflict  into  which  she  had  been 
drawn.  It  was  not  unnatural  that,  in  the  earlier  days  of  the  American 
War,  the  great  Continental  monarchies  and  Russia  in  particular, 
should  have  leant  to  Great  Britain ;  but  that  at  the  same  time  jealousy 
should  have  been  provoked,  in  northern  as  well  as  in  western  Europe, 
by  the  continuous  growth  of  her  naval  ascendancy.  The  ambition  of 
Catharine  II,  accordingly,  might  be  depended  upon  to  lend  a  willing 


"ARMED  NEUTRALITY "  DECLARATION  OF  1780      135 

ear  to  grievances  on  this  head.  So  early  as  1778,  both  the  vigilant 
Vergennes  and  several  of  the  minor  Maritime  Powers  of  Europe  had 
invited  the  Tsarina  to  place  herself  at  the  head  of  a  combined  move- 
ment towards  restricting  the  British  pretensions  to  interfere  in  times 
of  war  with  the  commerce  of  neutral  nations — but  without  much 
success.  At  her  Court,  Panin's  party  carried  on  the  recent  tradition 
of  serving  the  interests  of  Frederick  II  of  Prussia,  and  was  conse- 
quently, in  view  more  especially  of  his  bitterness  towards  Great 
Britain,  ill-disposed  towards  that  Power.  Her  imperious  favourite, 
Potemkin,  on  the  other  hand,  leaned  towards  a  British  alliance, 
though  his  aims  were  essentially  selfish.  Catharine,  who  was  not  at 
heart  hostile  to  Great  Britain,  and  who  distinguished  the  British 
Ambassador  Harris  by  her  special  favour,  was  prepared,  in  these 
matters,  to  pursue  a  line  of  policy  highly  inconvenient  to  Great 
Britain.  The  British  Government  had  given  orders  that  Russian 
ships  should  be  left  unmolested;  but  the  Spaniards  searched  and 
made  prizes  of  two  which  they  erroneously  thought  to  be  trading 
with  Great  Britain.  The  Tsarina,  henceforth,  angrily  gave  instruc- 
tions that  a  number  of  Russian  vessels  should  be  equipped  for  the 
protection  of  Russian  commerce,  evidently  with  the  intention  of 
at  least  making  an  effective  naval  demonstration  against  Spain. 
Frederick  IFs  counsel,  however,  induced  her  to  restore  the  ships, 
and  Panin  took  advantage  of  the  occasion  to  persuade  the  Tsarina 
to  summon  a  Congress  under  her  presidency  for  defining  the  rights 
of  neutrals  by  sea,  so  as  to  prevent  a  recurrence  of  the  incident.  In 
March,  1780,  she  issued  a  Declaration  to  the  effect  that  in  times  of 
war  neutral  vessels  may  navigate  freely  along  the  coasts  of  belliger- 
ents, carrying  any  such  goods  of  belligerents  as  are  not  contraband; 
that  contraband  articles  are  such  only  when  expressly  enumerated  in 
a  Treaty  concluded  between  the  British  and  Russian  Governments, 
and  that  blockade  must  be  really  effective.  This  Declaration,  amount- 
ing to  acceptance  by  Russia  of  principles  first  put  forward  by  the 
Prussian  Government  in  1752,  laid  claim  to  an  almost  universal  au- 
thority. The  British  Government,  without  directly  disputing  the  doc- 
trine set  forth  by  this  "Armed  Neutrality"  Declaration,  contented 
itself  with  answering  it  in  general  terms.  But  it  was  extremely  un- 
favourable to  the  interests  of  Great  Britain,  as  arraying  the  greater 
part  of  northern  Europe  in  diplomatic  hostility  against  her,  while 
increasing  the  probability  of  an  extended  War,  in  which  she  would 
have  no  chance  of  assistance  from  Russia.  Catharine  II,  however, 


136  INTRODUCTION 

had  no  wish  to  engage  in  hostilities,  and  promulgated  the  *  Declaration 
of  Armed  Neutrality,'  which,  as  she  told  Harris,  ought  rather  to  be 
called  an  Armed  Nullity,  chiefly  to  satisfy  her  self-consciousness. 

A  further  difficulty  connected  with  the  commercial  relations  of 
Great  Britain,  about  the  same  time,  led  to  actual  warfare.  This  was 
primarily  due  to  the  use  made  of  their  island  of  Eustatius,  mentioned 
above,  by  the  Dutch  during  the  War  between  Great  Britain  and 
France.  The  latter  Power  permitted  the  City  of  Amsterdam,  and 
finally  the  whole  Province  of  Holland,  to  trade  with  her  Colonies 
duty-free  through  this  channel,  and  came  to  depend  most  largely 
on  Dutch  supply  for  materials  needed  in  the  equipment  of  her  ships. 
The  consequent  animosity  gradually  deepened  between  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  Provinces,  where  the  party  of  Amsterdam  and  the 
Pensionary  van  Berkel  had,  from  the  first,  strongly  opposed  that  of  the 
Stadholder  and  the  British  interest ;  and  where  the  ambition  of  ulti- 
mately securing  a  large  share  of  the  American  trade  had  never  before 
risen  so  high.  The  Dutch  traders,  with  contraband  and  other  articles 
on  board,  swarmed  in  the  Western  seas,  and  American  privateers  freely 
ran  their  prizes  into  Dutch  harbours.  In  return,  British  ships  freely 
applied  the  right  of  search  and  captured  Dutch  vessels  which  refused 
to  allow  it.  In  September,  1780,  a  secret  Treaty  between  Amster- 
dam and  the  "United  States  of  America"  (drafted  for  approval  by 
the  States- General)  was  brought  to  light  by  a  daring  capture,  and, 
when  it  was  only  met  by  a  dilatory  and  evasive  disavowal,  Great 
Britain  declared  war  against  the  United  Provinces. 

Thus,  at  the  close  of  1780,  Great  Britain's  isolation  was  complete. 
She  was  confronted  by  the  united  hostility  of  the  American  Colonies, 
France,  Spain — against  which  she  was  defending  Gibraltar — and  the 
United  Provinces,  while  Northern  Europe  was  threatening  her  with 
the  loss  of  her  best  weapon  of  offence.  Meanwhile,  in  Hindustan, 
Hyder  All  was  desolating  the  Carnatic  and  menacing  Madras.  In 
Ireland  and  at  home  in  England — in  the  capital  itself — the  founda- 
tions of  the  monarchy  seemed  to  be  trembling.  The  recovery  in 
America  (1779-80)  had  temporarily  strengthened  North's  Govern- 
ment and  the  national  resolution  of  resistance ;  but  with  the  surrender 
of  Yorktown  (October,  1781),  followed  by  the  Spanish  capture  of 
Minorca,  and  the  complete  establishment  of  French  naval  supremacy 
in  the  West  Indian  seas,  that  resistance  came  to  an  end,  and  the 
Ministry  resigned  (March,  1782).  Its  place  was,  after  attempts  at 
reconstruction  by  Lord  Shelburne  and  Lord  Gower,  taken  by 


RECOGNITION  OF  INDEPENDENCE  OFFERED         137 

the  (second)  Rockingham  Ministry,  in  which  Shelburne  (who 
represented  the  followers  of  Chatham)  and  Charles  Fox  held  the 
Secretaryships  of  State.  After  the  death  of  Lord  Rockingham,  and 
the  succession  of  Shelburne  to  the  headship  of  the  Ministry  (July, 
1782),  the  Secretaryship  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs  held  by  Fox  was 
transferred  to  Lord  Grantham1. 

When,  just  before  the  resignation  of  North,  and  before  King 
George  III  had  reluctantly  committed  the  conduct  of  affairs  to  the 
Whigs,  with  the  avowed  task  of  terminating  the  War  and  recognising 
the  Independence  of  America,  the  question  of  Peace  had  virtually 
become  only  a  question  of  time,  Benjamin  Franklin,  American  Com- 
missioner in  Paris,  had  transmitted  to  Shelburne  certain  conditions 
of  Peace,  privately  suggested  by  Vergennes  to  a  Scottish  intermediary 
named  Oswald.  They  included  the  cession,  by  way  of  reparation,  to 
France  of  Canada  and  Nova  Scotia.  In  April,  1782,  the  British 
Cabinet  decided  to  suggest,  through  the  same  channel,  peace  con- 
ditions of  which  the  essence  was  the  grant  of  Independence  to  the 
Americans  and  the  restoration  of  Great  Britain  to  the  position  in 
which  she  had  been  left  by  the  Peace  of  1763.  In  May,  Fox  com- 
missioned Thomas  Grenville  (son  of  George  Grenville)  to  write  a 
similar  communication  to  Vergennes;  and  the  Cabinet  authorised 
him  (after  Rodney's  great  victory)  to  propose,  in  the  first  instance, 
the  recognition  of  the  Independence  of  America  by  Great  Britain.  A 
most  untoward  difference  of  opinion,  hereupon,  arose  between  Fox 
and  Shelburne  as  to  the  meaning  of  this  offer — whether  or  not  it 
was,  as  the  latter  contended,  to  be  conditional  on  the  conclusion  of 
a  general  peace,  instead  of  preceding  it  ?  Fox's  motion  that  Inde- 
pendence should  be  unconditional  was  lost  by  a  narrow  majority; 
and,  on  Shelburne's  appointment  as  successor  to  Rockingham,  Fox, 
as  stated,  resigned,  with  certain  other  members  of  the  Cabinet. 

The  result  was  a  hitch  in  the  informal  peace  negotiations  at  Paris ; 
but,  inasmuch  as  the  American  War — largely  because  of  want  of 
money — languished,  though  the  Dutch  as  well  as  the  French  Govern- 

1  In  1782,  the  system  of  three  Secretaries  of  State  had  ceased  (the  third  or 
American  Secretaryship  being  abolished);  and  there  was  instituted  for  it  that  of 
two  Secretaries,  one  for  Foreign  and  the  other  for  Home  and  Colonial  Affairs. 
But  this  arrangement  did  not  prevent  an  anomalous  state  of  things  under  Rocking- 
ham, when  the  two  Secretaries  of  State,  Fox  and  Shelburne,  were  at  daggers  drawn ; 
so  that,  in  Lord  Rosebery's  words  (Pitt  (1892),  p.  22)  it  "is  not  matter  for  surprise 
that,  within  a  month  of  their  assuming  office,  Shelburne  and  Fox,  the  two  Secre- 
taries of  State,  had  each  their  separate  plenipotentiary  at  Paris  negotiating  for 
peace." 


138  INTRODUCTION 

ment  had  now  recognised  American  Independence,  it  was  felt  on  all 
sides  that  the  advent  of  peace  could  no  longer  be  delayed.  King 
George  Ill's  resistance  had  now  been  overcome,  and  France  and 
Spain  before  long  perceived  the  futility  of  the  hope  that  Rodney  might 
still  be  crushed  and  Gibraltar  and  Jamaica  captured,  or  that,  though 
their  united  navies,  even  without  Dutch  aid,  still  outnumbered  the 
British,  this  condition  of  things  would  outlast  America's  remaining  in 
the  conflict,  and  their  own  solvency  would  continue.  The  negotiations 
for  the  Preliminaries  of  Peace  were,  accordingly,  carried  on  at  Paris 
with  renewed  assiduity  in  the  later  months  of  1782;  Vergennes,  of 
course,  representing  France,  d'  Aranda  Spain,  and  Franklin,  John 
Adams  and  Jay  America,  while  the  British  Government  had  com- 
missioned, together  with  Oswald,  its  original  agent  in  the  proceedings, 
Alleyne  Fitzherbert  (afterwards  Lord  St  Helens).  The  Preliminary 
Articles  with  the  United  States  were  signed  on  November  3Oth,  and 
those  with  France  and  Spain  on  January  2Oth  following.  (The  notion 
of  giving  up  Gibraltar  for  an  equivalent  had  approved  itself  to  the 
King  and  Shelburne,  but  had  been  successfully  resisted — among 
others  by  Pitt.)  The  definitive  Treaties  were  signed,  at  Paris  and 
Versailles  respectively,  on  September  3rd,  1783 ;  the  Duke  of  Man- 
chester and  David  Hartley  having  taken  the  place  of  the  negotiators 
of  the  Preliminaries,  and  the  Tsarina  and  the  Emperor  Joseph  II 
being,  by  way  of  compliment,  named  as  Mediators  in  the  Treaties 
with  the  two  European  Powers.  The  Pacification  with  the  United 
Provinces  was  characteristically  delayed  till  1784,  when  freedom  of 
commerce  was  secured  to  Great  Britain  in  the  Indian  Seas. 

Compared  with  the  Peace  of  Paris  of  1763,  which  France  and 
Spain  had  resolved  to  undo,  the  new  Peace  wears  a  depressing  aspect 
on  any  British  page  of  history,  and  reflects  the  balance  of  losses  ex- 
perienced by  her  in  the  War.  Yet  it  should  not  be  overlooked  that 
almost  everything  now  relinquished  by  her  to  her  European  adver- 
saries had  been  taken  from  them  by  her  in  previous  Wars,  and  that 
a  great  part  of  her  acquisitions  in  the  Peace  of  1763  was  still  retained 
by  her.  The  gains  of  France  were,  in  substance,  restricted  to  those  in 
Africa  and  India ;  to  the  abrogation  of  the  Utrecht  Clause  providing 
for  the  demolition  of  the  fortified  port  of  Dunkirk,  and  to  the  ac- 
knowledgment of  the  French  right  of  fishery  on  the  Newfoundland 
coast.  Spain  recovered  Minorca  and  Eastern  Florida,  while  agreeing 
to  the  British  rights  in  Honduras  and  restoring  the  Bahamas. 

The  American  settlement  turned  on  that  recognition  of  Indepen- 


THE  AMERICAN  SETTLEMENT  139 

dence  with  which  the  negotiation  virtually  began — the  promise  of  a 
compensation  to  the  Loyalists,  in  lieu  of  the  restoration  of  their 
estates,  was  a  matter  of  secondary,  though  of  considerable  moral, 
consequence.  On  the  whole,  the  American  negotiations  had  been 
the  most  successful  part  of  the  entire  transaction ;  and  it  should  be 
noted  that  there  had  been  considerable  differences,  at  the  end,  between 
French  and  American  diplomacy  as  to  how  far  the  latter  had  ful- 
filled its  pledge  of  communicating,  before  signing,  all  preliminary 
agreements.  Nor  was  Vergennes  free  from  doubts  whether,  if  Fox 
came  into  power  in  the  place  of  Shelburne,  he  might  not  be  disposed 
to  conclude  a  separate  peace  with  the  United  States.  Yet  there  was 
no  rupture,  and  the  new  loan  which  France  had  promised  to  the 
Americans  was  not  refused  to  them.  Spain  detested  the  notion  of 
American  Independence,  and  cherished  to  the  last  the  hope  of  an 
exchange  with  Great  Britain  of  Guadaloupe  for  Gibraltar. 

It  will  not  be  necessary,  in  the  ensuing  survey  of  British  Foreign 
Policy  from  the  Peace  of  1783,  to  advert,  except  incidentally,  to  the 
Ministerial  changes  which  occurred  in  the  interval  between  the  down- 
fall of  Shelburne's  shortlived  Administration,  and  the  advent  of  the 
younger  Pitt,  who  had  held  office  in  it  as  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 
to  full  power  as  Prime-Minister.  Until  the  right  solution  was  found 
in  the  appointment  of  the  Minister  who  enjoyed  the  confidence  of  the 
nation  in  the  first  instance,  and  that  of  the  Sovereign  in  the  next, 
these  changes  turned  on  men  rather  than  on  measures;  though  of 
Shelburne,  whose  public  conduct  it  is  perhaps  more  difficult  to  judge 
with  fairness  than  that  of  any  contemporary  British  political  leader, 
it  was  said,  with  some  point,  by  his  colleague,  Lord  Grantham,  that 
he  always  trusted  too  much  to  measures  rather  than  to  men1. 

Indeed,  his  chief  defect  in  his  public  career  was,  perhaps,  his 
neglect  of  the  Machiavellian  maxim,  that  in  politics  everything  depends 
on  making  and  keeping  friends — our  enemies  will  take  care  of  them- 
selves. Yet  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  it  was  Shelburne2  who, 
after  his  own  resignation,  suggested  Pitt  as  the  new  Prime- Minister  to 
the  King,  who  was  more  than  ready  to  act  on  the  suggestion,  in  order 
to  escape  the  hateful  alternative — to  which  he  after  all  had  to  submit — 
of  the  Fox  and  North  Coalition.  It  lasted  for  little  beyond  eight 
months,  under  what  is  not  very  happily  described  as  the  "  ornamental " 
headship  of  the  Duke  of  Portland,  the  two  reconciled  adversaries 

1  See  Lord  Fitzmaurice's  Life  of  William  Earl  Shelburne,  in,  p.  410  (1876). 

2  See  J.  Holland  Rose,  William  Pitt  and  National  Revival  (1911),  p.  125. 


i4o  INTRODUCTION 

holding,  Fox  the  Foreign,  and  North  the  Home  and  Colonial,  Sec- 
retaryship of  State.  This  was  the  Ministry — mistrusted  by  the  nation, 
and  looked  upon  with  bitter  resentment  by  the  King— during  whose 
tenure  of  office  the  Peace  Treaties  with  the  United  States,  and  with 
France  and  Spain,  were  definitively  signed,  without  any  modification 
being  introduced  into  them  by  the  Whigs,  who  in  Opposition  had  taken 
exception  to  them  so  strongly. 

When,  through  the  unconstitutional  action  of  King  George  III, 
encouraged  by  the  unscrupulous  violence  of  Lord  Thurlow  and  aided 
by  the  selfish  ambition  of  Earl  Temple,  the  Coalition  had  been,  in 
December  1783,  brought  to  a  fall  over  Fox's  East  India  Bill,  Pitt  was 
appointed  Prime-Minister  by  the  Sovereign,  in  the  face  of  a  hostile 
majority  in  the  House  of  Commons.  From  Pitt's  Cabinet,  the  Earl  of 
Shelburne,  long  the  leader  of  the  party — or  fraction — to  which 
the  new  Prime-Minister  had  belonged,  was  left  out,  and  William 
(afterwards  Lord)  Grenville,  though  a  member  of  the  Government, 
was  admitted  into  the  Cabinet  till  1791 ;  the  Marquis  of  Carmarthen 
(eldest  son  of  the  Duke  of  Leeds)  being,  however,  included  in  it  as 
Secretary  for  Foreign  Affairs.  Defeated  again  and  again  in  the 
Commons,  but  rendered  confident  by  the  gradual  dwindling  of  the 
Opposition  members,  Pitt  resolved — in  the  full  sense  of  the  phrase — 
to  appeal  to  the  nation.  Early  in  March,  1784,  Parliament  was  dis- 
solved, and  in  May  he  met  the  new  House  of  Commons  at  the  head 
of  an  overwhelming  majority.  It  was  thus  that  he  became  the  most 
powerful  Minister  ever  known  in  our  history.  The  foreign  policy 
of  the  younger  Pitt  presents  almost  as  many  points  of  contrast  with 
that  of  his  father  as  could  have  coexisted  with  the  personal  qualities 
characteristic  of  both.  But  the  task  of  the  one  was  conditioned 
by  the  achievements  of  the  other,  and,  though  their  rates  of  resolution 
differed,  they  alike  proved  equal  to  the  unexampled  responsibilities 
laid  upon  them  by  a  nation  whose  self- trust  they  inspired  and  shared. 


BOOK  I 

FROM  THE  PEACE  OF  VERSAILLES 
TO  THE  SECOND  PEACE  OF  PARIS 

1783-1815 


SECRETARIES  OF  STATE  FOR  FOREIGN  AFFAIRS, 

1783   TO    1815. 

December,  1783:  Marquis  of  Carmarthen  (Duke  of  Leeds). 

June,  1791 :  Lord  Grenville. 

February,  1801 :  Lord  Hawkesbury  (Earl  of  Liverpool). 

May,  1804:  Lord  (Earl  of)  Harrowby. 

January,  1805:  Lord  (Earl  of)  Mulgrave. 

February,  1806 :  Charles  James  Fox. 

September,  —  :  Lord  Howick  (Earl  Grey). 

March,  1807 :  George  Canning. 

October,  1809 :  Earl  Bathurst. 

December,  —   :  Marquis  Wellesley. 

March,  1812:  Viscount  Castlereagh  (Marquis  of  Londonderry). 


UNDER-SECRETARIES  OF  STATE  FOR  FOREIGN  AFFAIRS, 

1783   TO    1815. 


August, 


1783; 
1789; 


February,  1790 
October,  1795 
January,  1796 
April,  1799 

September,  1800 
February,  1801 
November,  1803 
June,  1804 

January,  1805 
February,  1806 
March, 
March, 
August, 
October, 
December, 
February, 


1807 
1807 

1809 
1812 


George  Aust  (Permanent'). 

James  Bland  Surges  (Sir  J.  B.  Burges  Lamb). 

Hon.  Dudley  Ryder  (Earl  of  Harrowby). 

George  Aust  (Permanent). 

George  Hammond  (Permanent). 

George  Canning. 

John  Hookham  Frere. 

Edward  Fisher. 

Lord  Hervey  (Marquis  of  Bristol). 

Charles  Arbuthnot. 

Hon.  William  Eliot  (Earl  of  St  Germans). 

Robert  Ward. 

Hon.  George  Walpole. 

George  Hammond  (Permanent'). 

Viscount  FitzHarris  (Earl  of  Malmesbury). 

Hon.  Charles  Bagot. 

William  Richard  Hamilton  (Permanent). 

Culling  Charles  Smith. 

Edward  Cooke. 


(Later  titles  in  brackets.) 


CHAPTER  I 

PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE. 
1783-1792 

LEVEN  months  before  he  died,  that  is  to  say  in  September,  1785, 
Frederick  the  Great  of  Prussia,  with  the  Duke  of  Brunswick  in 
attendance,  gave  to  a  Special  Envoy  from  Great  Britain1  a  survey  of 
the  state  of  Europe  as  he  saw  it,  or  affected  to  see  it,  and  of  England's 
position  among  the  Powers  since  the  Peace  of  1783.  Frederick  was 
gloomy — gloomy  with  intent,  as  Englishmen  thought ;  but  his  view  was 
a  possible  one  and  no  statesman  in  Europe  had  better  opportunities 
for  gaining  information  than  "old  Fritz  who  knew  everything  that 
he  wanted  to  know."  The  Balance  of  Power  in  Europe,  he  said,  was 
lost.  France,  Spain,  Austria  and  Russia  "were  in  alliance,"  and 
Holland  was  dragged  in  their  wake.  England  and  Prussia  were  iso- 
lated. Even  united,  they  would  hardly  be  a  match  for  "that  mass 
which  he  had  described."  A  struggle  between  such  unequal  forces 
might  be  attempted;  but  it  "was  not  a  game  to  play  often."  He  very 
much  doubted  whether  England  could  tackle  the  combined  fleets  of 
France,  Spain,  the  United  Provinces  and  Russia.  The  position  of  the 
United  Provinces,  he  said,  was  particularly  unfortunate.  The  power 
of  the  Stadholderate  and  of  the  House  of  Orange  which  held  it  was 
undermined :  France  wanted  to  destroy  it  and  to  govern  the  Provinces 
through  her  Ambassador.  How  could  he — although  the  wife  of 
William  V  of  Orange  was  his  niece — how  could  he  prevent  the  Franco- 
Dutch  alliance,  which  was  at  that  moment  in  the  making  ?  Did  England 
suggest  an  Anglo-Prussian  alliance? — There  had  been  talk  of  this. 
Well:  he  did  not  care  to  alarm  the  opposing  "mass"  by  a  treaty,  but 
he  would  always  be  well  disposed  towards  England.  He  had  no  doubt, 
he  concluded  with  malicious  courtesy,  that  Pitt  would  restore  her  "  to 
the  importance  which  she  had  formerly  held  in  the  scale  of  Europe," 
and  render  her  "as  great  and  respectable  as  his  father  had  done2." 
It  is  likely  that  he  had  grave  doubts.  A  few  years  earlier  he  had  written 
to  Brunswick,  who  stood  at  his  elbow  while  he  spoke  to  Lord  Corn- 

1  Lord  Cornwallis,  the  Special  Envoy,  to  Carmarthen,  September  aoth,  1785. 

2  Salomon  (Pitt,  p.  316)  takes  this  to  be  a  considered  judgment  of  Frederick 
on  Pitt.  To  me  it  reads  differently. 


i44  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

wallis,  that  "wealth,... luxury,  the  spirit  of  corruption,  had  all  helped 
to  rot  that  formerly  so  respectable  Government."  He  was  probably 
too  cautious,  in  his  sceptical  old  age,  to  hold,  with  Joseph  II  of 
Habsburg,  that  England  had  fallen  "for  ever,"  or  that  she  had  " gone 
down  to  the  rank  of  a  second  rate  Power  like  Sweden  and  Denmark1 ; " 
but  combined  with  an  old  grudge  against  her  for  deserting  him  in 
1763,  which  made  him  unable  altogether  to  conceal  his  Schadenfreude, 
was  a  real  doubt  as  to  her  present  efficiency,  a  doubt  which  he  shared 
with  all  the  chanceries  of  Europe.  That  British  statesmen  felt  the 
need  to  silence  this  doubt  is  shown  by  the  pains  which  Cornwallis 
took  to  convince  him  that  we  had  not  suffered  in  pocket  by  our  recent 
disasters  more  than  our  rivals  had  suffered  in  defeating  us,  and  that 
we  were  in  a  position  "to  support  our  weight  and  dignity  with  the 
other  Powers  of  Europe2." 

Lord  Cornwallis  had  not  been  sent  to  Berlin  on  this  occasion 
precisely  to  seek  Frederick's  alliance,  though  he  was  instructed  to 
make  it  clear  that  England  would  prefer  Prussia  "to  all  possible 
allies."  He  went  at  Frederick's  request,  or  rather  at  the  request  of 
Frederick's  Ambassador  in  London.  He  had  been  warned  to  put  no 
trust  in  the  King  and  to  be  infinitely  circumspect3.  But  his  mission 
falls  in  a  period  during  which  the  British  Cabinet,  conscious  of  its 
isolation,  had  put  out  feelers  among  the  Northern  Courts  and  at 
Vienna.  These  feelers  had  all  been  cautious;  for,  as  Pitt  wrote  to 
Carmarthen  in  June,  1784,  it  was  necessary  "to  lay  the  foundation 
of  such  connections,  keeping  clear  at  the  same  time  of  being  too  soon 
involved  in  the  quarrels  of  any  Continental  Power4."  If  England 
could  secure  the  support  of  Catharine  of  Russia,  Frederick  told  Corn- 
wallis, he  would  enter  into  a  triple  alliance  "as  soon  as  she  pleased." 
He  knew  that  Catharine  disliked  and  despised  the  British  Govern- 
ment more  than  he  did  himself;  that  advances  had  been  made  to 
her  from  London:  and  that  these  advances  had  been  very  coldly 
entertained.  Having  no  intention  of  committing  himself,  and  being 
anxious  not  to  risk  an  open  breach,  either  with  France,  who  for  the 
moment  dominated  western,  or  with  Catharine,  who  seemed  to  rule 
eastern  Europe,  he  could  afford  to  speak  warmly  of  his  own  readiness 
to  enter  this  unlikely  combination. 

1  Sorel,  L'Europe  et  la  revolution  franpaise,  I.  346. 

2  Joseph  Ewart  to  Carmarthen,  September   loth,   1785  reporting  an  earlier 
interview  of  Cornwallis  with  Frederick. 

3  Draft  of  instructions  for  Cornwallis,  September  2nd,  1785. 

4  Salomon,  Pitt,  p.  300  n.   Salomon  gives  a  full  account  of  the  feelers  of  1784. 


THE  INTERNATIONAL  SITUATION,  1783-1785     145 

His  reference  to  "an  alliance"  between  Spain,  France,  Austria 
and  Russia  was,  strictly  speaking,  incorrect,  and  he  knew  very  well 
that  these  Powers  did  not  form  a  compact  "mass."  But  they  were 
linked  together ;  and  it  was  at  least  conceivable  that,  should  the  loose 
and  selfish  Alliances  of  Europe  be  consolidated  by  the  threat  of  war, 
should  the  "  General  War,"  whose  chances  of  outbreak  the  eighteenth 
century  statesmen  were  always  calculating,  begin  again,  they  would  be 
found  operating  together.  The  Family  Compact  between  France  and 
Spain  was  a  reality.  It  had  worked  already  and  would  probably  work 
again.  The  Alliance  between  France  and  Austria,  the  second  link  in 
the  loose  chain,  seemed  to  have  been  tightened  since  an  Austrian 
Princess  had  shared  the  Throne  of  France.  Frederick  knew  how 
strong  the  anti-Austrian  party  in  France  was.  The  Alliance  of  1756 
had, from  the  first, been  regarded  as  unnatural  by  the  best  Frenchmen. 
It  was  believed  to  have  been  unprofitable  in  a  high  degree.  French 
politicians  were  always  anticipating  that  Austria  would  again  exploit 
it  to  their  disadvantage.  If  France  became  engaged  in  "  a  complicated 
unsuccessful  war,"  wrote  a  member  of  the  French  Council  of  State 
in  1785,  who  could  promise  that  the  Emperor1  "would  not  claim 
Alsace  and  perhaps  other  provinces?"  On  the  other  side,  also,  the 
Alliance  was  not  popular.  At  the  end  of  1784,  the  coolest  head  in  the 
House  of  Habsburg,  Leopold  of  Tuscany,  Joseph's  brother,  called 
the  French  "our  natural  enemies,  disguised  as  allies,  who  do  us  more 
harm  than  if  they  were  open  enemies2."  Yet,  uneasy  as  the  Alliance 
was,  the  directors  of  policy  on  both  sides  found  it  for  the  present 
worth  maintaining.  Frederick  told  Viscount  Dalrymple  in  December, 
1 785, that  he  knew  there  was  no  love  lost  between  France  and  Austria ; 
but  that  an  Anglo-Prussian  alliance  would  drive  them  together,  and 
then  he  would  have  to  face  the  nightmare  risks  of  the  Seven  Years' 
War.  So,  he  concluded,  he  must  humour  France3.  It  was  a  reasonable 
calculation. 

The  link  in  the  chain  of  understandings  most  dangerous  to  Prussia 
was  the  recent  agreement  between  Joseph  and  Catharine  of  Russia. 
At  their  first  meeting,  in  Mohilev  on  June  4th,  1780,  Joseph  had  replied 
to  the  Tsarina's  mocking  and  calculated  enquiry,  why  it  was  that  he, 
a  Roman  Emperor,  did  not  fix  his  capital  at  Rome,  that  there  were 
difficulties  in  the  way  which  he  could  not  at  present  overcome,  but 

1  Memoires  lus  au  Cornell  du  Rot  en  1784  et  1785 :  quoted  by  Sorel,  i.  295 n. 

2  Sorel,  i.  441  n. 

3  Dalrymple  to  Carmarthen,  December  3rd,  1785. 

w.    G.I.  10 


146  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

that  there  would  be  no  great  difficulty  in  her  case.  Her  Rome  was 
not  out  of  reach.  By  thus  flattering  her  dearest  ambition,  he  had  won 
her  favour  once  for  all1.  Frederick's  agents  lost  ground  at  Petrograd ; 
and  the  world  knew,  during  the  next  five  years,  that  the  Imperial 
Courts  were  revolving  schemes  for  the  partition  of  the  Ottoman 
Empire  and  the  establishment  of  Russian  rule  at  Constantinople. 

In  1785  Catharine  was  not  "in  alliance  "  with  France,  as  Frederick 
asserted  to  Cornwallis.  But  there  was  a  very  good  understanding 
between  Petrograd  and  Versailles.  Catharine  appreciated  and  admired 
the  conduct  of  French  policy  under  Vergennes.  Relations  were  so 
confidential  that,  in  1784,  she  had  received  from  one  of  Vergennes' 
subordinates  a  detailed  account  of  the  inner  organisation  of  that 
French  Foreign  Office  which  had  accomplished  so  much2.  The 
traditional  friendship  between  France  and  Sweden  was  a  permanent 
obstacle  to  a  Franco-Russian  alliance.  Yet  it  was  not  insuperable. 
Frederick's  insight  into  the  realities  of  European  diplomacy  was 
proved,  rather  more  than  a  year  after  his  death,  when  England  and 
Prussia  had  actually  drawn  together;  for,  in  the  autumn  of  1787, 
Segur,  the  very  popular  and  accomplished  French  Ambassador  to 
Catharine's  Court,  an  old  friend  of  England's  enemies,  transmitted 
to  his  Government  a  Russian  project  for  precisely  that  Quadruple 
Alliance  of  France,  Spain,  the  Tsarina  and  the  Holy  Roman  Emperor 
which  Frederick  had  feared3.  The  proposal  came  to  nothing;  but  it 
was  actually  made. 

Pitt's  desire  not  to  be  "too  soon  involved  in  the  quarrels  of  any 
Continental  Power  "  was  most  natural.  He  was  nursing  British  finance 
and  the  British  navy,  which  depended  on  finance.  This  he  was  doing 
with  no  definite  intention  of  revenge  either  on  France  or  on  America. 
He  had  probably  less  natural  animosity  against  France  than  any  of 
his  colleagues;  and  certainly  less  than  any  of  the  leading  British 
diplomatists  of  his  day.  When,  in  1786,  he  protested  in  a  famous 
apostrophe  that  "to  suppose  that  any  nation  can  be  unalterably  the 
enemy  of  another  is  weak  and  childish,"  he  was  expressing  a  con- 
viction, not  making  a  point  in  debate.  But  if  he  did  not  desire  for  his 
country  revenge,  he  desired  honour,  weight  in  the  counsels  of  Europe, 

1  Heigel,  Deutsche  Geschichte,  I.  37. 

2  Doniol,  Le  Comte  de  Vergennes  et  P.  M.  Hennin,  p.  47.  Hennin  was  the  sub- 
ordinate who  drafted  the  report.  M.  Doniol  shows  that  it  was  Vergennes  who  "  or- 
ganisa  ce  quiparatt  ne  V avoir  guere  etejusqu'd  lui:  le  ministere  des  affaires  etrangeres ," 
p.  44. 

8  Sorel,  i.  522,  532. 


BRITISH  RESOURCES  147 

"  respectability,"  as  the  word  was  understood  in  the  eighteenth  century. 
These  were  things  which  money,  well  used,  could  buy.  Hence,  in 
part,  those  great  financial  measures  which  filled  the  early  years  of 
his  Ministry. 

When  Cornwallis  assured  Frederick  that  Great  Britain  had  not 
suffered  in  power  more  than  her  foes,  he  made  an  understatement, 
either  discreet  or  unconscious.  Much  as  Englishmen  groaned  about  the 
cost  of  the  late  War,  many  as  were  the  prophecies  of  national  collapse 
under  the  burden  of  the  Funded  Debt,  the  British  finances,  even 
before  Pitt's  reforms,  were  in  a  far  better  condition  than  the  French; 
and  the  British  financial  system  was  probably  the  best  in  Europe. 
In  a  few  years,  Pitt  made  it  incomparably  the  best.  He  was  aided 
by  the  beginnings  of  those  economic  changes  which  were  to  fashion 
modern  England.  Canal  building  was  now  in  full  swing.  The  roads 
had  become  good  enough  to  permit  Palmer  to  start  his  swift  mail 
coaches  in  1784.  Steam  was  first  used  to  drive  the  air  through  a  blast 
furnace  in  1790.  Between  1788  and  1796,  the  output  of  pig  iron  in 
Great  Britain  doubled.  Those  who  directed  European  foreign  policy 
were  either  completely  ignorant  of  these  things  or  did  not  reckon  them 
at  their  full  value.  British  statesmen  had  better  opportunities  of 
knowing  the  truth;  and  the  least  economic  among  them  could  see 
and  appreciate  the  amazing  expansion  of  the  public  revenue  which 
set  in,  when  a  competent  and  upright  financier  handled  freely  the 
expanding  resources  of  the  nation. 

From  the  first,  Pitt  had  seen  to  it  that  a  full  share  of  his  takings 
should  go  to  the  Navy.  He  maintained  a  larger  personnel  than  had 
ever  been  maintained  in  time  of  peace.  He  insisted  on  receiving  at 
regular  intervals  reports  on  the  state  and  progress  of  the  Fleet.  In 
1784  he  set  aside  £2,400,000,  a  sum  about  equal  to  the  total  income 
of  Frederick  of  Prussia,  to  build  ships  of  war.  By  1790,  twenty-four 
new  line-of-battle  ships  had  been  turned  out  from  the  private  ship- 
yards. By  1787,  he  was  prepared  to  risk  war.  In  1790,  when,  for  a 
time,  war  seemed  certain,  he  had  ninety- three  sail  of  the  line  ready1. 
At  sea  he  would  not  have  feared  to  meet  France,  Spain,  Russia  and 
the  Habsburg  Empire.  By  that  time,  he  had  not  to  face  the  possibility 
of  meeting  the  Dutch  also. 

Some  critical  aspects  of  Great  Britain's  international  position  not 
referred  to  in  Frederick's  survey  were  very  present  to  the  minds  of 
Pitt's  Cabinet  and  of  Continental  diplomatists.  And,  first,  the  Irish 

1  Rose,  Pitt,  i.  210-1. 

10 — 2 


148  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

aspect.  The  establishment  of  Ireland's  legislative  independence  in 
1782  had  seemed,  to  outside  observers,  a  final  proof  of  British  de- 
cadence. Clearly  perceiving  the  dangers  of  a  semi-independent 
Ireland,  Pitt  put  forward,  in  1785,  his  generous  scheme  for  Anglo- 
Irish  Free  Trade,  to  bind  the  two  countries  together;  but  English 
political  and  commercial  prejudice  ruined  it1.  So  natural  did  it  seem 
to  our  Ministers  to  find  the  enemies  of  England  fishing  in  the 
troubled  Irish  waters,  that  they  were  always  on  the  look  out  for  French 
intrigues.  A  careful  watch  was  kept  on  the  letter-post ;  and  among  the 
papers  of  the  Duke  of  Rutland,  Lord  Lieutenant,  for  the  year  1784,  is 
a  copy  of  a  private  letter  from  Sir  Edward  Newenham  of  Belcamp, 
Co.  Dublin,  to  Lafayette,  inviting  him  to  a  friendly  visit,  and  pro- 
mising him  a  warm  welcome2.  The  French  knew  well  that  Ireland 
was  a  source  of  weakness  to  England ;  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  French 
Ministers  were  not  at  this  time,  nor  for  several  years  later,  engaged  in 
intrigues  there3. 

If  Ireland  was  a  source  of  weakness,  India  was  on  the  way  to 
become  a  source  of  strength,  though  also  of  sustained  anxiety,  to 
British  Ministers.  British  influence  there  had  been  steadily  extended 
throughout  the  century.  The  Peace  of  1783  had  secured  Negapatam 
from  the  Dutch.  The  need  for  some  regular  Constitutional  link 
between  the  growing  Eastern  empire  and  the  British  Crown  had  led 
to  Pitt's  India  Bill  of  1784.  When  Cornwallis  went  to  Berlin,  he  was 
already,  in  the  mind  of  the  Prime-Minister,  the  first  parliamentary 
Governor-general  designate.  At  first,  Cornwallis  had  demurred, 
raising  objections  to  the  scope  of  his  powers.  These  powers  were 
extended  by  the  Amending  Act  of  1786.  The  Governor-general  could 
now  override  the  views  of  his  Council  at  Calcutta,  and  thus  was  in  no 
danger  of  factious  opposition  from  colleagues  such  as  Warren  Hastings 
had  been  obliged  to  face.  Under  Cornwallis  (1786-93)  what  might 
be  called  the  nineteenth  century  era  of  British  rule  in  India  began, 
with  the  power  in  the  hands  of  a  series  of  men  of  high  ability,  who 
enjoyed  the  full  confidence  of  the  Home  Government. 

Consolidation  of  British  power  in  India  had  two  main  consequences 
in  the  sphere  of  international  politics.  First,  France  was  forced  to 

1  For  the  Irish  propositions  see,  inter  alia,  Murray,  Commercial  relations  between 
England  and  Ireland',  O'Brien,  The  economic  history  of  Ireland  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  Rose,  Pitt,  I. 

2  H.M.C.  Rutland  MSS.  HI.  119.   Newenham  happens  to  mention  "my  agent 
for  my  landed  estates,"  Napper  Tandy. 

3  The  evidence  is  in  Lecky,  vi.  369  sqq. 


IRELAND;  INDIA;  AMERICA  149 

grope  about,  at  times  in  India  itself,  at  times  elsewhere  in  the  nearer 
or  further  East,  for  some  equivalent — as  the  statesmen  of  the  eighteenth 
century  put  it — in  trade  or  dominion.  Secondly,  there  began  to  emerge 
out  of  Asia  the  first  true  conflict  of  interests  between  Russia  and 
Great  Britain.  Catharine  was  mastering  the  northern  coasts  of  the  Black 
Sea.  Her  orders  were  executed  on  the  shores  of  the  Caspian  and  on 
the  banks  of  the  Oxus.  Her  designs  in  the  nearer  East  were  frankly 
advertised.  Henceforward,  Russian  policy  became  a  matter  of  concern 
to  every  Asiatic  Power — and  Great  Britain  was  now  such.  Moreover 
— though  how  far  this  was  understood  in  England  is  doubtful — that 
policy  might  conceivably  work  in  with  France's  gropings  for  an  equi- 
valent. In  1782,  Joseph  II  had  suggested  to  Catharine  that  perhaps 
France,  a  traditional  ally  of  the  Turk,  might  be  induced  to  acquiesce 
in  his  destruction  by  the  offer  of  Egypt.  The  case  was  debated  at  the 
French  Council  of  State,  with  special  reference  to  the  effect  of  a 
French  occupation  of  Egypt  on  Indian  trade  and  politics1.  France 
had  no  wish  to  see  Turkey  dismembered ;  but  she  had  to  prepare  for 
all  the  chances  of  a  shifting  world.  The  world  did  not  shift  so  far  at 
that  time;  so  the  hypothetical  situations  never  arose.  But  the  first 
of  those  clashes  of  British,  French  and  Russian  interests  in  the  East 
which  the  occasion  foreshadowed  was  not  long  postponed ;  nor  was 
their  termination  to  be  the  matter  of  a  day. 

Contrary  to  the  expectations  of  the  average  diplomatist,  apt  to 
identify  prestige  and  power,  dominion  and  wealth,  and  not  holding 
with  Adam  Smith  that  Britain's  American  empire  had  been  "not 
a  gold  mine,  but  the  project  of  a  gold  mine,"  the  loss  of  the  Thirteen 
Colonies  had  made  singularly  little  difference  to  British  prosperity. 
Independent,  they  traded  with  the  United  Kingdom  very  much  as 
they  had  traded  when  dependent.  Had  it  been  possible  to  make  a 
clean  and  satisfactory  settlement  in  1783,  it  is  probable  that  the  empire 
might  have  seemed  to  gain  greatly  by  disruption ;  and  it  is  certain  that 
such  a  settlement  would  have  contributed  enormously  to  the  world's 
peace  during  the  succeeding  century.  But  such  a  settlement  was  not 
made.  Throughout  the  ten  years  1784-94,  the  Treaty  of  Versailles 
remained  imperfectly  executed,  and  Anglo-American  relations  in  the 
unwholesome  condition  of  standing  water.  Since  America  had  no  part 
in  the  ever  shifting  "systems"  of  Continental  Europe,  to  which  Great 
Britain  had  to  adjust  her  policy  from  year  to  year,  their  mutual  relations 
in  those  ten  years  may  be  described  here  without  reference  to  any  of 

1  Sorel,  I.  328-9. 


i5o  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

these.  Not  until  the  French  Declaration  of  War  in  1793  were  they 
really  affected  by  the  course  of  European  affairs. 

The  final  Treaty  with  the  United  States  had  been  signed  at 
Versailles  three  months  and  a  half  before  Pitt  took  office ;  but,  owing 
to  distance  and  the  inevitably  slow  working  of  the  new  American 
Constitution,  the  ratifications  were  not  exchanged  until  May,  1784. 
After  the  exchange,  David  Hartley,  the  British  representative,  re- 
ported the  anxiety  of  Adams,  Franklin  and  Jay  to  proceed  at  once 
to  the  negotiation  of  an  Anglo-American  Commercial  Treaty1.  The 
project  was  not  new.  It  had  been  put  forward  at  the  time  of  the  Pre- 
liminary Treaty,  and  had  been  pressed  on  Hartley  by  his  American 
colleagues  during  his  whole  negotiation,  from  April  to  September, 
1783.  They  wanted,  as  he  reported  to  Fox,  reciprocity  "upon  any 
terms  whatsoever,  from  the  narrowest  limits  to  the  utmost  extent  of 
mutual  intercourse  and  participation."  For  himself,  he  had  dreams  of 
perfectly  free  intercourse,  leading  to  a  "family  compact  between  our 
two  nations2.'*  But  the  letter  in  which  he  expressed  this  hope  crossed 
his  final  instructions  from  Fox,  to  complete  the  political  arrangements 
separately  from  the  commercial.  The  British  Cabinet  was  not  ready 
to  open  the  whole  question  of  commercial  policy  and  commercial  law, 
and  to  define  its  attitude  by  treaty;  though  it  was  ready  to  make 
important  concessions  to  the  United  States  by  Order  in  Council3. 
In  any  case,  it  was  not  prepared  to  show  its  hand  at  Paris.  The  Anglo- 
French  and  Anglo-American  Treaties  were  to  be  signed  simul- 
taneously; and  Fox  held  that  commercial  arrangements  "ought  not 
to  come  under  the  eye  of  the  French  Minister,  much  less  to  make 
part  of  a  Treaty  the  completion  of  which  he  insists  upon  previous 
to  the  signing  of  his  own,  and  which  consequently  he  may  be  said 
in  some  degree  to  take  under  his  protection4."  This  point  of  diplo- 
matic procedure  was  a  good  one ;  but  the  unreadiness  of  London  was 
the  deciding  factor. 

David  Hartley,  a  friend  of  Benjamin  Franklin  and  of  America, 
no  ordinary  diplomatist,  an  advanced  Whig,  a  fellow  of  Merton 
College  and,  like  Franklin,  something  of  an  inventor,  was  recalled 

1  Hartley  to  Carmarthen,  May  I3th,  1784. 

2  Hartley  to  Fox,  May  2Oth  and  August  2nd,  1783. 

3  Fox  to  Hartley,  June  loth,  1783.  He  expresses  his  wish  to  put  off  "for  a  time 
the  decision  of  that  important  question  which  you  think  at  last  must  come  to  an 
issue,  i.e.,  how  far  the  principles  of  our  Navigation  Act  ought  to  be  sacrificed  to 
commercial  considerations  drawn  from  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  present 
crisis." 

4  Fox  to  Hartley,  August  4th,  1783. 


AMERICAN  NEGOTIATIONS  151 

by  Carmarthen  without  thanks  or  compliments  on  May  25th,  1784. 
He  refused  to  understand  a  perfectly  clear  phrase  of  this  letter — that 
commercial  matters  would  "require  a  considerable  degree  of  delibera- 
tion"— and  lingered  in  Paris  until  September,  in  spite  of  further  recall 
orders.  At  last  he  was  brought  back  by  the  cutting  off  of  his  appoint- 
ments at  a  week's  notice1.  In  June,  Franklin  was  still  hopeful  that 
a  commercial  negotiation  might  be  started;  but  by  the  end  of  July 
he  had  "  begun  to  suspect  that  no  instructions  were  intended2."  Hartley 
should  have  perceived  this  earlier.  Pitt's  Cabinet  was  no  more  ready 
to  begin  negotiations  than  Fox's  had  been. 

As,  however,  the  American  deputation  remained  in  Europe, 
negotiating  on  economic  questions  with  other  Powers;  and  as  a 
subordinate  diplomatic  agent  reported  them  to  be  "very  inquisitive" 
about  the  prospects  of  an  Anglo-American  treaty3,  they  were 
encouraged  to  come  to  London  at  the  end  of  the  year.  "Your  people 
are  ready  to  listen  to  us,"  wrote  Franklin  to  Hartley,  who  was  at  Bath, 
occupied  in  drafting  the  final  report  of  his  mission  for  the  un- 
sympathetic Carmarthen;  "but  they  thought  it  more  for  the  honour 
of  both  that  the  treaty  should  not  be  in  a  third  place4."  There  is 
no  evidence  that  the  British  Minister  had  written  so  definitely  of 
"the  treaty." 

John  Adams,  the  first  American  accredited  to  the  Court  of 
St  James',  was  presented  to  King  George  on  the  afternoon  of  June  ist, 
1785.  Two  months  later  he  transmitted  to  Carmarthen  a  draft  treaty, 
hinting  in  his  covering  letter  that  the  results  of  inaction  would  be  most 
serious  for  Anglo-American  commercial  and  political  relations5.  The 
draft  was  not  merely  commercial ;  there  were  included  in  its  twenty-six 
clauses  important  proposals  of  a  political  kind.  Relations  between  the 
two  countries  were  to  be  based  on  "the  most  perfect  equality  and 
reciprocity."  Subjects  of  either  were  to  reside  and  pay  duties  in  the 
other  as  if  they  had  been  citizens  of  it.  They  were  to  be  free  to  send 
any  kind  of  goods,  wherever  produced  or  manufactured,  in  ships  of 
any  description,  with  any  class  of  crew,  to  all  points  in  one  another's 
territory  or  elsewhere,  subject  to  the  right  of  either  Power  to  prohibit, 

1  Carmarthen  to  Hartley,  May  25th ;  August  2Oth ;  September  5th ;  September 
1 7th. 

2  To  B.  Vaughan,  July  26th.  Memoirs  of  Franklin,  in.  154. 

3  Ed.  Bancroft  to  Carmarthen,  Paris,  December  8th,  1784. 

4  Franklin  to  Hartley,  January  3rd,  1785.  Memoirs,  iv.  423.    Hartley's  report 
to  Carmarthen,  dated  from  Bath,  is  of  January  9th. 

6  Adams  to  Carmarthen,  July  29th,  1785.  The  Diplomatic  Correspondence  of  the 
United  States,  1783-1789,  iv.  257  sqq. 


i52  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

for  reasons  of  State,  particular  imports  and  exports.  This  clause 
(No.  4)  was  a  direct  challenge  to  the  sections  of  the  British  Navigation 
Code  which  reserved  inter-imperial  trade  to  ships  built  and  owned 
in  the  British  empire,  and  manned  by  crews  predominantly  British, 
while  excluding  foreign  ships  from  most  of  the  carrying  trade  between 
British  ports  and  ports  outside  their  own  territory.  By  subsequent 
clauses,  each  country  was  to  guarantee  the  other  most  favoured  nation 
treatment  in  the  matter  of  customs,  and  to  give  every  facility  for  the 
establishment  of  consular  offices. 

So  much  for  pure  commerce.  In  time  of  war  between  either 
country  and  a  third  Power,  the  legal  principles  of  "free  ships,  free 
goods"  and  " enemy  ships,  enemy  goods"  were  to  be  recognised: 
contraband,  if  found  on  the  vessels  of  one  of  the  Contracting  Parties, 
was  not  to  be  confiscated,  but  deposited  in  a  port  of  the  capturing 
country  and  paid  for ;  no  embargo  was  to  be  placed  on  the  shipping 
of  the  Party  not  engaged  in  the  war  "for  any  military  expedition "  or 
similar  purpose;  the  subjects  of  neither  Party  should  take  from  any 
third  Power  letters  of  marque  for  preying  on  the  commerce  of  the 
other.  In  case  of  war  between  the  Contracting  Parties  themselves, 
merchants  were  to  have  nine  months'  grace  in  which  to  wind  up  their 
affairs,  and  prisoners  were  not  to  be  sent  into  distant  and  inclement 
countries,  but  to  be  housed  in  barracks  such  as  were  used  for  the 
captor's  own  troops. 

Such  were  the  main  points  of  this  remarkable  draft.  Apparently 
it  fell  dead.  There  survives  a  record  of  a  conversation  between  Car- 
marthen and  Adams  in  October,  at  which  Carmarthen  confined  himself 
to  generalities  about  Great  Britain's  desire  for  reciprocity1.  Four 
months  later,  an  explanation  of  his  reserve  is  suggested  by  a  very  stiff 
note  to  Adams,  complaining  of  the  failure  of  the  United  States  to 
carry  out  the  Treaty  of  1783 2.  Then,  on  April  4th,  1786,  Adams,  now 
in  conjunction  with  Jefferson,  sends  him,  "as  requested  in  conversa- 
tion," another  draft  treaty.  It  contains  the  commercial  clauses  of  the 
previous  draft,  almost  verbatim,  but  nothing  else.  Probably,  Adams 
had  pressed  the  matter  and  Carmarthen  had  responded  pro  forma. 
A  month  later  again  (May  8th)  a  confidential  agent  reports  Adams  as 
being  "highly  dissatisfied  with  his  situation  and  the  supposed  dis- 
positions of  H.M.  Minister  towards  the  United  States,"  and  his 
correspondence  as  being  "calculated  to  excite  them"  to  commercial 

1  Minute  of  a  conversation  with  Adams,  October  2Oth. 

2  Carmarthen  to  Adams,  February  28th,  1786. 


ADAMS'S  DRAFT  TREATY  153 

and  political  hostility.  At  this  point, the  negotiation,  if  so  it  maybe 
called,  was  broken  off,  and  no  more  is  heard  of  it  in  Great  Britain  for 
another  four  years. 

There  is  no  reason  to  think  that,  at  any  time  between  1783  and 
1793 ,  Pitt's  Cabinet  was  ready  to  throw  overboard  the  Navigation  Code ; 
though  Pitt  acquiesced  in  those  administrative  relaxations  which 
alone  rendered  Anglo-American  trade  possible.  American  produce, 
coming  to  the  United  Kingdom  in  American  or  in  British  ships,  was 
treated  just  as  if  America  were  still  a  colony.  Facilities  were  given,  as 
in  the  old  days,  for  the  reexport  of  American  tobacco  and  rice;  and 
so  on.  But  the  strong  American  wish  to  trade  freely  with  the  Canadian 
and  West  Indian  Colonies,  and  to  carry  between  those  Colonies  and 
the  Mother-country,  was  never  frankly  gratified.  In  1783,  Fox  had 
explained  to  Hartley  that  the  notion  of  admitting  West  Indian  produce 
in  United  States  bottoms  must  be  ruled  out:  "the  prejudice  (if  that 
be  the  name  these  opinions  deserve) "  was,  he  said1,  far  too  strong. 
So  it  remained.  But  this  and  other  prohibitions  were  freely  evaded. 
The  West  Indies,  in  particular,  required  food  and  lumber  from  the 
United  States;  and  their  merchants  had  pressed  for  a  commercial 
treaty  in  I7832.  Failing  the  treaty,  they  had  to  help  themselves. 
A  common  device,  as  our  early  Consuls  reported,  was  for  a  ship  to 
be  owned  jointly  by  British  and  American  traders  and  to  utilise  its 
double  nationality3.  Such  evasion,  though  it  might  help  traders,  did 
nothing  to  promote  an  Anglo-American  "family  compact." 

There  is  no  need  to  assume,  as  Franklin  did  in  1784,  that  Great 
Britain  had  "still  at  times  some  flattering  hopes  of  recovering  ". .  ."the 
loss  of  its  dominion"  over  the  United  States4.  The  difficulties  as  to 
the  Treaty  of  1783  are  sufficient  to  explain  a  great  measure  of  reluct- 
ance to  enter  into  further  obligations.  "  By  the  fourth,  fifth  and  sixth 
articles  of  the  Treaty  no  impediments  were  to  be  put  in  the  way  of 
the  recovery  of  debts  [by  British  subjects];  the  States  were  to  be 
recommended  to  repeal  their  Confiscation  Acts  [directed  against 
Loyalists] ;  and  there  were  to  be  no  future  confiscations  nor  prose- 
cutions of  any  sort  against  any  person  because  of  the  part  taken  by 
him  in  the  late  war.  But  the  States  gave  no  heed  whatever  to  these 
articles.  The  Confiscation  Acts  were  not  repealed ;  impediments  were 
placed  in  the  way  of  the  recovery  of  debts ;  and  thousands  of  Loyalists 

1  Fox  to  Hartley,  June  loth,  1783. 

2  Resolutions  of  the  West  Indian  Merchants,  November  a6th,  1783. 

*  E.g.,  Bond  (Consul  at  Philadelphia)  to  Carmarthen,  May  i4th,  1787. 

*  Memoirs,  in.  154. 


i54  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

were  driven  from  the  country1."  By  way  of  retaliation,  the  United 
Kingdom  refused  to  evacuate  an  important  line  of  frontier  posts  on 
United  States  territory,  from  Lake  Michigan  to  Lake  Champlain. 
The  diplomatic  and  consular  correspondence  of  the  years  1783-94  is 
full  of  the  resulting  difficulties  and  mutual  grievances.  Franklin  had 
recognised  in  1783  that  the  ill-treatment  of  the  "Tories,"  which  he 
deplored,  gravely  impeded  the  commercial  negotiation2:  the  question 
remained  an  impediment  for  years.  In  view  of  this  unfortunate 
experience,  the  British  Government  might  well  doubt  to  what  extent 
a  commercial  treaty,  assuming  it  to  be  desirable,  would  become 
operative.  True,  under  the  Articles  of  Confederation  of  1781,  no 
single  State  might  enter  into  treaties  or  levy  import  duties  in  conflict 
with  the  stipulations  of  treaties  entered  into  by  the  United  States ; 
but,  if  particular  States  defied  one  Treaty,  they  might  defy  another, 
and  it  was  wellknown  that  Congress  could  not  collect  its  own  taxes. 
Meanwhile,  several  States  were  passing  Navigation  Acts  and  levying 
extra  duties  on  goods  imported  in  British  bottoms. 

John  Adams  returned  home  in  1788.  Before  the  arrival  of  his 
successor,  Morris,  early  in  1790,  the  Foreign  Office  had  learnt  that, 
under  the  new  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  Congress  alone 
could  levy  duties  affecting  foreigners ;  that  Congress  had  not  adopted 
any  commercial  policy  discriminating  against  Great  Britain ;  and  that 
everything  contrary  to  the  definitive  Treaty  of  1783  was  repealed.  It 
was  now  the  law  of  the  land3.  This  settlement  paved  the  way  for 
easier  relations  between  the  United  States  representative  and  the 
British  Foreign  Secretary.  Morris  had  to  explain  the  absolute  inability 
of  his  Government  to  carry  out  the  Treaty  to  the  letter,  at  this  late 
date.  The  debts  were  in  many  cases  irrecoverable ;  the  Loyalists  had 
suffered  persecution  and  had  long  since  fled.  Leeds  replied  that  His 
Britannic  Majesty  could  not  evacuate  the  frontier  posts  until  the 
position  was  regularised.  He  suggested  some  "fair  and  just  com- 
pensation" for  the  parties  who  had  suffered.  As  to  the  treaty  of 
commerce,  of  which  Morris  had  spoken,  he  was  profuse  in  expressions 
of  goodwill,  but  made  no  definite  proposal4. 

In  the  course  of  the  year,  however,  Pitt's  new  Committee  of 
Council  on  Trade  was  instructed  to  report  on  the  question  of  com- 

1  Professor  McMaster,  of  Pennsylvania  University,  in  The  Cambridge  Modern 
History,  vn.  307. 

2  Report  of  Franklin's  article  in  The  Salem  Gazette,  P.O.  November,  1783. 

8  Consul-general  Sir  John  Temple  to  the  Duke  of  Leeds,  September  23rd,  1789. 
4  Leeds  to  Morris,  April  28th,  1790. 


BRITISH  COMMERCIAL  POLICY  155 

mercial  negotiations  with  America.  The  report,  transmitted  to  Leeds 
on  March  3rd,  1791  ,was  generally  favourable  to  the  opening  of  negotia- 
tions "  especially  as  Congress  appears  inclined  to  this  measure ;  but," 
it  went  on  to  say,  "it  will  be  right,  in  an  early  stage... explicitly  to 
declare  that  Great  Britain  can  never  submit  even  to  treat  on  what 
appears  to  be  the  favourite  object  of  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
that  is,  the  admission  of  the  ships  of  the  United  States  into  the  Ports 
of  Your  Majesty's  Colonies  and  Islands1."  The  Committee  inclined 
to  the  view  that  America  stood  to  lose  more  than  Great  Britain  in 
a  trade  war  and  suggested  measures  of  retaliation,  should  Congress 
make  "further  Distinctions  to  the  detriment  of  our  trade." 

In  the  autumn  of  1791,  Grenville  now  being  in  charge  of  the 
Foreign  Office  (see  p.  207,  below),  George  Hammond,  who  had  been 
Hartley's  secretary  at  Paris  in  1783,  was  sent  as  the  first  British 
Minister  Plenipotentiary  to  the  United  States2.  His  main  business 
was  the  settlement  of  the  question  of  the  frontier  posts  and  the  British 
claims  for  compensation.  There  were  also  American  counterclaims 
arising  out  of  the  carrying  off  of  American  property,  in  the  shape  of 
negroes,  at  the  evacuation  of  New  York  by  the  British  forces  in  1783. 
If  the  American  Government  was  anxious  to  proceed  to  commercial 
negotiations,  Hammond  was  instructed  to  aim  at  securing  most 
favoured  nation  treatment  for  British  goods  and,  if  possible,  a  promise 
that  the  existing  duties  on  them  would  not  be  raised.  Similar  treat- 
ment for  American  goods  was  to  be  offered  in  exchange.  For  his 
guidance  on  the  wider  questions  of  navigation  policy,  he  was  given 
the  report  of  the  Committee  of  Council,  with  its  clearly  expressed 
intention  to  retain  the  British  monopoly  of  imperial  trade.  But  he 
found  at  an  early  date  that  what  the  United  States,  speaking  through 
Alexander  Hamilton,  most  wanted  was  the  right  of  trade  with  the 
West  Indies,  if  only  in  small  craft3.  A  regular  commercial  negotiation 
was,  however,  never  started  during  1792,  Hammond's  time  being 
entirely  occupied  with  the  interminable  questions  of  debts  and 
compensations,  alleged  failures  of  individual  States  to  accept  the 
Treaty  of  1783  as  the  law  of  the  land,  and  the  British  garrisons  in  the 
frontier  posts.  Then  came  the  French  Declaration  of  War  against  the 
United  Kingdom.  The  outstanding  legacies  from  the  Treaty  of  1783 
remained  unliquidated.  No  treaty  of  commerce  existed,  and  all  the 

1  The  report  is  a  very  elaborate  one,  extending  to  about  150  MS.  pp. 

2  His  special  instructions  are  of  September  ist,  1791. 
8  Hammond  to  Grenville,  January,  1792. 


156  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

problems  of  neutrality,  contraband,  and  the  exercise  of  sea  power, 
which  John  Adams's  draft  had  attempted  to  provide  against  in  advance, 
were  revived  in  aggravated  forms. 

American  sympathy  was  overwhelmingly  on  the  French  side,  and 
Washington's  Declaration  of  Neutrality ,  of  April  22nd,  1793,  was  re- 
ceived with  a  storm  of  abuse1.  Great  Britain's  refusal  to  admit  the  right 
of  American  shipping  to  enjoy  the  trade  of  the  French  West  Indies, 
now  thrown  open  to  it  as  a  war  measure ;  an  Order  to  British  cruisers 
to  bring  into  port  neutral  cargoes  of  corn  and  flour  destined  for  France ; 
and  the  beginnings  of  the  search  of  American  ships  for  British  seamen 
— all  played  into  the  hands  of  the  Anglophobe  party  in  America.  These 
events,  and  those  that  followed,  lie  outside  the  chronological  scope  of 
the  present  chapter;  but  their  outline,  in  their  relation  to  the  abortive 
negotiations  of  the  ten  years  of  peace,  may  be  most  conveniently 
sketched  here.  Pitt's  Government  had  been  sincerely  anxious  for 
a  settlement  when  Hammond  was  despatched.  The  dangers  of  war 
stung  it  into  decisive  action.  The  initiative,  however,  came  from 
Washington.  With  the  approval  of  the  Senate,  he  sent  John  Jay  to 
England  to  arrange  a  treaty.  His  task  was  eased  by  an  Order  in  Council 
of  January,  1794, instructing  naval  commanders  and  privateers  to  stop 
only  such  neutral  ships  as  were  engaged  in  the  direct  trade  between  the 
French  West  Indies  and  France.  By  October  7th,  1794,  Jay  had  signed 
with  Grenville  the  Treaty  which  is  usually  called  by  his  name.  It  was 
approved  by  President  and  Senate  nine  months  later.  "Jay  was  burned 
in  effigy,  guillotined  in  effigy,  hanged  in  effigy,  from  Maine  to 
Georgia2  " ;  but  ratifications  were  exchanged  next  year. 

The  Treaty  reflects  very  imperfectly  some  of  the  principles  of 
international  intercourse  which  American  negotiators  had  put  forward 
in  the  previous  decade ;  but  it  was  in  the  main  concerned  with  specific 
cases  and  grievances.  The  United  Kingdom  agreed  to  withdraw  all 
troops  from  United  States  territory  on  or  before  June  ist,  1796.  Inter- 
course across  the  continental  frontier  was  not  to  be  impeded  by  either 
Power.  The  navigation  of  American  rivers  in  the  territory  of  either 
was  to  be  free  up  to  the  highest  point  to  which  seagoing  vessels  could 
proceed.  A  Commission  was  to  be  set  up  in  America  to  provide  "  full 
and  complete  compensation"  for  the  British  creditors,  who  had 
waited  nearly  a  dozen  years.  Per  contra,  Great  Britain  offered  com- 

1  On  the  American  situation  see  McMaster  in  The  Cambridge  Modern  History, 
Vli.  318  seq. 

8  The  Cambridge  Modern  History,  vii.  320. 


THE  JAY  TREATY  157 

pensation  for  damage  done  to  American  shipping  under  the  harsh 
Orders  in  Council  of  1793.  United  States  vessels  were  authorised 
to  carry  on  direct  trade  with  British  ports  in  the  East  Indies  (they  had 
done  so  to  a  considerable  extent  already  without  authorisation)  and 
with  British  possessions  in  Europe.  The  trade  between  the  United 
States  and  the  West  Indies  was  opened,  as  Hamilton  had  urged  on 
Hammond,  to  small  vessels,  up  to  70  tons  burden.  The  most  favoured 
nation  principle  was  mutually  adopted  in  matters  of  customs,  tonnage 
and  harbour  dues.  Neither  Contracting  Party  was  to  entertain  in  its 
ports  pirates  or  privateers  with  letters  of  marque  from  an  enemy  of  the 
other,  or  to  allow  its  subjects  to  accept  from  foreign  Princes  in  time  of 
war  letters  of  marque  which  might  authorise  them  to  prey  on  the 
commerce  of  the  other  Party.  Contraband  was  more  closely  defined. 
It  was  agreed  that  enemy  property,  but  enemy  property  only,  might 
be  taken  from  neutral  ships  in  time  of  war ;  the  United  States  hereby 
abandoning  the  principle  of  "free  ships,  free  goods."  There  were 
other  more  detailed  clauses  dealing  with  the  problems  of  neutrality, 
capture,  and  the  exercise  of  sea  power.  Finally,  in  the  event  of  war 
between  the  Contracting  Parties,  the  property  of  individuals  was  not 
to  be  confiscated — a  reminiscence  of  the  American  Confiscation  Acts ; 
merchants  might  remain  and  carry  on  trade  in  spite  of  the  existence 
of  a  state  of  war ;  and  no  reprisals  for  alleged  illegal  acts  were  to  be 
initiated  by  either  Party  without  notice.  It  should  be  added  that  all 
the  clauses  of  a  general  character  dealing  with  the  problems  of  warfare 
were  accepted  for  twelve  years  only,  except  the  clause  which  forbade 
the  confiscation  of  private  property.  It  may,  also,  be  noted,  in  the 
words  of  an  American  historian  and  in  anticipation  of  the  war  of  1812, 
that  "nothing  was  said  about  search,  or  impressment,  or  paper 
blockades,  or  indemnity  for  the  negroes  whom  Carleton  took  away 
in  I7831."  The  British  Navigation  Code  was  rendered  less  water- 
tight by  the  clauses  relating  to  the  West  Indies  and  India ;  but  it  was 
not  wrecked.  The  Treaty,  in  short,  was  a  piece  de  circonstance,  and 
as  such  something  of  a  triumph  for  British  foreign  policy :  it  had  few 
of  the  elements  of  a  "family  compact"  broad-based  on  principle. 

Had  it  been  possible  for  the  United  Kingdom  to  have,  from  the 
first,  an  Ambassador  to  the  United  States  in  touch  with  Washington 
and  his  colleagues,  as  the  Ambassadors  to  the  Great  Powers  were  with 
the  Courts  to  which  they  were  accredited,  Anglo-American  relations 
in  this  critical  decade  might  have  worked  out  differently.  For  the 

1  The  Cambridge  Modern  History,  vii.  320. 


158  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

Ambassadors  and  other  diplomatic  agents  played  a  great  part  in  the 
development  of  British  policy.  In  the  last  resort  the  policy  was  Pitt's. 
Early  in  Carmarthen's  tenure  of  the  Foreign  Secretaryship  (1783-91), 
Pitt  gave  advice  on  all  delicate  matters ;  and  later,  as  Great  Britain  be- 
came more  closely  involved  in  the  politics  of  Europe,  he  assumed  the 
control  at  every  crisis,  often  preparing  the  drafts  of  decisive  despatches 
himself1.  When  Grenville  succeeded  Carmarthen  (Leeds),  these 
personal  incursions  become  less  frequent,  but  only  because  of  the 
complete  identity  of  views  between  the  Prime- Minister  and  the  Foreign 
Secretary.  Owing  to  Grenville's  great  industry — a  trait  less  conspicuous 
in  the  character  of  the  Duke  of  Leeds — Pitt  could  be  certain  that  their 
common  policy  would  receive  prompt  expression  and  execution.  But, 
in  contributing  to  form  his  own  opinion,  in  preparing  the  diplomatic 
situation  for  his  decision,  and  in  determining  the  attitude  of  foreign 
Courts  towards  Great  Britain,  the  greater  diplomatic  agents  were 
all-important.  In  quiet  times,  they  were  little  interfered  with  and 
rarely  instructed.  This  was  specially  so  while  Carmarthen  was  at 
the  Foreign  Office.  At  an  out-of-the-way  Court  a  Minister  might 
receive  no  despatches  at  all:  none  went  to  Warsaw  in  1782-4. 
Sir  Robert  Keith,  Ambassador  at  Vienna  from  1772  to  1792,  said  that 
on  the  average  he  received  one  answer  to  every  forty  official  letters. 
Once,  in  times  far  from  quiet,  he  received  no  line  of  instructions  for 
five  months2.  The  ablest  and  most  independent  of  all  the  Ambassadors, 
Sir  James  Harris  (Malmesbury),  did  not  regret  this  neglect,  because, 
as  he  once  said,  he  "never  received  an  instruction  which  was  worth 
reading3."  He  served  at  Madrid,  Berlin,  Petrograd  (1777-82)  and 
the  Hague.  He  knew  how  to  play  a  lone  hand,  and  preferred  it.  He 
could  impress  an  Empress,  plan  a  revolution,  or  bribe  a  royal  valet 
to  deny  the  presence  to  an  anti-British  Minister4.  Centrally  placed 
at  the  Hague  from  1784  to  1788,  he  saw  most  of  the  northern  corre- 
spondence, which  passed  through  the  Hague  under  flying  seal;  he 
was  within  easy  reach  of  Paris  news ;  and  through  Messrs  Hope,  the 
Scotch-Dutch  bankers  of  Amsterdam,  he  knew  how  the  world's  gold 
was  moving.  No  one  could  write  more  brilliant  or  more  persuasive 
despatches.  His  career  helps  to  explain  Burke's  opinion,  expressed 
in  1791 ,  that  "those  in  power  here,  instead  of  governing  their  Ministers 

1  For  the  evidence,  see  Rose,  Pitt,  I.  and  Salomon,  Pitt,  passim.  It  is  summarised 
in  Rose,  I.  618. 

2  Memoirs  of  Sir  R.  M.  Keith,  u.  219,221,  224. 

3  To  Joseph  Ewart,  Malmesbury  Diaries,  n.  112. 

4  He  did  this  at  Loo  (see  p.  i8o,posf).  Harris  to  Carmarthen,  June  isth,  1788. 


THE  CONDUCT  OF  BRITISH  POLICY  159 

in  foreign  Courts,  are  entirely  swayed  by  them1."  This  was  not  true; 
but  there  was  truth  in  it. 

Permanent  "combinations"  were  even  more  foreign  to  English 
than  to  Continental  diplomacy  in  the  eighteenth  century.  But  there 
were  traditions  of  friendship  and  of  hostility  which  affected,  in 
varying  degrees,  the  atmosphere  of  diplomatic  life.  That  France  was 
suspected,  and  that  French  and  British  diplomatists  worked,  steadily 
and  courteously,  against  one  another  with  mine  and  countermine, 
goes  without  saying.  They  had  done  so  for  a  century.  A  tradition, 
now  rather  remote,  of  friendship  with  the  House  of  Habsburg  had  not 
been  completely  effaced  by  nearly  thirty  years  of  Austro-French 
alliance.  So  long  as  Austria  remained  the  Ally  of  France,  Prussia  was 
obviously  a  possible  friend.  But  friendship  with  her  had  been  inter- 
mittent, and  as  a  first-class  Power  she  was  very  young ;  so  that  there 
was  no  weight  of  tradition  behind  this  relation.  Her  Protestantism 
still  had  some  little  weight  at  home ;  but  the  word  does  not  occur  in 
the  diplomatic  correspondence.  Russia,  until  recently,  had  seemed 
a  natural  friend,  by  virtue  of  old  commercial  connexions  and  the 
apparent  impossibility  of  any  real  conflict  of  interests.  But,  of  all 
friendships,  the  most  natural  and  obvious  was  that  with  the  Dutch. 
Nothing  seemed  more  shocking  to  British  diplomatic  opinion  than 
the  decline  of  British  influence  at  Amsterdam  and  the  Hague  during 
the  War  of  American  Independence.  For  four  years  (1783-7),  the 
struggle  to  recover  that  influence  is  the  master-thread  of  British  policy 
in  Europe.  For  rather  less  than  four  years  more  (1787-91),  the  re- 
covery of  it  is  the  keystone  in  the  rather  ill-cemented  structure  of 
the  Triple  Alliance  of  Great  Britain,  Holland  and  Prussia.  Two  years 
later,  Britain  had  accepted  without  hesitation  a  war  with  France, 
which  she  had  not  sought,  in  order  to  retain  that  influence  and  to 
uphold  threatened  Dutch  interests. 

The  United  Provinces  had  not  lightly  gone  to  war  against  the 
United  Kingdom  in  1780.  There  were  material  reasons  why  they  should 
not,  apart  from  all  considerations  of  friendship :  "England  is  I  believe 
the  only  Power  that  can  ever  literally  annihilate  Holland,"  Carmarthen 
wrote  a  few  years  later2;  and  the  point  of  this  remark  was  always 
appreciated  at  Amsterdam.  Three  out  of  the  seven  Provinces  had 
opposed  the  War  with  Great  Britain.  The  influence  of  the  Stadholder, 
William  V of  Orange, the  unworthy  bearer  of  a  great  name,  was  always 

1  Ed.  Burke  to  Rd.  Burke,  August  16,  1791,  Correspondence,  in.  268. 

2  To  Harris,  November  8th,  1785. 


160  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

used  on  the  British  side — so  much  so  that  he  was  accused  of  treachery, 
whereby  the  old  aristocratic  Opposition,  with  its  headquarters  in  the 
States  of  Holland,  was  greatly  strengthened.  Under  the  cumbrous 
and  intricate  federal  system  of  the  Provinces,  the  main  utility  of  the 
office  of  Stadholder  was  in  time  of  war.  If  it  did  not  serve  as  a  rallying 
point  for  the  people  then,  there  was  some  presumption  that  it  was 
of  no  use.  Certainly,  it  had  not  so  served  in  1780-3.  William  V  was 
dilatory  in  business.  He  was  neither  able  nor  courageous.  He  was 
known  to  be  much  influenced  by  his  Prussian  wife.  He  was  supposed 
to  have  acquired  alien  sympathies  from  his  English  mother.  All 
those  who  disliked  Great  Britain  or  favoured  France,  and  the  still 
larger  number  who  valued  above  all  things  the  pure  Dutch  traditions 
of  their  Province  or  their  town,  were  turning  against  him. 

Great  Britain  was  on  her  guard,  even  before  Peace  was  signed  with 
the  Dutch.  "His  Majesty,"  wrote  Fox  to  Sir  John  Stepney,  Ambas- 
sador at  Berlin,  on  September  iQth,  1783,  "is  much  alarmed  at  the 
accounts  we  receive  every  day  of  the  state  of  affairs  in  Holland.  The 
remaining  authority  of  the  House  of  Orange  seems  to  be  in  the  most 
dangerous  state."  In  a  manner  hardly  worthy  of  his  position,  Fox 
had  asked  the  advice  of  Frederick  as  to  "what  steps,  if  any,  could  with 
propriety  be  taken  by  this  Court  in  the  present  juncture."  Frederick 
replied  that  this  was  a  matter  on  which  he  could  not  pretend  to  give 
advice.  "No  notice  whatever  was  taken  of  the  two  Courts  acting  in 
concert1."  It  was  a  palpable  snub.  However,  in  April,  1784,  Count 
Fihkenstein,  speaking  as  was  assumed  for  his  master,  suggested 
that  England  should  send  to  the  Hague  a  Minister  "  who  would  employ 
quiet  and  conciliatory  measures2."  This  was,  certainly,  not  a  close 
description  of  Harris,  whom  Pitt  sent  over  seven  months  later.  But 
Harris  was  not  sent  merely  to  please  Berlin. 

The  situation  in  the  United  Provinces  required  skilled  handling. 
While  the  "Patriots"  were  working  against  the  Orange  interest,  the 
whole  country  became  engaged  in  a  quarrel  with  the  Emperor  Joseph, 
about  treaty  rights  to  which  Great  Britain  was  a  party.  Joseph's  passion 
for  what  was  rational  and  absolute  was  stirred  by  the  irrational  checks 
and  balances  of  Low  Country  politics.  "His"  Netherlands  had  been 
protected  against  France,  his  Ally,  by  Dutch  garrisons  in  the  Barrier 
fortresses.  Of  these  he  had  got  rid  during  the  late  War,  Great  Britain 
not  being  in  a  position  to  uphold  the  Barrier  Treaty.  Now  (1784),  he 

1  Stepney  to  Fox,  October  nth,  1753. 

2  Stepney  to  Carmarthen,  April  6th,  1784. 


THE  DUTCH  QUESTION  161 

repudiated  the  "unnatural"  arrangement  by  which  the  Scheldt  was 
shut,  and  Antwerp's  trade  ruined,  for  the  benefit  of  the  Dutch.  Also, 
he  revived  an  old  claim  to  an  outlying  bit  of  Dutch  territory  about 
Maastricht,  which  lay  conveniently  adjacent  to  lands  of  his  in  Lim- 
burg.  He  seized  some  Dutch  forts  and  set  an  army  in  motion  late 
in  the  year. 

It  could  not  be  supposed  that  any  Dutch  party,  least  of  all  the 
"Patriots,"  the  commercial  aristocracy  of  Holland,  would  yield  to 
such  demands  without  a  fight.  As  this  party  was  in  close  relation 
with  France,  Carmarthen  hoped  to  see  France  involved,  to  her  dis- 
advantage, in  the  quarrel  between  her  friends  and  her  Ally1.  The 
strain  increased  throughout  the  early  months  of  1785;  but  in  the 
summer  it  began  to  appear  that  the  prospect  for  France  was  promising. 
She  would  mediate,  bring  the  disputants  to  terms,  and  thereby  in- 
crease both  her  own  prestige  and,  if  the  terms  were  satisfactory  to 
the  Dutch,  that  of  the  "Patriots"  also.  That  France  should  stand 
as  protector  of  Dutch  interests  in  the  Scheldt  was  intolerable  to 
Harris ;  but  this  was  what  he  saw  coming.  Carmarthen's  attempts  to 
provoke  Austria  against  France  proved  futile.  Frederick  of  Prussia 
could  not  be  induced  to  come  forward  as  an  open  supporter  of  the 
Dutch,  even  though  he  might  have  been  expected  to  welcome  a  chance 
of  checkmating  Austria.  He  was  waiting  on  France2.  Carmarthen 
tried  in  vain  to  move  Berlin,  as  he  saw  France  and  Austria  coming 
together  again  during  1785.  "  Interested  as  Great  Britain  and  Prussia 
must  be  to  watch  every  move  of  their  respective  rivals,  so  formidably 
connected,"  he  wrote  to  Ewart  on  May  i4th,  why  should  they  not 
cooperate  "to  emancipate  the  Republic  from  the  shackles  of  her 
slavish  dependency  on  France  "  ?  Frederick  was  absorbed  in  the  con- 
templation of  another  Habsburg  scheme,  the  proposed  exchange  of 
the  Austrian  Netherlands  for  Bavaria.  When  this  finally  collapsed 
(June,  1785),  he  was  busy  building  up  his  German  League  of  Princes 
to  hold  the  Imperial  Court  in  check.  He  was  on  the  whole  in  favour 
of  the  British  policy  towards  the  United  Provinces ;  but  he  was  cir- 
cumspect, timid,  rather  malicious,  and,  as  has  been  seen,  doubtful  of 
England's  resolution  and  competence.  In  return  for  active  support 
in  the  Dutch  matter,  not  necessarily  military,  he  might  have  won 
British  assistance  for  his  League  of  Princes.  King  George  joined  it  in 

1  See  Salomon,  Pitt,  p.  304. 

2  Joseph  Ewart  (Charge"  d'affaires  at  Berlin)  to  Carmarthen,  September  i8th; 
November  gth,  1784;  April  2nd,  1785. 

W.&G.I.  II 


i62  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

his  Hanoverian  capacity,  but,  as  usual  with  him  in  such  cases,  without 
consulting  or  informing  his  British  Ministers.  Harris  and  Ewart 
were  anxious  to  use  the  League  as  a  steppingstone  to  an  Anglo-Prussian 
alliance.  The  Cabinet  was  less  eager.  Both  the  desire  not  to  commit 
Great  Britain  too  far  prematurely,  and  a  justifiable  suspicion  of 
Frederick's  interest  and  sincerity,  held  them  back,  as  the  September 
Instructions  for  Cornwallis  show.  But  had  Frederick  responded, 
something  might  have  been  accomplished.  He  contented  himself 
with  his  discouraging  survey  of  Europe  and  his  double-edged  com- 
pliments to  Pitt. 

Harris  worked  desperately.  He  interviewed  the  Stadholder — and 
would  have  felt  happier  if  he  "  would  act  one  half  as  well  as  he  spoke  " 
— as  well  as  the  Princess — and  got  the  impression  of  his  having  warned 
Berlin  that  open  intervention  might  hurt  the  Orange  cause;  and  he 
interviewed  every  accessible  person  of  importance.  The  Prince  lacked 
all  "firmness  and  conduct."  Some  months  before,  he  had  talked  of 
selling  his  estates  and  retiring  to  Germany — "a  resolution,"  said 
Harris,  "  which,  if  ever  he  carries  it  into  execution,  will  compleat  his 
character."  As  with  other  nervous  Princes,  King  Charles's  head  entered 
into  his  conversation.  Harris  thought  that  "the  more  temperate 
members  of  the  aristocratical  party,"  though  hostile  to  Orange, 
disliked  dependence  on  France.  So  he  had  long  discussions  with  the 
Directors  of  the  Dutch  East  India  Company,  as  a  result  of  which  he 
suggested  that  Great  Britain  might  guarantee  all  their  Eastern  pos- 
sessions, and  so  prevent  them  from  becoming  centres  of  French 
influence1.  But  to  no  purpose.  Preliminaries  of  an  agreement  between 
the  United  Provinces,  France  and  the  Emperor  were  signed  in  Sep- 
tember. They  showed,  said  Harris,  "the  low  and  abject  situation  to 
which  this  Republic  is  reduced."  He  worked  on,  nevertheless,  to 
block  the  completion  of  the  Treaty,  through  friends  in  Zealand,  the 
most  Anglophil  of  the  Provinces.  Correspondence  with  Ewart  con- 
vinced him  that "  the  King  of  Prussia  was  acting  a  hollow  and  insidious 
part,"  but  that  his  heir,  Frederick  William  Prince  of  Prussia,  took  a 
more  lively  interest  in  his  sister's  fate2.  Yet  nothing  but  words  came 
from  Berlin.  The  States- General  rated  them  at  their  true  value,  and 
proceeded  to  consider  proposals  for  removing  the  arms  of  the  House 
of  Orange  from  regimental  colours,  postwaggons  and  public  pro- 
clamations. 

1  Harris  to  Carmarthen,  August  2nd,  Qth,  i6th;  September  and,  gih,  i3th,  1785. 
Also,  a  private  letter  of  March  nth,  quoted  in  Rose,  Pitt,  I.  309. 

2  To  Carmarthen,  September  zyth  (two  despatches  of  the  same  date). 


HARRIS  AT  THE  HAGUE  163 

On  November  8th  and  loth,  1785,  two  Treaties  signed  at  Fon- 
tainebleau  registered  Harris's  failure.  Joseph  withdrew.  He  recog- 
nised the  absolute  rights  of  the  United  Provinces  over  the  lower 
Scheldt,  which  was  all  that  mattered,  and  agreed  to  abandon  his 
claims  on  Maastricht  in  return  for  a  money  payment.  To  win  the 
Dutch,  France  undertook  to  pay  almost  half  the  sum  herself.  In 
return,  the  Dutch  Envoys  signed  the  second  Treaty,  a  political  and 
commercial  Alliance  with  France.  The  two  Powers  were  to  aid  one 
another,  if  either  were  attacked,  by  land  and  sea;  neither  was  to  carry 
on  negotiations  to  the  detriment  of  the  other ;  and  in  matters  of  trade 
a  "most  favoured  nation"  system  was  established  between  them. 

On  the  day  on  which  the  first  Treaty  was  signed,  Carmarthen 
wrote  to  Harris  the  threatening  despatch  already  quoted.  The  Dutch 
were,  he  said,  running  a  fearful  risk,  Britain  "could  destroy  their 
credit  or  annihilate  their  very  soil.  Desperate  and  distasteful  as  such 
a  step  would  be,  it  sure  would  be  justifiable  and  I  trust  be  effected 
(and  the  attempt  I  think  could  scarcely  fail)  without  remorse  or 
hesitation1."  He  approved  a  proposal  of  Harris's  for  the  presentation 
of  a  memorial  of  protest  by  the  British  Ambassador  to  the  States- 
General,  a  most  unusual  proceeding  as  between  independent  Powers. 
And  he  authorised  Harris  to  do  what  that  active  Minister  had  done 
already — impress  the  risks  they  were  running  on  the  Dutch  traders, 
who  "would  be  the  first  to  suffer  and  the  last  to  be  recompensed"  in 
case  of  war2.  Nevertheless,  the  Treaty  of  Alliance  with  France  was 
ratified  at  Christmas,  1785. 

The  months  from  January  to  August,  1786,  were  the  blackest  of 
Harris's  mission  to  the  Hague.  "  It  is  not  on  the  cards  at  this  moment 
to  reclaim  this  country.  Every  thing...  concurs  to  throw  it  into  the 
arms  of  France"  (March  3ist).  Yet  hope  must  not  be  abandoned.  At 
all  costs,  by  combinations  somehow  to  be  devised,  England  must 
manage  "to  disentangle  the  Republic  from  her  present  connexion 
with  France  and  to  restore  her  to  her  former  treaties  with  England  " 
(June  1 3th).  From  Prussia  there  was  no  hope.  "  His  Prussian  Majesty 
is  only  a  friend  to  the  Stadtholder  by  affinity — and  not  politically  so 
— and... providing  his  Niece  enjoy  the  honours  usually  attached  to 
the  Office,  he  is  very  indifferent  as  to  the  preservation  of  its  privileges  " 
(August  ist).  This  was  so.  The  King  had  told  Viscount  Dalrymple, 
British  Ambassador  at  Berlin,  in  the  previous  December,  that  he 

1  Carmarthen  to  Harris,  November  8th. 

2  To  Harris,  November  iyth. 


II — 2 


164  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

hoped  to  see  the  title  of  Stadholder  secured  to  his  Niece's  husband, 
"but  not  a  shadow  of  power,  nor  did  he  expect  it."  It  could  not  be 
helped,  he  said.  France  must  not  be  provoked1. 

Harris  was  troubled,  also,  by  the  silences  and  apparent  indifference 
of  Pitt.  He  wished  him  to  write  and  encourage  the  rump  of  the 
"English"  party  among  the  merchants  of  the  United  Provinces.  "  Is 
it  impossible  to  move  him  who  speaks  so  well,  to  write  one  poor  line 
to  these  sound  shillings  and  pence  men  ? "  Such  was  his  postscript  to  a 
letter  for  Carmarthen  in  July2.  Pitt's  silence  and  apparent  indifference 
were  due,  in  part,  to  preoccupation  and  overwork ;  in  part,  to  a  certain 
insularity,  natural  to  a  very  young  man  with  no  first-hand  knowledge 
of  Continental  problems ;  in  part,  to  his  lack  of  Harris's  flaming  hatred 
of  France;  and  in  part,  it  may  confidently  be  assumed,  to  his  wish  at 
that  moment  to  avoid  any  appearance  of  hostility  towards  her.  If  Car- 
marthen ever  asked  him  to  write  a  "  poor  line,"  there  was  an  excellent 
reason  for  refusal.  The  French  secret  service  was  well  organised. 
A  letter  to  be  communicated  even  to  reputed  friends  was  unlikely 
to  remain  hidden.  And  Pitt  was  just  concluding  with  France  a 
Commercial  Treaty  most  advantageous  to  British  interests.  The 
signatures  were  attached  to  it  by  William  Eden,  whose  name  it 
generally  bears,  and  Gerard  de  Rayneval  on  September  26th,  1786. 

In  the  eighteenth  article  of  the  Treaty  of  1783 ,  France  and  England 
had  agreed  to  nominate,  without  delay,  Commissioners  to  draw  up 
a  commercial  treaty,  "on  the  basis  of  reciprocity  and  mutual  con- 
venience," this  treaty  to  be  completed  not  later  than  January  ist,  1786. 
The  initiative  had  come  from  Vergennes.  Vergennes,  it  has  been  said, 
had  no  trace  of  genius3.  He  had,  however,  immense  diplomatic 
experience  and  an  enlightened  commonsense.  He  had  served  for 
nearly  ten  years  in  Portugal;  for  five  in  Germany;  for  nearly  fifteen 
at  Constantinople.  He  had  created  the  modern  French  Foreign 
Office4.  All  his  experience  had  failed  to  assimilate  him  fully  to  the 
ordinary  diplomatic  type  of  his  day.  True,  he  could  play  the  diplo- 
matic game  with  any  man.  He  had  led  France  into  the  American  War, 
and  had  won  back  for  her  from  Great  Britain,  by  a  timely  use  of  force, 
the  position  among  the  Powers — but  not  the  territory,  which  in  the 
Seven  Years'  War  Great  Britain  had  by  force  taken  from  her.  He 
had  advised  Lewis  XVI  against  a  policy  of  mere  spatial  aggrandise- 

1  Dalrymple  to  Carmarthen,  December  3rd,  1785. 

2  B.M.  Add.  MSS.  28061.  Quoted  in  Rose,  Pitt,  I.  275. 

8  Sorel,  i.  297 :  "  Turgot  avait  du  genie,  Vergennes  n'en  avail  point." 
*  Above,  p.  146  n.  2. 


VERGENNES  165 

ment.  In  memoirs  presented  to  his  master,  he  had  protested  with 
passion  against  the  partitions,  exchanges  and  mechanical  roundings- 
off  of  territory,  which  occupied  most  of  the  time  of  the  German 
chanceries.  France,  he  said ,  had  ' '  in  herself  everything  that  constitutes 
real  power  (la puissance  reelle)1."  Of  course,  he  desired  that  she  should 
influence — his  enemies  would  have  said  dominate — her  lesser  neigh- 
bours; but  the  notion  of  annexing  them  was  abhorrent  to  him. 
Between  France  and  Great  Britain,  he  desired  mutual  respect  and 
free  intercourse,  not  the  alternations  of  actual  with  commercial  war 
which  had  marked  the  last  century.  He  once  told  a  colleague  that, 
if  he  could  annihilate  England,  he  would  not  do  it.  But  there  was 
nothing  that  he  would  not  do  "  to  bring  about  a  change  in  her  jealous 
policy,  which  damages  both  us  and  her,  and  which,  if  well  examined, 
proves  to  be  folly."  And  he  added,  with  a  wonderful  insight:  "for 
a  century  and  a  half  we  have  been  ruining  one  another  to  enrich 
Europe,  to  strengthen  Powers  from  whom  we  have  nothing  to  fear 
or  to  create  brandnew  Powers.  As  a  consequence,  we  lose  weight  in 
proportion  as  the  others  grow,  and  we  shall  end  by  making  them  our 
equals2."  In  1783,  he  had  been  determined  to  begin  an  era  of  more 
neighbourly  relations ;  and  he  had  been  delighted  to  find  in  Shelburne 
a  statesman  who  needed  no  compulsion3.  Each  had  a  strain  of  the 
cosmopolitan  idealism  of  the  century  and  a  contempt  for  some  of  the 
idols  of  the  marketplace. 

Vergennes  was  far  too  good  a  diplomatist  to  miss  such  opportunities 
for  extending  the  moral  dominion  of  France  as  Dutch  and  other 
affairs  offered  him.  His  agents  throughout  the  world  played  the 
game  for  influence  as  Harris  played  it,  each  side  calling  the  play  of 
the  other  "  intrigue."  In  1785  he  approved  the  recreation  of  a  French 
East  India  Company.  British  statesmen  suspected  that  this  Company 
would  exploit  the  new  connexion  with  Holland,  and  possibly  amal- 
gamate with  the  Dutch  Company4.  Therefore,  Harris  paid  special 
attention  to  the  Dutch  Directors.  These  intrigues,  suspicions  and 
counter-intrigues  did  not  improve  the  prospects  of  the  commercial 
treaty.  Further,  Pitt  was  no  doubt  anxious  that  fiscal  union  between 

1  Sorel,  i.  313-5.  This  was  in  1777. 

2  These  sayings  were  credited  to  him  by  Hennin  after  his  death.    (Doniol, 
Le  Comte  de  Vergennes  et  P.M. Hennin,  pp.  103-4.)  They  may  not  be  verbally  correct, 
but  they  are  in  accordance  with  his  conduct. 

3  Pitt  was  Shelburne's  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer;  but  Rose  (Pitt,  1.325)  has 
"found  no  sign  of  his  opinions  on  the  subject"  of  Vergennes'  proposals  and  Shel- 
burne's reception  of  them. 

4  Harris's  correspondence  contains  many  references  to  this  suspicion. 


166  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

England  and  Ireland  should  precede  changes  in  Great  Britain's 
external  economic  relations1.  His  Irish  attempt  and  failure  were  not 
complete  until  June,  1785.  By  that  time,  Vergennes  was  putting  pres- 
sure on  Great  Britain  to  carry  out  Article  18.  Early  in  1784,  a  British 
Commissioner  had  been  sent  to  Paris ;  but  he  had  been  kept  waiting 
months  for  Instructions.  In  March,  1785,  he  was  still  without  a  reply 
to  letters  written  in  the  previous  September  and  November.  But  he 
had  been  advised  to  reject  the  French  proposal  for  negotiations  on 
the  basis  of  mutual  most  favoured  nation  treatment,  since  the  British 
Government  was  not  prepared  to  abandon  the  specially  favoured 
treatment  of  Portuguese  wines  stipulated  for  in  the  Methuen  Treaty 
of  1703.  Vergennes  retaliated  by  arguing  that  if  the  new  treaty  was 
not  completed,  as  agreed,  by  January  ist,  1786,  the  existing  commer- 
cial arrangements  between  the  two  countries  arising  out  of  the  Treaty 
of  Utrecht  must  lapse.  He  next  instigated  a  series  of  edicts  inter- 
fering with  British  exports  to  France,  of  which  the  most  serious  was 
one  of  July  loth,  1785,  forbidding  the  import  of  foreign  linens, 
cottons  and  muslins.  This  was  suspended,  in  consequence  of  a  protest 
from  London ;  but  it  showed  what  England  might  expect  if  her  delays 
continued.  Vergennes  was  well  within  his  rights;  for  French  silks 
had  been  prohibited  in  England  since  1765.  With  considerable  for- 
bearance, however,  he  agreed  to  waive  the  claim  to  negotiate  on  a 
basis  of  complete  reciprocity  and  most  favoured  nation  treatment, 
on  condition  that  negotiations  were  really  opened.  This  was  in 
October,  1785 2.  Two  days  before,  he  had  prohibited  the  import  of 
iron,  steel  and  cutlery. 

Pitt  was  already  preparing  to  send  over  a  highly  qualified  agent 
to  treat  with  France;  but  he  showed  himself  strangely  dilatory  in 
the  whole  business.  While  he  delayed,  Vergennes  secured  his  Treaty, 
and  most  favoured  nation  terms,  from  the  United  Provinces.  At 
Pitt's  request,  he  now  agreed  to  extend  the  "period  of  grace"  for  the 
British  Treaty  by  six  months,  and  eventually  by  twelve.  Having 
gained  time  for  consideration,  Pitt  instituted  elaborate  enquiries, 
partly  by  his  new  Committee  of  Council  on  Trade,  partly  by  the 
agent  whom  he  selected:  William  Eden,  the  future  Lord  Auckland. 
Eden,  now  in  his  forty-second  year,  had  a  varied  political  experience, 
no  excessive  tenacity  of  political  friendship  or  principle,  but  great 

1  This  is  Rose's  suggestion  (Pitt,  i.  328).    It  lacks  documentary  evidence,  but 
is  inherently  probable. 

2  Vergennes  to  Barthe"lemy  (the  French  representative  in  London),  October  I3th. 
Salomon,  Pitt,  p.  212. 


EDEN'S  COMMERCIAL  NEGOTIATION  167 

knowledge  of  economic  affairs .  Since  1 772 ,  he  had  been ,  in  succession , 
Under-secretary  of  State,  First  Lord  of  the  old  Board  of  Trade, 
and  Vice- treasurer  of  Ireland.  In  Ireland,  he  had  helped  to  establish 
the  National  Bank.  His  economic  horizon  had  been  widened  by 
intercourse  with  Adam  Smith;  but  his  conduct  of  the  negotiation 
shows  little  trace  of  that  desire  to  introduce  a  freer  trade  between 
nations,  with  a  view  to  the  future  and  in  defiance  of  accompanying 
drawbacks,  which  can  be  discerned  among  the  French  negotiators. 
He  was  sent  to  make  the  best  bargain  possible,  and  excellently  he 
succeeded.  It  is  not  suggested  that  concern  for  the  far  future  was  the 
deciding  motive  with  the  French.  Their  statesmen  wished  British 
goods  to  be  imported,  in  order  that  Frenchmen  might  learn  to  imitate 
them;  they  wished  them  to  be  imported  legally,  in  order  that  the 
King's  revenue  might  benefit  by  the  cessation  of  smuggling;  they 
desired  a  freer  market  for  French  wines,  for  obvious  reasons;  and 
they  wished  to  draw  the  teeth  of  England's  jealous  commercial 
system,  both  because  it  did  France  harm  and  because  so  difficult  an 
operation  would  add  to  her  prestige.  But  Vergennes'  final  despatch 
to  Barthelemy,  when  all  was  over,  seems  sincere  and  takes  higher 
ground.  "It  is  not,"  he  wrote,  "a  question  as  to  which  nation  gains 
most  in  the  early  years,  or  of  whether  the  balance  of  gain  will  ever 
be  exact.  We  desire  to  give  trade  and  industry  a  great  stimulus,  to 
procure  an  outlet  for  our  wines,  and  still  more  to  establish  a  per- 
manent community  of  interests  between  many  individuals  of  both 
nations,  which  in  time  of  need  may  serve  as  a  corrective  to  the  warlike 
passions  of  our  neighbours1." 

Not  till  late  in  March,  1786,  did  Eden  cross  to  France.  He  had 
worked  hard  in  England  since  December.  His  appointment  was 
popular  among  English  manufacturers,  whose  right  to  protection 
against  the  competition  of  Ireland  he  had  championed  against  Pitt 
in  the  previous  May.  Josiah  Wedgwood,  who  had  organised  the 
manufacturers'  opposition  to  the  Irish  proposals,  wrote  to  congratu- 
late him  and  placed  his  extensive  knowledge  at  his  service.  Daily 
interviews  with  the  interested  parties  had  given  Eden  exact  informa- 
tion, with  regard  to  every  important  trade,  as  to  whether  reciprocity 
with  France  was  desired ;  what  level  of  duties  would  be  most  suitable ; 
what  was  the  highest  level  at  which  the  trade  could  still  manage  to 
export  to  France;  whether  it  was  greatly  in  need  of  new  markets; 

1  To  Barthelemy,  November  26th,  1786.  (Paraphrased  from  the  German  version 
of  the  French  MS.  original  in  Salomon,  Pitt,  p.  235.) 


i68  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

whether  it  could  bear  French  competition  at  all;  and  so  on1.  The 
representatives  of  most  British  industries  were  confident  in  their  own 
competitive  efficiency,  Wedgwood  in  particular ;  but  the  silk  manufac- 
turers, although  they  boasted  of  giving  employment  to  nearly  200,000 
people,  maintained  that,  for  them,  the  choice  was  merely  between  con- 
tinued prohibition  of  French  silks  and  ruin.  Arrived  in  Paris  with  all 
his  material,  Eden  was  surprised  to  find  that  the  French  Ministers  were 
not  equally  well  prepared.  He  suspected  that,  in  consequence,  they 
would  aim  at  a  vague  sweeping  kind  of  treaty,  avoiding,  so  far  as 
possible,  the  dangers  which  might  result  from  pitting  their  relative 
ignorance  against  his  carefully  acquired  knowledge.  He  intended  to 
make  that  knowledge  tell;  and  no  doubt  he  succeeded.  Vergennes' 
final  disclaimer  of  all  interest  in  the  exact  amount  of  immediate  gain 
or  loss  from  the  Treaty  seems  sincere ;  but,  in  view  of  its  unpopularity 
among  French  manufacturers  and  its  unquestionably  painful  opera- 
tion on  French  industry,  the  disclaimer  might  be  interpreted  as  a 
veiled  admission  of  failure,  a  half-apology  for  his  agents'  inability 
to  beat  Eden  on  his  own  ground.  There  had  been  no  elaborate  enquiry 
among  experts.  A  single  official,  the  Inspector-general  of  Manu- 
facturers, appears  to  have  furnished  all  the  technical  information  on 
the  industrial  side. 

This  apparent  neglect  was,  however,  mainly  the  result,  not  of 
oversight,  but  of  principle.  Vergennes,  with  no  parliamentary  criti- 
cism to  fear,  could  take  risks  and  incur  unpopularities  such  as  Pitt 
became  every  year  more  reluctant  to  face.  His  right-hand  man,  G.  de 
Rayneval,  strongly  influenced  by  physiocratic  thought,  stated  dog- 
matically that  the  most  useful  and  solid  trade  was  that  in  agricultural 
produce ;  that  the  interests  of  industry  were  secondary ;  that  it  was  an 
economic  blunder  for  a  nation  to  aim  at  complete  industrial  self- 
sufficiency  ;  that  an  industry  which  could  not  maintain  itself  without 
high  tariffs  was  not  worth  maintaining;  and  that  prohibition  was  in 
all  circumstances  vicious.  If  he  could  widen  the  market  for  French 
agricultural  produce — that  is,  for  French  wines — he  was  relatively 
indifferent  as  to  Eden's  successful  bargaining  about  woollens  and 
porcelain  and  silk  and  hardware  and  Birmingham  "toys,"  He  was 
aware  that  the  years  immediately  following  the  Treaty  upon  which 
he  was  engaged  might  be  difficult  years  for  French  industry.  He  was 
planning  means  for  obviating  these  difficulties,  including  the  intro- 

1  "Evidence  for  commercial  treaty  with  France,"  B.M.,  Add.  MSS.  34462 
(Auckland  Papers). 


THE  COMMERCIAL  TREATY  OF  1786  169 

duction  of  English  methods.  He  had  hopes  at  this  time  that  no  less 
a  firm  than  Boulton  and  Watt  might  be  induced  to  transfer  their 
business  across  the  Channel. 

The  French  negotiators  were,  also,  fully  conscious  of  the  shattered 
state  of  the  French  finances.  This  was  what  Vergennes  had  in  mind 
when  he  spoke  of  commercial  relations  "serving  as  a  corrective  to 
the  warlike  passions  of  our  neighbours."  He  believed  that  England 
desired  revenge  for  Yorktown  and  the  Treaty  of  1783.  He  wished  to 
divert  her  interests  from  war  to  commerce,  because  he  thought  that 
France  could  not  afford  another  war  for  some  considerable  time.  In 
the  last  War  he  had  saved  her  honour,  and  at  its  conclusion  had  shown 
moderation.  To  postpone  or  avert  a  fresh  war,  he  was  again  prepared 
to  give  something  away.  If  the  English  valued  above  all  things  what 
his  physiocratic  advisers  considered  relatively  worthless,  he  naturally 
made  no  objection. 

Before  the  end  of  April,  Eden  was  reporting  that,  in  his  opinion, 
France  would  gain  nothing  essential  through  the  Treaty  beyond  a  re- 
duced duty  on  her  wines,  whereas  Great  Britain  would  get  rid  of  all  old 
and  new  prohibitions  and  other  obstacles  to  her  export  trade.  He  had 
still  difficulties  to  surmount ;  and  at  times  he  found  the  very  exacting 
Instructions  from  home,  inspired  by  Jenkinson  at  the  Council  of 
Trade,  difficult  of  execution.  In  August,  he  became  nervous  because, 
the  French  manufacturers  having  had  wind  of  the  course  of  the 
negotiations,  letters  of  protest  against  their  ruinous  character  were 
pouring  in  to  Calonne,  now  Controller-general  of  Finance.  Eden 
saw  risk  of  a  fall  at  the  last  fence  and  regretted  that  it  had  not  been 
possible  to  make  the  pace  hotter.  Having  avoided  the  fall,  he  wrote 
home  on  the  day  before  signature  (September  25th),  that  he  hoped  the 
English  manufacturers  would,  for  a  time  at  any  rate,  moderate  their 
expressions  of  joy.  Fortunately  for  him,  when  the  news  arrived, 
although  the  King  had  "never  been  seen  in  such  spirits,"  "  the  prin- 
cipal merchants  in  the  City  did  not  choose  to  give  an  opinion  about  it," 
because — so  Dorset,  Eden's  correspondent,  held — "anything,  if 
novel,  is  apt  to  stupify  merchants1."  And  as  no  such  agreement  ever 
completely  satisfies  commercial  men,  there  were  some  complaints 
and  talk  of  a  sacrificing  of  British  interests.  It  was  Pitt  who,  in 
defending  the  Treaty  in  the  House  during  February,  1787,  against  the 
usual  factious  Whig  opposition,  was  indiscreet  enough  to  argue  that, 
while  advantageous  to  France,  it  was  still  more  so  to  Great  Britain. 

1  Dorset  to  Eden,  Auckland  Journals,  I.  392. 


i7o  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

Eden's  anticipation  of  the  provisions  of  his  Treaty  had  been  sub- 
stantially accurate.  Its  earlier  clauses  provided  for  general  freedom 
of  intercourse  and  free  exercise  of  religion  in  time  of  peace,  and  for 
civilised  treatment  of  domiciled  enemy  subjects  in  the  event  of  war1. 
Its  later  clauses  dealt  at  length  with  privateering,  contraband,  piracy 
and  the  legal  relations  of  shipmasters  of  either  nation  to  the  local 
authorities  of  the  other  when  in  its  seaports.  The  chief  central  clauses, 
first,  reduced  the  duty  on  French  wines  to  the  level  of  that  on  the 
wines  of  Portugal,  and  adjusted,  favourably  to  France,  duties  on 
vinegar,  brandy  and  oil ;  secondly, fixed  a  maximum  duty  of  loper  cent. 
ad  valorem,  in  either  country,  on  hardware,  cutlery,  and  miscellaneous 
metal  wares;  thirdly,  fixed  a  similar  maximum  duty  of  12  per  cent, 
on  cottons,  woollens,  porcelain,  earthenware  and  glass.  Silk  and  all 
goods  mixed  with  silk  remained  mutually  prohibited.  This  was 
regarded  as  Eden's  great  coup ;  for  England  had  small  hope  of  export- 
ing silks  to  France. 

Although,  during  the  debates  on  the  Commercial  Treaty,  Pitt 
denounced  the  belief  in  unalterable  hostility  between  any  two  nations 
as  "weak  and  childish,"  during  the  negotiations  he  had  told  Eden 
that,  while  counting  the  French  sincere  on  the  economic  side,  he  was 
suspicious  of  their  assurances  of  political  friendship2.  Thorough- 
going haters  of  France,  like  Carmarthen  and  Harris,  were  convinced 
that  there  was  no  sincerity  anywhere:  economic  compliance  was  a 
mere  political  subterfuge.  The  success  of  France  in  the  United  Pro- 
vinces during  1785,  followed  by  an  energetic  development  of  her 
defensive  and  naval  works  at  Cherbourg,  and  by  an  Eastern  policy 
which  kept  England  constantly  on  the  alert,  served  to  nourish  Pitt's 
suspicions  and  Harris's  conviction.  While  Eden  was  working  in  Paris 
during  the  summer  of  1786,  Harris — as  has  been  seen — was  as  near 
despair  as  was  possible  with  his  vigorous  and  sanguine  temper.  Two 
deaths  and  a  crisis  in  French  internal  affairs  happened  opportunely 
for  his  policy.  On  August  I7th,  1786,  Frederick  of  Prussia  died.  Six 
months  later  (February  I3th,  1787),  Vergennes  died.  Within  a  fort- 
night of  Vergennes'  death,  Calonne  was  explaining  to  the  First 
Assembly  of  Notables  the  desperate  condition  of  the  French  finances. 

The  British  representatives  at  Berlin  had  long  hoped  that  the  new 
King,  Frederick  William,  brother  of  the  Princess  of  Orange,  might 

1  In  case  of  war,  Englishmen  domiciled  in  France,  and  vice  versa,  might  stay 
and  trade;  if  their  conduct  made  it  necessary  to  remove  them,  they  were  to  have 
twelve  months  in  which  to  wind  up  their  affairs  (Art.  II). 

2  To  Eden,  June  loth,  1786.  Auckland  Correspondence,  I.  127. 


GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  PRUSSIA  171 

introduce  into  Prussia's  Dutch  policy  a  change  favourable  to  British 
interests.  Frederick  the  Great  was  hardly  buried,  before  the  Princess 
told  Harris  that  "  the  only  means  of  saving  "  the  House  of  Orange  was 
"  a  united  support  in  its  behalf  from  England  and  Prussia."  She  read 
to  him  letters  from  her  brother  expressing  determination1.  She 
(naturally)  did  not  explain,  if  indeed  she  knew,  that  her  brother's 
determination  was  intermittent,  liable  to  be  suspended  at  almost  any 
moment  by  the  influence  of  what  an  English  Ambassador  once  called 
the  " female  appendices2"  of  Potsdam.  A  fortnight  later,  a  Prussian 
Envoy,  Gortz,  was  explaining  to  Harris  that,  though  his  master  would 
prefer  above  all  things  to  "  conciliate  matters  "  in  the  United  Provinces 
through  France,  yet  there  were  lengths  of  conciliation  to  which  he 
would  not  go,  and  that,  in  certain  contingencies,  he  would  break  with 
France,  unless,  indeed,  he  were  faced  by  the  superior  might  of 
"Austria  and  Russia  siding  avowedly  with  France  on  this  occasion." 
Since  France  would  have  carried  Spain  with  her,  it  is  clear  that  opinion 
in  Berlin  was  still  much  influenced  by  fear  of  that  quadruple  entente. 
As  a  protection  against  such  a  combination,  Gortz  urged  "  the  necessity 
of  a  Continental  System  being  formed  between  England  and  Prussia." 
Harris  listened ;  but  he  had  no  instructions  to  take  the  matter  up3. 

"So  long  as  M.  le  Comte  de  Vergennes  lived,"  wrote  the  French 
Foreign  Office  official  who  was  responsible  for  correspondence  with 
the  United  Provinces,  "all  the  measures  adopted  by  England  to 
regain  preeminence  in  Holland  were  fruitless4."  During  the  last 
months  of  Vergennes'  life  it  seemed  probable  that  Dutch  affairs 
would  be  "conciliated"  by  way  of  Paris.  Late  in  the  year,  definite 
proposals, drafted  byRayneval,for  a  settlement  between  the  Stadholder 
and  the  Patriots — proposals  which  Prussia  was  believed  to  favour — 
were  brought  by  Rayneval  himself  from  Paris.  Harris  was,  no  doubt, 
glad  to  be  able  to  report  that  both  the  Prince,  whom  Rayneval  de- 
scribed as  "a  complete  fool5,"  and  the  Princess  regarded  them  as 
"absolutely  inadmissible6."  He  added  that  the  English  party  was 
growing,  led  by  van  de  Spiegel,  Pensionary  of  Zealand.  Early  in  1787, 
he  could  report  that  the  Prince  was  still  firm  and  that,  since  France,  he 

Harris  to  Carmarthen,  September  ist,  1786. 

Morton  Eden  to  Lord  Auckland,  November  23rd,  1792.  Dropmore  (Grenville) 
Papers,  II.  347. 

Harris  to  Carmarthen,  September  iQth,  1786. 

Doniol,  Vergennes  et  Hennin,  p.  95.   Hennin  was  the  official  in  question. 

In  a  despatch  of  January  3rd,  1787.  P.  de  Witt,  Une  invasion  Prussienne  en  1787, 
p.  142;  quoted  in  Heigel,  Deutsche  Geschichte,  I.  136. 
6  To  Carmarthen,  December  I2th,  1786. 


i72  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

assumed,  would  try  to  force  her  solution,  "  civil  war. .  .might  be  a  very 
near  event1.''  In  February,  Vergennes  was  succeeded  by  Montmorin, 
a  much  inferior  statesman,  and  the  mess  of  the  French  treasury  was 
disclosed  by  Calonne.  Harris  continued  to  work  hard  at  propaganda, 
organising  meetings,  subsidising  journals  and  pamphleteers,  and 
evidently  making  progress2. 

By  May,  civil  war  in  Holland  had  practically  begun.  The  "Pat- 
riotic" party,  by  its  origin  that  of  the  commercial  aristocracy,  was 
acquiring  a  revolutionary  and  democratic  tinge  by  intercourse  with 
France.  Hitherto,  the  permanent  limitation  of  the  powers  of  the 
Stadholderate,  and  perhaps  the  removal  of  the  undeniably  incom- 
petent and  universally  unpopular  Stadholder  in  favour  of  his  son, 
had  been  the  measures  contemplated.  Now,  the  total  abolition  of 
the  office  was  certainly  being  discussed.  This  enabled  the  English 
party  to  appeal  to  old  deep-rooted  popular  sentiment  in  favour  of 
the  House  of  Orange.  Even  in  the  Province  of  Holland  itself,  the 
stronghold  of  the  Patriots,  there  were  Orange  elements.  The  dockers 
of  Amsterdam,  for  instance,  preferred  a  remote  Prince  to  the  local 
Mynheers — capitalistic  Patriots — and  were  accessible  to  Harris's 
propaganda.  The  French  Ambassador  Verac  was  working,  also  with 
success,  on  the  other  side.  Such  external  interference  in  domestic 
affairs  was  singularly  easy  in  a  state  "built  up  in  the  most  amazing 
fashion  out  of  Federation,  Republic,  Monarchy,  Crown  Property 
and  heritable  Privileges,"  as  Clausewitz  described  the  United  Pro- 
vinces at  this  time3. 

The  crisis  came  in  June.  Both  sides  had  armed.  The  Prince  had 
about  4000  men;  the  Patriots  a  larger,  but  less  compact,  body  of 
Free  Companies  (militia).  Some  months  earlier,  the  Prince  and 
Princess  had  left  the  Hague  and  the  Province  of  Holland  for  a  safer 
residence  at  Nymwegen.  But  recent  changes  of  opinion  encouraged 
Princess  Wilhelmina  to  think  that,  by  a  personal  appeal  at  the  Hague, 
she  might  yet  win  a  majority  of  the  States-General  for  the  Orange 
cause.  She  set  out,  with  a  very  small  following,  early  on  June  28th — 
spent  the  night  in  a  peasant's  house,  a  prisoner  of  the  Free  Companies 
of  the  province  of  Holland,  and  returned  next  day  to  Nymwegen. 

Thereupon,  her  brother,  who  had  heard  an  exaggerated  report  of  the 
insults  offered  her,  sent  a  threatening  despatch  to  the  States  of  Holland 

1  To  Carmarthen,  January  2nd,  1787. 

2  See  his  correspondence,  February- April,  passim. 

3  Der  Feldzug  des  Herzogs  von  Braunschweig  von  1787,  p.  259;  quoted  in  Heigel, 
I.  133. 


THE  DUTCH  CRISIS  OF  1787  173 

and  ordered  his  nearest  troops  to  hold  themselves  in  readiness.  He 
was  careful  to  treat  the  issue  as  personal,  not  political,  and  to  explain 
that  he  was  far  from  contemplating  war.  "  She  wants  to  drag  me  intov 
a  war,"  he  told  one  of  her  confidential  servants,  "  but  I  will  soon  show 
her  that  I  am  not  to  be  led  by  her1."  Yet  war  might  come;  and,  if 
it  came,  he  knew  he  must  look  to  England.  For  some  years,  Hertz- 
berg  had  been  advocating  an  Anglo-Prussian-Dutch  "system"  at 
Berlin.  The  growth  of  the  English  party  in  the  Provinces,  and  the 
fear  of  a  Dutch  democratic  republic  subservient  to  France,  had  roused 
Pitt  and  the  Cabinet,  hitherto  not  very  responsive  to  Harris's  des- 
patches. Harris  had  been  in  consultation  with  Ministers  at  Whitehall 
in  May.  The  Cabinet,  most  certainly,  did  not  want  war;  but  in  view 
of  the  financial  embarrassments  of  France  it  was  prepared  to  adopt 
a  course  which  might  conceivably  lead  to  war.  Harris  went  back 
with  a  promise  of  £20,000  for  the  Orange  cause2.  Next  month,  he 
obtained  £70,000  more.  In  July,  Carmarthen  assumed,  almost  as 
a  matter  of  course,  the  armed  intervention  of  the  King  of  Prussia3 ; 
and  Pitt  sent  for  the  Prussian  Ambassador,  with  whom  hitherto  he 
had  had  few  dealings,  to  tell  him  that  the  insult  to  Princess  Wilhelmina 
concerned  her  brother  only  and  that  France  had  no  right  to  intervene 
in  any  way.  It  is  evident  that,  if  he  could  get  the  famous  Prussian 
army  in  motion,  he  was  prepared  to  risk  war.  On  August  and,  he  wrote 
instructing  Cornwallis  to  seize  Trincomalee  from  the  Dutch,  so  soon 
as  hostilities  began,  in  order  that  the  French  might  not  use  it  as  a  base, 
and  that  the  English  might — possibly  for  an  attack  on  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope4. 

Rather  better  diplomacy  on  the  part  of  France,  a  diplomacy  such 
as  Vergennes  could,  almost  certainly,  have  commanded,  or  a  different 
course  of  events  in  Eastern  Europe,  might  have  shattered  Carmarthen's 
assumption ;  for  in  July  Frederick  William  was  trimming.  He  wanted 
a  settlement  without  war;  and  it  should  have  been  easy  for  France 
to  make  the  Patriots  offer  satisfactory,  but  not  to  them  humiliating, 
terms.  This  she  failed  to  do,  thus  giving  the  impression  that  she  meant 
to  support  them  through  thick  and  thin;  yet,  at  the  end  of  August, 
Verac,  her  Ambassador  at  the  Hague,  their  party's  patron  andfaiseur, 
was  recalled  and  succeeded  by  St  Priest,  a  representative  who  was  not 

1  Luckwaldt,  Die  englisch-preussische  Allianz  von  1788,  p.  67. 

2  Malmesbury  Correspondence,  n.  306.  Pitt  himself  was  not  in  favour  of  a  policy 
which  might  lead  to  war:  but  he  agreed  to  the  financial  assistance.  Rose,  i.  360. 

3  Malmesbury  Correspondence,  n.  329,  July  3rd. 
*  Cornwallis  Correspondence,  I.  321. 


i74  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

committed.  Meanwhile,  Frederick  William  was  relieved  of  anxiety 
towards  the  east,  by  the  growing  internal  difficulties  of  the  Habsburg 
dominions,  where  Joseph's  reforms  were  bearing  their  fruit  of  dis- 
affection, and  still  more,  in  August,  by  the  sudden  decision  of  the  Porte, 
weary  of  Catharine's  insolence,  to  declare  war  on  Russia.  Sir  Robert 
Ainslie,  our  Ambassador  at  Constantinople,  had  warned  the  Foreign 
Office  of  the  impending  Declaration.  It  was  issued  so  opportunely  as  an 
embarrassment  to  the  Imperial  Courts,  that  contemporaries  credited 
it  to  Ainslie  or  his  Prussian  colleague.  The  suggestion  is  unproved 
and,  in  view  of  the  dates  of  the  various  relevant  decisions,  unlikely. 
Certainly,  Ainslie  had  no  Instructions  in  this  sense. 

News  of  Turkey's  decision  reached  Berlin  in  the  first  days  of 
September.  Verac's  recall  from  the  Hague  had  taken  place  at  the  end 
of  a  month  during  which  French  diplomacy  had  seemed  definitely 
provocative.  The  recall  suggested  a  weakening  of  purpose.  Great 
Britain  had  already  sent  a  General  to  Germany  to  hire  Hessians,  and 
had  put  ammunition  at  the  disposal  of  the  Orange  party.  The  King 
of  Prussia  had  failed  to  secure  any  apology  or  satisfaction  from  the 
States  of  Holland.  He  had  just  decided  to  send  an  ultimatum  to  the 
Hague  and  to  close  with  English  offers  of  cooperation.  The  news  that 
his  imperial  neighbours  would  now  probably  have  their  hands  full 
greatly  eased  his  mind1. 

On  September  i3th,  Ferdinand  of  Brunswick,  all  his  plans  having 
been  mathematically  drawn  out  and  the  risks  of  cutting  the  dykes  care- 
fully weighed2,  crossed  the  Dutch  frontier  with  20,000  men,  to  attack 
the  Province  of  Holland  only.  Brunswick's  preparations  were  super- 
fluous. The  Hollanders,  unsupported  by  France,  collapsed.  Opinion 
swung  round  at  the  Hague.  By  the  2Oth,  the  mob  was  tearing  a  Patriots' 
flag  in  pieces  in  front  of  the  British  Embassy,  with  cries  of  Oranje 
boven ;  and  Harris's  eyes  were  moistening  as  he  met  again  the  Prince 
of  Orange,  of  whom  he  had  so  exceedingly  low  an  opinion.  Next  day, 
he  induced  the  States  of  Holland  to  rescind  a  decision,  which  they 
had  taken  on  the  Qth,  appealing  to  France  for  aid.  Amsterdam  showed 
fight,  but  capitulated  on  October  loth.  In  Berlin,  Hertzberg  quoted 
venij  vidiy  vici\  and  in  Europe  the  conviction  was  confirmed  that 
Prussian  troops,  led  by  Ferdinand  of  Brunswick,  were  invincible. 

1  It  was  not  until  November  that  Austria's  participation  in  the  Russo-Turkish 
War  was  definitively  known. 

2  He  started  at  the  new  moon,  so  as  to  secure  the  minimum  variation  of  the 
tides.  Clausewitz,  who  was  with  him,  thought  the  campaign  reckless  and  its  success 
due  almost  entirely  to  Dutch  incompetence,  Heigel,  i.  143-4. 


THE  PRUSSIANS  IN  HOLLAND  175 

Montmorin  was  bewildered  at  the  speed  of  events.  Before  the 
States  of  Holland  had  rescinded  their  appeal,  he  had  issued  a  declara- 
tion that  France  could  not  reject  it  (September  i6th).  Two  days 
earlier,  Pitt  had  written  to  William  Eden,  who  was  still  clearing 
up  the  aftermath  of  the  commercial  negotiation  in  Paris,  that,  if 
France  wished  to  maintain  predominance  in  Holland  she  would  have 
to  fight1.  Carmarthen  had  already  told  Harris  that  France  was  not 
ready  and,  in  his  opinion,  was  unlikely  to  fight2.  Harris,  who  heard 
no  news  of  French  military  action  down  to  September  22nd,  con- 
curred3. 

On  September  2ist,  a  despatch,  drawn  up  by  Pitt  himself,  went 
to  all  British  Embassies,  notifying  them  that,  since  France  had 
declared  her  intention  of  assisting  that  party  in  the  Province  of 
Holland  which  resisted  the  King  of  Prussia's  just  demands,  and  since 
her  intervention  had  not  been  called  for  by  a  majority  in  the  States- 
General,  and  thus  there  was  no  casus  foederis >  His  Britannic  Majesty 
was  arming  a  fleet  and  augmenting  his  land  forces.  Very  soon,  forty 
ships  of  the  line,  from  the  fleet  which  Pitt  had  been  nursing,  were 
ready  for  sea.  Once  more,  events  moved  too  quickly  for  Montmorin. 
Late  in  September,  Amsterdam  was  still  holding  out  in  the  expectation 
that  he  would  act;  but  he  was  already  telling  Eden  in  confidence  that, 
if  the  French  party  in  the  Provinces  proved  utterly  weak,  action 
would  be  folly4.  Before  the  end  of  the  month,  he  was  interviewing 
William  Grenville,  sent  over  as  a  Special  Envoy  to  smooth  matters 
down  if  possible,  but  was  protesting  that  he  could  discuss  nothing 
until  the  Prussian  troops  were  withdrawn,  and  meanwhile  was  pro- 
ceeding with  belated  military  preparations5.  The  fall  of  Amsterdam, 
apart  from  all  other  circumstances,  made  French  intervention  hopeless ; 
and  on  October  27th  Montmorin  exchanged  with  Eden  and  Dorset,  the 
ornamental  British  Ambassador  to  the  Court  of  Versailles,  a  Declara- 
tion and  Counter-Declaration  of  Disarmament,  the  French  Declaration 
stating  that  France  had  never  intended  to  intervene  in  Holland  and 
retained  no  hostile  views  towards  any  party  involved  in  the  affair — 
that  is  to  say,  towards  Prussia.  After  the  signature,  Dorset  reported 

1  Auckland  Correspondence,  I.  192. 

2  Carmarthen  to  Harris,  September  8th. 

8  To  Carmarthen,  September  22nd.  Harris's  despatch  of  September  i8th, 
written  in  the  full  rush  of  events,  is  a  most/brilliant  document.  At  11.30  p.m.  he 
wrote  "and  I  think  I  can  now  venture  to  congratulate  your  Lordships  that  the 
revolution  in  this  country  is  as  complete  as  it  was  in  1747.'* 

4  Eden  to  Carmarthen,  September  25th. 

6  Grenville  to  Carmarthen,  September  28th. 


176  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

that  "  there  did  not  seem  to  remain  any  degree  of  ill-humour,  tho' 
there  was  visible  a  little  awkwardness  on  occasion  of  the  humiliating 
terms  to  which  this  Court  had  been  obliged  to  subscribe1." 

But  Montmorin  told  Eden  that  war  had  been  nearer  than  might 
have  been  supposed.  For  "exclusive  of  all  objects  of  internal  interest, 
there  had  been  some  opinion  of  weight  that  a  war  was  the  best  mode 
of  finishing  the  internal  troubles  which  had  prevailed  at  the  time  of 
the  King  of  Prussia's  march2."  The  suggestion  recurred  again  and 
again  in  France  during  the  next  five  years;  for  foreign  war,  it  has 
been  said,  was  the  classical  cure  for  internal  troubles3. 

Even  before  Amsterdam  had  fallen,  Harris  was  pressing  the  Dutch 
for  an  alliance.  But  with  so  complex  a  polity  as  the  United  Provinces 
negotiations  were  exceptionally  slow.  In  November,  while  the 
Prussian  troops  were  beginning  to  withdraw,  the  Orange  party  was 
consolidating  its  power  by  the  dismissal  of  "Patriotic"  functionaries. 
In  December,  Harris's  friend  van  de  Spiegel  became  Grand  Pen- 
sionary of  the  United  Provinces.  Though  a  friend,  he  did  not  wish 
to  sell  his  friendship  too  cheap ;  and,  since  in  any  Anglo-Dutch  discus- 
sion colonial  questions  at  once  came  to  the  front,  the  Dutch  states- 
man suggested  that  Great  Britain  should  give  backNegapatam4.  Harris 
managed  to  put  this  suggestion  aside.  By  the  end  of  March,  1788, 
his  draft  had  passed  the  States  of  Holland,  and  on  April  i5th,  the 
Defensive  Alliance  between  His  Britannic  Majesty  and  Their  High 
Mightinesses  the  States-General  of  the  United  Provinces  was  signed5. 
A  Prusso-Dutch  Treaty  was  signed  the  same  day. 

Great  Britain  and  the  Provinces  promised  one  another  friendship 
and  armed  assistance  if  involved  in  war,  specifying  the  amount  of 
that  assistance.  A  clause,  to  which  England  attached  great  importance, 
provided  for  military  and  naval  cooperation  in  such  an  event  between 
the  Dutch  and  British  authorities  in  the  East.  In  case  of  war  with 
a  common  enemy,  neither  was  to  disarm  or  make  peace  without  the 
consent  of  the  other.  Great  Britain  guaranteed  to  the  Prince  of  Orange 
the  Hereditary  Stadholderate  of  the  United  Provinces,  and  the  office 
of  Hereditary  Governor  in  every  Province,  "engaging  to  maintain 
that  form  of  Government  against  all  attacks  and  enterprises,  direct 
or  indirect,  of  whatsoever  nature  they  might  be."  The  contracting 

1  To  Carmarthen,  November  ist. 

2  Eden  to  Carmarthen,  November  ist. 

3  The  point  is  repeatedly  referred  to  by  Sorel. 

4  Harris's  despatches,  December  and  January,  passim. 

5  Harris  to  Carmarthen,  April  isth,  1788,  enclosing  the  treaty. 


TOWARDS  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE  177 

parties  agreed  to  negotiate  further  about  Negapatam.  On  May  8th, 
1788,  the  Treaty  was  ratified,  and  the  Dutch  skiff  appeared  to  be  once 
more  in  tow  behind  the  British  ship  of  the  line.  This,  however,  was 
the  year  in  which  Mirabeau,  in  his  pamphlet  Aux  Bataves  sur  le 
Stathouderat,  told  the  Dutch  that  England  was  working  through  the 
House  of  Orange  "  to  turn  them  into  European  Indians."  In  the  long 
run,  the  reimposition  of  a  personally  unpopular  and  incompetent 
Stadholder  by  foreign  arms  worked  as  Mirabeau  hoped  it  might — to 
increase  the  existing  dislike  of  the  office  and  of  the  Powers  who 
propped  it.  It  did  so  the  more  surely,  because  Great  Britain  in  fact 
never  opened  the  promised  negotiations  about  Negapatam. 

Brunswick's  military  promenade  to  Amsterdam  and  its  brilliant 
results  proved  a  curse  to  Prussia.  They  set  her  statesmen  planning 
other  and  greater  coups,  to  be  brought  about  by  an  opportune  waving 
of  the  Prussian  sword,  and  confirmed  her  King  in  his  natural  inclina- 
tions. "When  once  prevailed  upon  to  exert  himself,"  wrote  Joseph 
Ewart  from  Berlin  about  this  time1,  "he  is  by  no  means  deficient 
in  judgement  and  penetration ;  but  he  requires  to  be  roused  from  his 
dissipation  and  inactivity."  It  might  well  seem  to  him,  now,  that  an 
occasional  rousing  was  enough.  Frederick  William  emerged  from 
the  Dutch  crisis  pledged  to  Great  Britain,  by  a  secret  agreement  of 
October  2Oth,  1787,  to  maintain  the  Dutch  Constitution.  Beyond  that 
point  he  was  not  committed ;  nor  was  Great  Britain.  Throughout  the 
winter,  both  Governments  worked  at  the  Dutch  Treaties,  which  in 
themselves  constituted  a  political  consortium  of  the  three  Powers,  if 
not  exactly  a  Triple  Alliance. 

For  a  time,  Great  Britain  had  not  been  anxious  to  go  further.  There 
were  once  more  rumours  of  a  Quadruple  Alliance  of  the  Imperial 
and  Bourbon  Courts,  and  Pitt  wished  to  learn  what  they  were  worth. 
The  scheme  came  from  Catharine,  who  during  1787  had  partly 
shown  her  hand  by  refusing  to  renew  her  Commercial  Treaty  with 
Great  Britain,  while  including  one  with  France.  She  now  (late  in 
1787)  sounded  Montmorin  through  Segur,  the  French  Ambassador  at 
Petrogad.  But  an  alliance  with  Russia  meant  for  France  the  sacrifice 
of  three  of  her  oldest  diplomatic  friendships — those  with  Sweden, 
Poland,  and  the  Porte.  Montmorin  could  not  bring  himself  to  make 
such  sacrifices:  the  Quadruple  Alliance  remained  a  scheme2,  and  Pitt 
was  for  the  moment  free  of  that  risk. 

Intimate  relations  between  Great  Britain  and  Prussia  were  first  post- 

1  To  Carmarthen,  January  Qth,  1785.  2  Sorel,  I.  322,  323. 

W.&G.I.  12 


178  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

poned  and  always  imperilled  by  the  working  of  the  anti-British  party 
at  Berlin  and  by  the  fantastic  programmes  of  European  rearrangement 
which,  at  this  time,  were  being  put  forward  by  Hertzberg.  Hertzberg, 
as  a  Prussian,  was  not  greatly  interested  in  the  United  Provinces,  where 
Prussian  interests  were  dynastic  rather  than  territorial,  except  in  so 
far  as  Dutch  affairs  might  promote  that  closer  cooperation  with  Great 
Britain  which  he  had  always  favoured,  in  opposition  to  his  colleague, 
Fink  von  Finkenstein,  who  inclined  to  a  French  connexion.  While  Pitt 
regarded  Anglo-Prussian  cooperation  via  the  Netherlands  as  a  safe- 
guard for  the  peace  of  Europe,  and  for  those  colonial  and  maritime 
interests  which  the  Dutch  Alliance  was  especially  intended  to  promote, 
Hertzberg  saw  in  it  a  means  of  promoting  the  territorial  consolidation 
and  expansion  of  Prussia  in  the  east,  for  which  the  state  of  affairs  in 
Austria,  Russia  and  Turkey  seemed  to  present  opportunities.  Before 
the  end  of  the  year  1787,  he  had  outlined  a  gigantic  system  of  re- 
arrangements and  "compensations,"  which  Joseph  Ewart,  the  British 
Secretary  of  Legation  at  Berlin,  described  in  January,  1788,  as  "equally 
extravagant  and  impracticable  in  the  present  circumstances1." 

In  Prussia,  no  Ministerial  plan  had  the  weight  and  influence 
belonging  to  plans  agreed  on  by  a  British  Cabinet,  since  it  was  always 
uncertain  to  the  last  moment  whether  any  such  plan  would  receive 
the  royal  sanction.  So,  British  diplomatic  representatives  at  Berlin 
had  to  keep  in  constant  and  unwelcome  touch  with  what  Morton 
Eden,  in  1791,  called  "the  wretched  and  dirty  intrigues  that  pervade 
this  Court."  Eden,  in  a  fit  of  disgust,  actually  went  so  far  as  to  say, 
in  a  very  private  letter,  that  the  Prussian  Ministers  "knew  about  as 
much  and  had  as  much  influence  in  public  affairs  as  his  boy" — an 
overstatement,  but  significant2. 

Hertzberg's  plans  during  1787  and  the  early  part  of  1788  were 
based  on  the  assumption  that  Russia  and  Austria  would  profit  by 
the  Turkish  War.  Russia  was  known  to  covet  the  Black  Sea  port  of 
Oczakoff  and  the  province  of  Bessarabia,  Austria  the  provinces  of 
Moldavia  and  Wallachia.  Assuming  that  they  secured  these  or  other 
important  territories,  Prussia  must  put  forward  a  claim  for  compen- 
sation backed  by  force  and  British  influence.  The  compensation  was 
to  be  secured  by  a  reshuffle  of  Polish  territory.  In  the  First  Partition, 
Prussia  had  linked  her  detached  province  of  East  Prussia  to  the  mass 

1  To  Carmarthen,  January  Qth,  1788. 

2  Eden  to  Grenville,  December  3ist,  1791;  Morton  Eden  to  Lord  Auckland, 
November  23 rd,  1792.  Dropmore  Papers,  11.  245  and  347. 


HERTZBERG'S  PLANS  179 

of  her  territory  by  securing  West  Prussia  from  the  Poles ;  but  she  had 
not  acquired  Danzig.  The  core  of  the  schemes  was  that  she  should 
obtain  Danzig  and  the  palatinates  of  Posen  and  Kalisch  (Great 
Poland),  the  Poles  being  in  their  turn  compensated  by  the  retrocession 
of  Galicia,  Austria's  acquisition  in  the  First  Partition.  Ewart  was 
"informed,  in  private  confidence,"  at  the  beginning  of  1788,  "that 
the  King  of  Prussia  would  have  no  objection  to  Russia's  obtaining 
Oczakoff  and  Bessarabia,  but  that  he  was  more  averse  than  ever  to 
the  Emperor's  making  any  acquisitions,  without  his  having  the  equi- 
valent, on  the  side  of  Poland1."  Thus,  in  broad  outline,  the  King  and 
his  Minister  were  in  agreement. 

Great  Britain  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  had  any  Polish  policy  at 
that  time.  Her  Embassy  at  Warsaw  was  regarded  mainly  as  an  outpost 
for  securing  information  about  the  plans  of  Poland's  neighbours — a 
function  which  it  fulfilled  imperfectly,  owing  to  "the  extreme  dearth 
of  news  at  this  place,"  as  Charles  Whitworth  wrote  in  1786.  His 
Instructions,  when  sent  there  in  January  of  that  year,  had  been  simply 
to  watch  all  designs  for  the  dismemberment  of  Turkey  or  Poland, 
and  to  safeguard  British  commercial  interests2.  It  was  not  the  habit 
of  the  British  Foreign  Office  to  embody  political  "systems"  or  hypo- 
thetical policies  in  the  initial  Instructions  for  Ambassadors.  The 
British  Instructions  would  make  a  very  meagre  collection,  if  placed 
side  by  side  with  the  great  French  series  of  ambassadorial  Instructions ; 
but  the  almost  complete  absence  of  subsequent  despatches  from 
London  to  Whitworth  shows  that  the  bald  Instructions  in  this  case 
correctly  outlined  the  Polish  interests  of  his  Government. 

Although  schemes  for  rearrangements  of  Polish  territory,  certainly, 
did  not  greatly  concern  the  Cabinet  of  St  James',  it  was  necessary, 
when  drawing  closer  to  Prussia,  to  weigh  the  resulting  commitments.  It 
was  therefore  important  to  keep  abreast  of  Hertzberg's  plans  and  his 
master's  impulses,  and  to  move  with  some  caution.  The  history  of 
the  Triple  Alliance,  which  dominated  British  foreign  policy  from 
1788  to  1791,  proves  that,  in  his  desire  to  terminate  a  period  of  isola- 
tion and  secure  continental  support  for  his  general  policy,  Pitt  showed 
too  little  rather  than  too  much  caution  when  dealing  with  his  principal 

1  To  Carmarthen,  January  15th,  1788. 

2  Whitworth  to  Carmarthen,  April  8th,  1786  and  his  Instructions,  January,  1786. 
The  Foreign  Office  only  showed  interest  in  Warsaw  when  it  instructed  Whitworth 
to  attend,  on  some  pretext,  the  meeting  of  Catharine  and  the  King  of  Poland  at 
KiefT,  in  April,  1787.    He  was  sent  to  collect  news,  but  failed  to  make  Catharine 
talk  politics.  To  Carmarthen,  April  24th  and  May  7th,   1787.    Whitworth  was 
promoted  to  Petrograd  in  October,  1788. 

12 — 2 


i8o  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

Ally.  Not  because  Prussia  was  abnormally  lacking  in  scruple,  if 
judged  by  the  diplomatic  standards  of  the  day ;  but  because  her  real 
interests  and  those  of  Great  Britain  lay  in  such  different  fields, 
sustained  and  active  cooperation  between  the  two  Powers  was  always 
difficult. 

Just  before  the  Treaties  with  the  United  Provinces  were  signed, 
i.e.  early  in  April,  1788,  Pitt  had  written  down  his  notion  of  the  form 
which  an  Anglo-Prussian  alliance  might  take1.  Putting  on  one  side 
a  definite  proposal  which  had  come  through  Ewart  from  Hertzberg 
for  joint  action  in  the  east,  he  suggested  that  a  treaty  guaranteeing 
the  Dutch  settlement  should  include  also  a  general  defensive  alliance 
and  guarantee  of  territories  between  the  two  Powers,  which  might  be 
kept  secret  so  long  as  the  Quadruple  Alliance  of  the  Imperial  and 
Bourbon  Courts  remained  incomplete.  The  Cabinet  was  more  cautious, 
and  decided  against  the  suggested  mutual  guarantee  of  territory.  It 
fully  agreed  that  Great  Britain  ought  not  to  be  in  any  way  committed 
to  Hertzberg's  territorial  speculations.  Hertzberg  tried  again.  Again, 
the  British  Cabinet  raised  difficulties  and  refused  to  commit  itself 
too  deeply2,  unless  Prussia  would  make  very  general  promises  of 
military  assistance.  This  angered  King  Frederick  William.  He  told 
his  Minister  that  he  was  determined  not  to  employ  his  troops  outside 
Germany  and  the  Netherlands,  and  thanked  God  that  he  had  no  need 
to  snatch  at  alliances3.  Within  a  fortnight  he  had  accepted  the  Alliance, 
though  not  quite  on  the  terms  which  had  provoked  this  outburst. 

His  acceptance  was  the  work  of  Sir  James  Harris.  The  Prussian 
King  had  an  appointment  to  visit  his  sister,  the  Princess  of  Orange,  at 
her  chateau  of  the  Loo,  in  the  second  week  of  June.  Just  before  he 
started,  Ewart  at  Berlin  was  not  very  confident.  The  French  party 
in  Prussia  was  active,  and  Ewart  could  only  express  the  hope  that 
the  King  would  be  "undeceived  at  Loo4."  To  accomplish  this,  the 
full  apparatus  of  diplomacy  was  brought  to  bear.  King  George  wrote 
an  appropriate  autograph  letter  to  the  Princess,  which  Harris  deli- 
vered5. During  the  critical  day  (June  I2th),  Harris  concentrated  the 
whole  strength  of  his  trained  and  impressive  personality  on  the  King 
— and  bribed  the  King's  valet  to  block  the  access  of  a  hostile  personality. 

April  2nd,  1788.  Pitt  MSS.   In  Salomon,  p.  342. 

Carmarthen  to  Ewart,  May  i4th,  1788.    Hertzberg's  proposal  to  Ewart  was 
dated  April  igth.  Luckwaldt,  pp.  105-6. 

In  a  note  of  May  3Oth.    Salomon,  p.  345. 
To  Carmarthen,  May  3ist. 
Malmesbury  Correspondence,  II.  420. 


PITT'S  PLANS.  THE  TRIPLE  ALLIANCE          181 

Matters  were  settled  between  King  and  Ambassador  after  midnight 
during  a  walk  in  the  gardens,  away  from  the  music  of  the  State  ball. 
The  King  returned  to  the  music,  while  Harris,  with  the  Minister 
Alvensleben,  spent  the  small  hours  of  the  morning  drawing  up  the 
Treaty  on  the  basis  of  one  of  Hertzberg's  drafts.  The  King  looked 
through  the  draft  at  9  a.m.,  and  signed  the  Treaty  at  2  p.m.  on  the 
1 3th.  Harris  despatched  his  courier  to  Helvoetsluys,  and  spent  the 
afternoon  going  over  the  European  situation  with  England's  new  Ally. 
On  the  1 4th,  he  must  have  begun  the  series  of  despatches  in  which 
he  told  his  Cabinet  how  it  had  all  been  done1.  His  rewards  were 
a  peerage  and  the  right  to  bear  the  Prussian  Eagle  in  his  coat  of  Arms. 
Meanwhile,  from  Berlin,  Ewart  was  able  to  report  that  "  the  French 
emissaries  were  discarded"  and  that  the  Countess  Ingelheim — the 
reigning  Mistress — "warmly  applauded"  the  King's  conduct2. 

The  Treaty  was  officially  described  as  provisional.  The  definitive 
Treaty  was  signed  by  Hertzberg  and  Ewart,  exactly  four  months 
later;  but  not  many  changes  were  made  in  Harris's  work.  The  final 
Treaty  was  a  Defensive  Alliance,  the  United  Kingdom  and  Prussia 
pledging  themselves  to  support  one  another,  if  attacked,  with  a  force 
of  at  least  20,000  men  or  an  equivalent  in  cash,  and  to  uphold  the 
Dutch  Settlement  of  1787.  As  a  concession  to  Frederick  William's 
known  prejudice,  Prussian  auxiliaries  were  not  to  be  used  by  Great 
Britain  outside  Europe  or  be  shipped  to  Gibraltar.  Secret  articles 
stipulated  that  the  promised  contingents  should  not  be  furnished,  unless 
the  Party  attacked  had  set  44,000  men  of  its/)wn  in  motion;  and  that 
Prussia  might  count  on  the  help  of  a  British  fleet,  should  she  require  it. 

Hertzberg  acted  on  the  principle  that  Prussia's  policy  was  to  have 
no  policy — she  ought  to  be  always  adjusting  her  programmes  to  a 
changing  world,  in  order  to  extract  from  it  the  maximum  of  land  and 
of  power.  He  held  to  the  main  objects  of  his  great  scheme ;  but  he 
was  prepared  to  put  in  operation  any  lesser,  or  greater,  scheme  which 
circumstances  might  favour.  Now  the  early  course  of  the  War  of 
Russia  and  Austria  against  Turkey  suggested  that  the  vast  conquests 
of  the  Imperial  Courts,  in  return  for  which  Prussia  was  to  press  for 
compensations  equally  vast,  might  never  be  achieved.  Wars  got 
under  way  slowly  in  eastern  Europe,  and  nothing  considerable  was 
attempted  during  1787.  In  1788  disease  ravaged  the  ill- organised 
Russian  armies  and  the  Act  of  God  at  sea  crippled  the  fleet  of 

1  They  are  dated  June  isth  and  have  been  fully  utilised  by  Salomon  and  Rose. 

2  To  Carmarthen,  June  28th. 


1 82  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

Sebastopol.  It  was  only  at  the  very  end  of  the  year  (December  i7th) 
that  Oczakoff  was  carried  in  a  last  desperate  assault  and  its  population 
massacred.  Austria,  by  an  immense  effort,  had  put  180,000  men  into 
the  field,  but  in  scattered  and  ill-coordinated  armies.  Disease  broke 
out  in  them.  Their  Generals  were  incompetent,  but  so,  too,  was 
the  Emperor,  who  insisted  on  retaining  the  supreme  command.  So 
unsuccessful  were  the  early  months  of  the  War  that  in  August,  when 
news  of  the  Anglo-Prussian  Treaty  came,  Joseph  was  writing  to 
Kaunitz  that,  if  Prussia  and  England  joined  in,  "then  the  monarchy 
was  lost/'  and  there  was  nothing  to  prevent  the  King  of  Prussia 
from  "  occupying  all  Bohemia  and  Moravia  and  marching  on  Vienna1." 
By  September,  the  Austrians  were  retreating,  leaving  the  Banat  of 
Temesvar  to  be  ravaged  by  the  Turks  and  in  fear  for  Transylvania. 
The  Emperor's  letters  were  more  despairing  than  ever.  Very  natur- 
ally, the  thought  arose  in  Berlin  that  Prussia  by  an  opportune  show 
of  force — she  had  already  troops  massed  on  the  Austrian  frontier — 
might  get  compensation,  though  Austria  got  nothing  from  her  Turkish 
war  but  disgrace.  Hertzberg  began  to  see  the  most  brilliant  prospects 
opening  out  for  Prussian  policy2. 

For  a  time,  in  the  summer,  Catharine  had  seemed  in  even  greater 
danger  than  Joseph.  The  chivalrous,  autocratic  and  inconsequent 
Gustavus  III  of  Sweden  had  suddenly  declared  war,  come  to  an 
understanding  with  the  Turks,  and  marched  on  Petrograd  through 
Finland.  In  the  north,  Catharine  had  only  a  small  force  and  her 
Cronstadt  fleet.  The  fleet  fought  an  indecisive  action  and  the  Empress 
had  horses  ready  for  the  journey  to  Moscow.  Then,  partly  as  a  result 
of  Russian  manipulation,  the  powerful  party  among  the  Swedish 
nobility  and  gentry  which  detested  Gustavus,  on  account  of  his 
autocratic  home  policy,  connived  at  revolts  among  the  troops  and 
desertions  of  officers.  At  the  same  time,  the  Danes,  secretly  bound  to 
Russia  in  case  of  a  Russo- Swedish  war,  prepared  to  invade  Sweden 
from  Norway  and  beset  Gothenburg.  On  September  2nd,  Carmarthen 
wrote  to  Joseph  Ewart:  "The  last  accounts  which  we  have  received 
of  the  situation  of  the  King  of  Sweden  represent  his  difficulties  as 
much  increased,  and  state  the  probability  of  his  applying  to  this  Court 
and  that  of  Berlin,  as  well  as  to  France,  for  good  offices  and  mediation." 
It  was  most  desirable,  he  added,  that  England  and  Prussia  should 
"prevent  France  having  a  share  in  the  event,"  and  hinder  Russia 

1  August  26th.  Quoted  in  Sorel,  i.  526. 

2  Krauel,  Hertzberg,  p.  43 ;  quoted  in  Salomon,  p.  488. 


THE  WAR  IN  THE  EAST  AND  THE  NORTH       183 

from  becoming  supreme  in  the  Baltic1.  Pitt  and  his  colleagues  began 
to  see  their  new  Triple  Alliance  not  only  preserving  for  Great  Britain 
that  peace  which  they  sincerely  prized,  but  also  acting  as  the  great 
and  honoured  European  peace-maker,  the  preventer  of  France,  the 
curb  of  Russia,  the  saviour  of  Sweden  and,  should  she  need  saving, 
of  Turkey.  At  Constantinople,  Sir  Robert  Ainslie  and  his  Prussian 
colleague  Dietz  were  influencing  Turkish  policy  and  preparing  the 
way  for  mediation  by  the  Triple  Alliance,  when  the  time  for  peace- 
making should  come.  In  the  struggle  for  prestige  among  the  Great 
Powers  mediations  had  long  played  an  important  part.  Could  Great 
Britain  mediate,  so  as  to  save  two  old  dependants  of  France,  Sweden 
and  the  Porte,  nothing  would  more  clearly  demonstrate  that  to  her  was 
already  passing  that  moral  leadership  of  Europe  which  in  1783  the 
French  seemed  to  have  recovered. 

That  the  Alliance  should  strike  in  upon  the  weakness  of  its  neigh- 
bours and  thus  upset  existing  territorial  arrangements,  did  not  enter 
into  the  British  conception.  The  British  point  of  view  was  expressed 
clearly,  if  not  concisely,  a  year  later  by  Leeds  (Carmarthen),  when 
Hertzberg's  scheme,  in  a  fresh  form,  had  again  been  put  forward. 
The  scheme,  he  said,  went  much  beyond  "the  spirit  of  our  Treaty 
of  Alliance,  which  is  purely  of  a  defensive  nature  and  by  which,  of 
course,  we  cannot  be  considered  as  in  any  degree  bound  to  support 
a  system  of  an  offensive  nature,  the  great  end  of  which  appears  to  be 
aggrandisement  rather  than  security,  and  which,  from  its  very  nature, 
is  liable  to  provoke  fresh  hostilities,  instead  of  contributing  to  the 
restoration  of  general  tranquillity2." 

In  the  autumn  of  1788,  Catharine  was  not  in  a  mood  to  accept 
British  or  any  other  mediation.  She  supposed,  wrongly3,  that  Great 
Britain  and  Prussia  had  some  hand  in  the  King  of  Sweden's  adventure, 
and  wished  to  punish  him  and  them.  She  had  saved  herself  by  her 
own  energy  and  did  not  intend  to  be  beholden  to  that  " grandissime 
politique  fr.  Ge"  (frere  George),  as  she  called  Pitt's  master  in  her 
private  correspondence4.  But,  if  Catharine  was  inaccessible,  the  Court 
of  Copenhagen  was  not ;  and  there  Great  Britain  was  strongly  repre- 
sented, by  Hugh  Elliot.  He  was  instructed  to  call  off  the  Danes. 

1  See  also  Pitt  to  Grenville,  September  ist,  1788:  "Our  intervention  may  pre- 
vent his  (Gustavus')  becoming  totally  insignificant,  a  dependent  upon  Russia,  and 
it  seems  to  me  an  essential  point."    Dropmore  Papers,  i.  353. 

2  Leeds  to  Ewart,  June  24th,  1789. 

s  The  evidence  is  in  Rose,  Pitt,  i.  494-5. 
4  To  Grimm,  quoted  in  Sorel,  i.  528. 


184  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

Mediation  between  Denmark  and  Sweden  had  been  offered  in  a 
despatch  from  Carmarthen  to  Elliot,  dated  August  i5th.  The  great 
Minister  Bernstorff  had  seemed  well  disposed ;  but  the  young  Prince 
Royal  repeated  what  Elliot  had  been  told  before,  that  Denmark  was 
bound  by  treaty  to  Russia  and  must  stand  to  her  word.  This  brought 
Pitt  forward  in  person.  A  despatch  to  Elliot  drafted  by  him  left  this 
country  on  September  9th.  It  criticised  Danish  policy  on  the  ground 
that  it  was  certain  "to  extend  the  mischiefs  of  the  present  war  in 
a  manner  which  cannot  fail  to  excite  the  most  serious  attention,  and 
to  have  a  great  effect  on  the  conduct,  of  all  those  Courts  who  are 
interested  in  the  relative  situation  of  the  different  Powers  of  the 
Baltic."  Before  he  received  this  rather  obscurely  veiled  threat, 
learning  from  Ewart  that  Prussia  was  in  agreement  with  Great  Britain 
and  was  contemplating  an  invasion  of  Holstein,  also  that  there  was 
imminent  risk  of  Gustavus'  accepting  French  mediation,  Elliot  crossed 
to  Sweden,  to  come  into  personal  contact  with  the  King,  who,  in  spite 
of  his  high  spirit,  was  almost  overwhelmed  by  external  danger  and 
domestic  treachery.  Abandoning  his  natural  inclination  to  trust  in 
Sweden's  ancient  ally  France,  Gustavus,  who  knew  that  time  was 
short,  accepted  Elliot's  magniloquently  worded  offer  without  reserve : 
"  Sire,  give  me  your  Crown ;  I  will  return  it  to  you  with  added  lustre." 
The  return  of  the  Crown  was  not  entirely  Elliot's  work.  He  went 
at  once  to  the  Danish  camp,  for  the  Danes  were  now  advancing  on 
Gothenburg;  but,  at  first,  he  failed  to  impose  mediation  upon  the 
Prince  Royal.  The  siege  of  Gothenburg  was  prepared;  but  so  was 
the  defence — by  Gustavus  himself,  with  the  assistance  of  English 
sailors  from  ships  then  in  the  port.  As  the  prospect  of  carrying  the 
town  by  a  coup  de  main  seemed  over,  the  Danes  accepted  a  short 
Armistice,  on  October  9th.  During  the  period  of  the  Armistice,  news 
of  Prussia's  threat  to  Holstein  arrived.  This  strengthened  Elliot's 
hand.  In  the  middle  of  November,  the  Armistice  was  extended  for 
six  months  and  the  immediate  danger  to  Sweden  was  over1.  There 
was  no  peace :  the  state  of  war  continued  between  Sweden  and  Russia : 
Denmark's  good  faith  was  doubted ;  yet,  at  the  close  of  the  year,  the 
Triple  Alliance  was  looking  forward  with  confidence  to  a  general 
pacification  and  a  satisfactory  settlement  during  1 789 .  But  its  members 
were  not  agreed  as  to  what  constituted  a  satisfactory  settlement.  The 
fall  of  Oczakoff,  following  on  Sweden's  breakdown,  closed  the  year 
not  unsatisfactorily,  if  not  brilliantly,  for  Catharine.  She  had  the 
1  This  account  is  based  on  Rose,  Pitt,  I.  495. 


DENMARK  AND  POLAND  185 

patience  and  the  long  views  of  her  adopted  country.  If  not  Con- 
stantinople or  Bessarabia  in  this  War,  then  in  the  next  or  in  some  yet 
remote  war.  Only  for  a  moment,  during  Gustavus'  Finland  raid, 
had  she  ever  feared  attack — and  even  then  not  for  Russia  proper. 
Without  bitterness  or  any  recrimination,  she  acquiesced  in  the  change 
of  plan  which  circumstances  seemed  to  force  on  her  Ally.  She  wrote 
to  him  just  before  Christmas,  and  before  she  can  have  had  the  news 
from  Oczakoff,  that  she  would  raise  no  objection  at  all  to  his  making 
peace  with  the  Porte,  if  he  so  desired.  But  she  would  have  nothing 
to  do  with  mediation  from  any  quarter.  The  view  now  prevalent  at 
Vienna  was  put  by  Kaunitz  thus :  "  so  long  as  Prussia's  power  has  not 
been  curtailed,  all  the  intentions,  plans  and  enterprises  of  the  two 
Imperial  Courts  will  always  be  hindered  and  destroyed  by  her1."  It 
was  therefore  necessary,  if  in  any  way  possible,  to  settle  accounts 
with  Prussia.  On  New  Year's  Day  1789,  the  chances  of  doing  so  in 
the  near  future  would  have  appeared,  to  any  cool  observer,  scanty. 

The  relations  between  Berlin  and  the  Imperial  Courts  had  just 
been  complicated  by  events  in  Poland.  For  years  diplomatists  had 
anticipated  dissolution  for  this  country,  "precluded  from  every 
exterior  commerce  by  its  neighbours  and  deprived  of  every  interior 
improvement  by  its  Constitution2."  Now,  the  Poles,  hoping  to  be 
relieved  of  Russian  pressure  by  the  withdrawal  of  Catharine's  armies 
for  use  elsewhere,  initiated  a  constitutional  reform.  The  Diet  met 
on  October  6th,  1788,  and  prepared  for  action  by  "confederating" 
itself.  By  "confederation"  it  acquired  the  power  to  make  decisions 
by  an  ordinary  majority  vote,  instead  of  by  that  unanimity,  the  need 
for  which,  under  the  old  Polish  Constitution,  had  done  more  than 
anything  else  to  ruin  the  country3.  Catharine,  who  was  in  fact  com- 
pelled to  remove  her  troops  from  Polish  soil,  called  to  Poland  over  her 
shoulder,  so  to  speak,  that  she  would  regard  the  least  change  in  the 
Constitution  as  a  breach  of  treaty  (November,  1788).  Prussia  egged 
the  Poles  on  to  defy  her,  and  the  work  of  the  Diet  went  forward. 
Early  in  December,  the  Diet  decided  to  enter  into  negotiations  with 
a  view  to  a  Prussian  alliance,  and  to  send  missions  to  the  European 
Courts  to  explain  the  contemplated  reforms  in  the  Polish  Constitution. 
Thereupon,  the  Prussian  representative  at  Warsaw,  Lucchesini,  let 
it  be  known,  about  Christmastime,  that  his  master  would  guarantee 

1  Martens,  Traites  de  la  Russie  avec  VAutriche,  n.  188-9,  quoted  in  Sorel,  I.  528. 

2  Viscount  Dalrymple  (from  Warsaw),  October  ist,  1782. 

3  There  is  an  excellent  series  of  despatches  on  the  work  of  the  Great  Diet  from 
David  Hailes  who  took  over  the  embassy  from  Whitworth  in  November,  1788. 


i86  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

the  independence  of  the  Republic  without  interfering  in  its  internal 
affairs.  Prussia  at  once  became  popular  among  the  patriots  of  Warsaw. 
They  began,  also,  to  approach  the  British  representative  and  ask 
whether,  if  they  made  an  alliance  with  Prussia,  England  would  accede. 
The  British  representative  was  civil ;  but,  not  seeing  what  commercial 
advantage  England  could  derive  from  a  Polish  alliance,  with  Prussia 
astride  the  trade  route  down  the  Vistula,  and  inclining  to  the  view  that 
Great  Britain  could  only  get  any  such  advantage  by  working  through 
Berlin,  he  advised  his  Polish  friends  to  lean  on  Prussia,  or  else  "they 
would  never  be  able  to  effect  any  purpose,  either  commercial  or 
political1."  Approached  again,  rather  later  (March,  1789),  he  advised 
his  Government  that  to  step  into  Polish  affairs  might  endanger  rela- 
tions with  Prussia;  that  it  would  mean  for  England  "taking  the 
Republic  under  her  protection " ;  that  this  was  "undoubtedly  the  wish 
of  the  Poles  and  their  chief  design  in  proposing  their  commerce  to  us  " ; 
but  that  he  was  very  doubtful  how  far  we  ought,  "to  engage  for  their 
independence"  or  incur  "the  danger  arising  from  the  protection  of 
a  sort  of  new  Colonies2."  The  despatch,  though  not  that  of  a  Cabinet 
Minister,  reflects  perfectly  the  Polish  problem,  as  seen  from  London3. 

In  these  opening  months  of  the  great  year  of  Revolution,  Prussia 
was  encouraging  revolutions  wherever  she  could  in  the  Habsburg 
dominions,  which  contained  hardly  one  contented  province,  while 
blessing  officially  what  Catharine  called  revolution  in  Poland.  Prussian 
agents  in  Hungary  were  working  on  the  pride  and  dissatisfaction  of 
the  Magyar  leaders.  In  Galicia,  they  were  explaining  the  benefits 
of  reunion  with  a  reformed  Poland.  In  the  Austrian  Netherlands,  they 
were  blowing  the  fires  of  that  revolution  of  Brabant  which  preceded 
the  revolution  of  France,  and  gave  half  its  title  to  Camille  Desmoulins' 
first  revolutionary  journal4.  Hertzberg,  so  a  French  agent  reported 
from  Berlin,  wanted  to  push  his  master  into  action  and  glory,  but 
was  opposed  by  the  courtiers  and  favourites:  "all  that  lot  are  most 
anxious  that  the  King  of  Prussia  should  not  escape  them,  which 
would  happen  inevitably  if  that  monarch  went  to  lead  his  armies.  So 
these  people  and  the  mistress  are  all  for  the  maintenance  of  peace — 
and  England  still  more  so5."  To  Great  Britain,  at  least,  he  did  justice. 

Among  all  the  revolutions,  actual  or  projected,  that  which  touched 

1  Hailes  to  Carmarthen,  February  8th,  1789. 

2  Hailes  to  Carmarthen,  March  27th,  1789.  The  English  Alliance  was  a  favourite 
scheme  of  the  Prince  Sapieha  of  those  days.  Hailes  to  Carmarthen,  July  isth,  1789. 

3  See  below,  p.  188.  4  Les  Revolutions  de  France  et  de  Brabant. 
6  Report  of  the  Comte  d'Esterno,  April  2ist,  1789.,  in  Sorel,  1.  531. 


REVOLUTION  IN  THE  HABSBURG  DOMINIONS  187 

Great  Britain  most  nearly  was  the  revolution  of  Brabant.  Brabant,  like 
all  the  other  duchies  and  counties  which  formed  the  Austrian  Nether- 
lands, had  inherited  its  own  customs  and  constitution;  and,  until 
Joseph's  day,  the  Habsburgs  had  respected  this  inheritance.  No  new 
taxes  could  be  levied  without  the  consent  of  the  Provincial  Estates, 
and  the  established  taxes  were  voted  from  year  to  year.  The  country, 
as  a  whole,  was  passionately  Catholic,  though  French  philosophy  had 
made  headway  in  educated  circles.  The  combination  of  autocratic 
tendencies,  a  striving  after  governmental  uniformity,  and  a  definitely 
anti-clerical  strain  in  the  Josephine  system,  had  provoked  all  sections 
of  Belgian  society.  The  crisis  began  when  Joseph  attempted,  by  edicts 
dated  January  ist,  1787,  to  introduce  a  centralised  bureaucratic 
system  for  the  whole  country.  Within  four  months,  the  Estates  of 
Brabant  had  declined  to  vote  the  taxes,  and  the  Council  of  Brabant 
had  refused  to  accept  dissolution.  A  lawyer  demagogue,  Henri  van 
der  Noot,  called  the  men  of  Brussels  to  arms.  On  May  3Oth,  the 
ancient  militia  of  the  gilds,  swollen  by  peasants  from  the  neighbouring 
villages,  overawed  the  Regent  and  her  husband — Marie  Christine, 
Joseph's  sister,  and  Duke  Albert  of  Saxe-Teschen.  The  Government 
on  the  spot  gave  way;  but,  in  the  autumn,  Joseph  sent  a  soldier  to 
enforce  discipline.  In  January,  1788,  the  first  blood  was  shed  by 
the  troops,  while  dispersing  a  mob  in  the  streets  of  Brussels. 

Joseph  supposed  that  he  had  won  and  went  forward  with  his 
reforms,  especially  the  educational  and  ecclesiastical.  In  the  course 
of  1788,  opposition  and  refusals  to  vote  taxes  came  from  the  Estates 
of  Flanders  and  Hainault  also.  This  opposition  Joseph  once  more  set 
himself  to  crush.  By  June,  1789,  just  before  the  fall  of  the  Bastille,  he 
supposed  that  he  had  succeeded.  "At  last  we  have  won  our  game  in 
Brabant,"  he  wrote  to  his  sister  on  the  26th1.  In  truth,  the  losing  game 
for  the  Habsburg  rule  in  the  Low  Countries  had  just  entered  on  its 
final  stage. 

The  English  view  of  the  Belgian  situation  was  stated  very  clearly 
by  King  George,  in  a  letter  to  the  Duke  of  Leeds,  later  in  the  year. 
It  would  never,  he  said,  be  in  the  interests  of  Great  Britain,  "either 
that  the  Emperor  should  become  absolute,  or  that  a  Democracy  should 
be  established  there,  as  either  must  probably  unite  that  country  more 
with  France2."  During  August,  Pitt  had  drawn  up  a  remarkable 

1  Heigel,  Deutsche  Geschichte,  i.  199. 

2  George  III  to  Leeds,  December  ist,  1789.    Leeds  Papers,  quoted  in  Salomon, 
p.  461. 


i88  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

memoir  on  the  whole  position,  as  a  basis  for  replies  to  suggestions 
from  Prussia  that  Great  Britain  should  encourage  revolution  in 
Belgium  and  Galicia,  with  a  view  to  their  ultimate  separation  from 
Austria1.  Galicia,  as  it  touched  English  interests,  he  put  on  one  side 
in  few  and  significant  words.  "The  object  of  increasing  Poland  with 
a  view  to  the  extension  of  our  commerce  "  he  wrote,  was  "  too  remote 
and  contingent  to  be  relied  upon."  But  the  Belgian  question  was  of 
another  order.  The  prevention  of  a  union  of  Belgium  with  France 
was  an  object  "worth  the  risk,  or  even  the  certainty,"  of  a  war.  But 
the  mere  creation  of  an  independent  Belgian  State — one  of  the 
possible  results  of  supporting  the  Belgian  patriots — was  not  a  British 
interest.  Our  sole  direct  interest  was  to  keep  Belgium  in  dependence 
on  Holland  and  ourselves.  The  status  quo  ante,  a  half-independent 
Belgium,  not  too  docile  under  Austrian  rule,  suited  us  perfectly;  but 
he  recognised  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  its  maintenance,  and  so 
came  to  a  rather  lame  conclusion.  He  might  have  mentioned  that 
the  main  cause  why  Great  Britain,  a  few  years  earlier,  had  not  looked 
favourably  on  Joseph's  scheme  for  exchanging  the  Low  Countries 
against  Bavaria  was  the  reasonable  belief  that  a  small  independent 
Belgian  State  was  far  more  likely  to  fall  permanently  under  French 
influence  than  a  group  of  Belgian  Provinces,  laxly  ruled  by  a  remote 
but  powerful  Prince,  who  could  make  his  voice  heard  in  the  counsels 
of  Europe.  An  alternative  to  independence  or  the  maintenance  of 
the  status  quo  was  the  union  of  Belgium  with  Holland.  This  suggestion 
came  from  the  Belgian  leader  van  der  Noot.  Noot  was  not  a  democrat 
of  the  '89  type — the  leader  of  the  growing  democratic  party  was  his 
rival,  Vonck — but  a  clerical  and  an  upholder  of  the  old  Provincial 
privileges.  Driven  from  home  by  Joseph's  temporary  success  in  1789, 
he  visited  van  de  Spiegel,  the  Pensionary  of  the  United  Provinces,  went 
later  to  Berlin,  and  sent  an  agent  to  London.  How  sincere  his  pro- 
posal was,  or  what  weight  should  be  assigned  to  such  schemings  of 
a  party  leader  in  exile,  may  be  left  undecided.  He  undoubtedly 
made  the  suggestion  to  van  de  Spiegel  that  a  son  of  the  Prince  of 
Orange  should  be  nominated  Regent  of  Belgium2.  The  proposal  was 

*  It  is  in  the  Leeds  Papers,  B.M.  Add.  MSS.  28068,  and  is  dated  August  27th. 
A  German  translation  is  in  Salomon,  p.  453  sqq. 

2  Resume  des  Negotiations  qui  accompagnerent  la  revolution  des  Pays-Bos  Au- 
trichiens,  by.L.  B.  J.  van  de  Spiegel,  1841,  quoted  in  Heigel,  op.  cit.  i.  199.  Van  der 
Noot's  agent  in  England  was  a  certain  van  Roode.  Van  de  Spiegel  mentioned  the 
scheme  for  Belgian  independence,  but  apparently  not  the  Regency  scheme,  to  the 
British  Minister,  Alleyne  Fitzherbert.  Fitzherbert  was  " not  a  little  surprised  that... 
he  could  condescend  to  listen  for  a  single  instant,  to  a  scheme  which  to  my  mind 


THE  BELGIAN  PROBLEM  189 

weighed  in  London  and  known  in  Paris.  A  French  agent  in  England 
reported  it,  in  what  seems  a  distorted  form,  in  the  course  of  September. 
England,  he  said,  had  for  a  time  played  with  the  idea  of  uniting  the 
two  countries  and  attaching  the  new  composite  State  to  the  German 
Empire,  as  an  additional  electorate1.  In  his  August  memorandum, 
Pitt  had  in  fact  considered  the  scheme,  and  had  dismissed  it.  It 
appeared  to  him,  he  wrote,  that  "the  difference  of  religion  and  the 
clashing  interests  of  commerce,  particularly  with  respect  to  the  navi- 
gation of  the  Scheldt,  seemed  to  make  that  project  difficult,  if  not 
impracticable."  Nothing  more  was  heard  of  it  for  years. 

Discussing  the  possibility  of  an  ultimate  war  with  France  on 
some  Low  Countries'  issue,  Pitt  stated  that  he  would  rather  become 
involved  in  such  a  war,  "having  the  Emperor  and  Holland  with  us, 
and  Prussia  not  against  us,"  than  run  the  risk  of  forcing  it  on  now, 
and  so  driving  France  and  Austria  into  a  joint  war  with  England, 
the  United  Provinces  and  Prussia .  He  had  not  yet  come  to  understand 
the  new  France,  nor  foreseen  that  henceforward  Franco- Austrian 
cooperation  would  be  an  impossibility.  His  conclusion  of  the  whole 
matter  was  to  wait,  but  to  assure  the  Belgian  insurgents  that  Great 
Britain  would  not  allow  the  Emperor  to  destroy  their  Constitution. 

Pitt  did  not  anticipate  any  immediate  complications  with  the 
French  over  the  Belgian  question;  but  he  thought  that,  if  "either  the 
rashness  of  their  councils,  or  the  enthusiasm  of  the  present  spirit 
which  prevails  among  them  should  lead  them  to  measures  of  this 
nature,  a  war  would  be  in  any  case  inevitable."  The  sentence  contains 
one  of  the  earliest  hints  by  a  European  statesman  of  a  possible  French 
war  of  democratic  propaganda.  That  France  might  be  plunged  into 
war  by  the  partisans  of  the  Old  Order,  with  a  view  to  distracting 
attention  from  internal  trouble,  was  a  commonplace  of  diplomatic 
speculation2.  Pitt's  representatives  and  agents  in  the  Belgian  Provinces 
kept  the  Foreign  Office  well  informed  as  to  every  move  of  the  French 
and  democratic  parties  there3;  but  so  late  as  August,  1789,  at  least, 
and,  in  the  minds  of  most  statesmen,  down  to  a  much  later  date,  the 

appears  wild  and  chimerical  in  the  extreme"  (to  Leeds,  July  loth,  1789).  Nor  does 
van  der  Noot  appear  to  have  broached  the  Regency  scheme  at  Berlin  (see  Ewart  to 
Carmarthen,  September  5th,  1789,  reporting  his  proposals  there).  Pitt's  serious 
discussions  of  it  suggest  that  his  agent  pressed  it  in  London. 

1  Report  of  La  Luzerne,  September  29th,  1789,  quoted  in  Sorel,  n.  60. 

2  There  are  many  such  suggestions:  for  example,  the  discussion  between  the 
British  representative  and  the  Spanish  Minister  Florida  Blanca  reported  by  the 
former.   Wm.  Eden  to  Carmarthen,  March  3Oth,  1789. 

3  See  the  P.O.  Correspondence,  Flanders,  1789,  passim. 


igo  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

possibility  of  French  democratic  propaganda  being  conducted  by  the 
sword  seemed  remote  and  in  no  way  dangerous.  What  might  be 
called  the  correct  diplomatic  opinion  during  1789  undoubtedly  was 
that  for  years  France,  whatever  she  might  do,  would  involve  no  real 
danger  to  anyone.  William  Eden, for  example,  writing  to  his  brother  on 
September  29th,  said  it  was  "beyond  any  speculation  that  in  our  time 
France  should  again  make  the  same  appearance  among  nations  that 
she  has  made... I  fairly  and  sincerely  wish  to  see  order  restored: — she 
is  no  longer  an  object  of  alarm;  and  her  prosperity  would  now  be 
very  compatible  with  ours,  which  certainly  is  at  this  hour  far  beyond 
what  the  nation  has  ever  experienced."  He  added,  a  month  later: 
"  The  troubles  of  France  have  increased,  so  as  to  render  that  unhappy 
country  very  interesting  as  to  its  interior,  but  probably  for  a  long 
period  of  little  importance  with  regard  to  its  external,  politics1."  Eden 
was  a  representative  observer,  cool,  experienced  and  intimately 
acquainted  with  French  affairs2.  Other  cool  heads  were  of  the  same 
opinion.  "The  situation  of  France,"  Ewart  reported  from  Berlin3, 
"seems  to  have  made  the  Empress  of  Russia  fairly  sensible  that  no 
reliance  whatever  can  be  placed  on  the  power  or  influence  of  that 
country  at  least  for  many  years."  The  Court  of  Berlin,  also,  was 
persuaded  that — "the  great  popular  revolution  in  France  will  prevent 
that  country  effectually  from  interfering  in  any  shape  in  favour  of 
the  Imperial  Courts4." 

Hertzberg  no  longer  felt  any  fear  of  that  Quadruple  Alliance 
which  had  haunted  his  first  and  great  master.  He  could  go  forward, 
if  Great  Britain  would.  Throughout  the  latter  part  of  1788  and  the 
whole  of  1789,  Anglo-Prussian  diplomacy  is  one  long  struggle  between 
Prussia's  forward  policy  and  the  British  conception  of  the  Triple 
Alliance.  Hertzberg's  plans  evolve  and  shift.  His  master's  military 
enthusiasm  flares  up,  and  dies  down,  and  flares  up  again.  The  British 
Foreign  Office  reiterates  that  "it  is  impossible  to  pledge  this  country 
beforehand  to  the  consequences  of  measures  which  go  beyond  the 
limits  of  a  Defensive  Alliance5."  By  May,  1789,  Frederick  William 

1  Wm.  Eden  to  Morton  Eden,  September  29th  and  October  zoth,  1789,  Auckland 
MSS.,  B.M.  Add.  34429. 

z  By  April,  1790,  however.,  Eden  had  become  alarmed  at  what  he  called  the 
French  "  enthusiasm  of  giving  what  they  called  liberty  to  all  nations."  To  Sir  R.  M. 
Keith,  printed  in  Memoir  of  Sir  R.  M.  Keith,  n.  270. 

3  To  Leeds,  October  2oth,  1789. 

4  Ewart  to  Leeds,  July  28th,  1789. 

6  Leeds  to  Ewart,  September  i4th,  1789,  following  the  lines  of  Pitt's  August 
Memorandum. 


THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  AND  THE  POWERS    191 

was  writing  to  his  Ambassador  in  London  that  he  was  losing  all 
patience  and  did  not  know  what  to  think  of  this  indifference  of  the 
British  Cabinet,  which  he  had  not  deserved.  "There  was  no  such 
delay  and  indifference  shown  on  my  side,  when  the  Dutch  affairs 
were  under  consideration1."  When  the  Bastille  had  fallen,  Prussia 
tried  to  scare  England  into  activity;  not  by  suggesting  that  France 
might  begin  a  war  of  democratic  propaganda,  but  by  suggesting 
a  Franco-Prussian  alliance — the  French,  free  from  autocracy,  might 
cast  off  the  Austrian  connexion,  and  return  to  their  true  interests 
and  to  their  old  relations  with  Prussia2.  England  was  not  fright- 
ened. Her  Minister  had  just  stated  once  more  that  "she  could  not 
be  considered  as  in  any  degree  bound  to  support  a  system  of  an 
offensive  nature3." 

Prussia  then  tried  the  argument  that  she  need  not  support  it  very 
actively.  The  King  himself  told  Ewart,  in  October,  that  in  "case  of 
his  being  committed  with  Austria,  either  separately  or  in  conjunction 
with  Russia,  relative  to  the  affairs  either  of  Poland  or  of  Turkey,  he 
did  not  pretend  that  England  should  become  a  party  in  the  War; 
mats  qu'elle  voulut  settlement  lui  tenir  le  dos  libre,  du  cote  de  la  France, 
and  continue  to  cooperate  in  maintaining  the  neutrality  of  Denmark4." 

At  this  time,  Frederick  William  was  desirous  of  war,  Hertzberg 
eager  for  a  diplomatic  triumph,  but  apparently  not  for  war.  The 
King  was  in  high  spirits  at  the  successes  of  the  Belgian  insurgents, 
successes  which  culminated  in  the  return  of  van  der  Noot  with 
triumph  to  Brussels,  a  joint  repudiation  of  the  Habsburgs  by  the 
Estates  of  Flanders  and  Brabant,  and  the  junction  of  the  other 
Provinces  with  them  at  the  end  of  the  year.  "He  is  so  over-elated 
that  he  thinks  of  nothing  less  than  depriving  the  House  of  Austria 
both  of  the  Netherlands  and  Galicia,"  Ewart  wrote  on  November  28th. 
His  Minister  at  Constantinople  was  working  for  a  Turkish  Treaty, 
a  Treaty  which  was  signed  hurriedly  and,  as  Hertzberg  thought,  with 
an  amazing  lack  of  foresight  in  the  drafting,  on  January  3ist,  1790. 
During  December  the  Polish  Diet  approved  the  preliminary  arrange- 
ments with  Prussia  which  ripened  next  year  into  the  traite  d'amitie 
et  d' union  of  March,  1790.  These  two  negotiations  explain  Frederick 
William's  reference  to  "the  affairs  of  Poland  and  of  Turkey."  The 
Polish  Treaty  was  the  starting-point  for  the  series  of  events  which 

1  To  Alvensleben,  May  4th.  Salomon,  p.  450. 

2  To  Alvensleben,  July  sist.  Salomon,  p.  450. 

8  Leeds  to  Ewart,  June  24th.  The  despatch  quoted  above,  p.  183. 
4  Ewart  to  Leeds,  October  i7th. 


i92  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

led  up  to  the  Second  Partition ;  but,  at  the  time  of  its  signature,  Prussia 
was  not  planning  partition.  All  her  statesmen  were  determined  to 
secure,  by  any  means,  at  least  the  key- towns  of  Thorn  and  Danzig; 
but  the  ruling  design  in  1789-90  was  that  for  compensating  Poland  at 
Austria's  expense  by  the  gift  of  Galicia.  In  gratitude,  Poland  was  to 
pass  from  the  Russian  sphere  of  influence  into  that  of  Prussia.  This 
plan  did  not  allow  sufficiently  for  the  strength  and  resource  of 
Catharine,  or  for  the  storms  which  were  blowing  up  from  the  west. 

At  the  close  of  1788  Catharine  had  hoped  that  George  Ill's 
insanity  and  the  Regency  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  might  bring  Fox  back 
to  power.  She  approached  Fox  through  Woronzow,  her  Ambassador 
in  London,  and  expressed  the  conviction  that  he  and  the  Prince  would 
not  allow  themselves  to  be  dragged  at  the  heels  of  Prussia1.  But  King 
George's  recovery  (February)  left  Pitt  stronger  than  ever;  so  that 
door  was  closed.  However,  the  succession  of  a  weak  Sultan,  Selim  II, 
in  April,  1789,  raised  hopes  in  Petrograd  for  the  campaigns  of  that 
year.  They  proved,  in  fact,  most  successful.  Joseph's  armies  recovered. 
The  Danubian  Provinces — Bessarabia,  Moldavia  and  Wallachia — 
were  invaded,  and  by  the  end  of  1789  the  original  postulate  for  Hertz- 
berg's  compensation  schemes,  that  the  Imperial  Courts  would  be  in 
a  position  to  claim  much  Turkish  territory  at  the  end  of  the  War, 
seemed  to  have  become  valid.  Hence,  Frederick  William's  desire  to 
utilise  the  Belgian  revolt  to  the  utmost,  and  to  blood  his  fine  army  on 
Austria  while  the  mass  of  Joseph's  troops  were  on  the  Danube. 
British  troops  he  neither  needed  nor  expected,  but  he  required  the 
British  fleet,  for  Denmark  was  not  to  be  trusted.  She  had  not  yet 
made  peace  and,  thanks  to  her  passive  assistance,  Russia  was  in  control 
of  the  Baltic.  Prussia,  therefore,  hoped  that  Great  Britain's  firm  wish 
to  reestablish  the  status  quo  in  the  Baltic,  and  to  keep  France  in  check, 
would  suffice  to  ensure  her  cooperation  at  least  long  enough  for  the 
Prussian  sword,  or  the  threat  of  the  Prussian  sword,  to  do  its  work. 

Great  Britain  was  exceedingly  cautious,  but  correct.  At  the  end 
of  1789,  she  was  given  an  opportunity  by  the  Imperial  Courts  of 
throwing  over  Prussia  altogether.  They  sounded  her  as  to  the  terms 
on  which  she  would  agree  to  an  eastern  peace2.  This  offer  she  put 
aside:  she  must  act  with  her  Allies,  she  said.  But  as  the  offer  indi- 
cated a  desire  for  peace,  it  confirmed  the  British  Cabinet  in  its  policy 
of  using  the  Triple  Alliance  as  a  peace-making  and  conservative 
combination.  All  that  Frederick  William,  to  his  annoyance,  was  able 
1  Rose,  Pitt,  I.  509.  2  Details  in  Salomon,  p.  463. 


POSITION  IN  THE  EAST.  DEATH  OF  JOSEPH  II     193 

to  secure  in  relation  to  the  Netherlands  was  a  Convention,  signed  at 
Berlin  on  January  9th,  1790,  by  which  the  three  Powers  declared  their 
joint  interest  in  the  Belgian  Provinces;  their  resolve  to  uphold  Belgian 
liberties;  and  their  willingness  to  recognise  Independence,  should 
Independence  become  quite  evident1.  In  spite  of  its  annoyance,  the 
Court  of  Berlin  made  a  swift  calculation  and  fell  into  line.  This  was 
the  calculation:  that  the  Triple  Alliance,  taking  its  cue  from  Great 
Britain  would  come  forward  with  a  proposal  for  a  general  peace  on 
status  quo  ante  terms :  that  the  Imperial  Courts  would  be  too  proud 
to  accept :  and  that  Prussia  would  thus  secure  her  war,  her  com- 
pensations, and  her  Ally2. 

Early  in  the  morning  of  February  2Oth,  1790,  Joseph  II  died  at 
Vienna.  He  had  worked  to  the  end  at  the  task  of  government  which 
had  now  broken  him — signing  documents  that  same  night.  His  wiser, 
cooler,  more  diplomatic  brother  Leopold,  the  liberal-minded  Grand- 
duke  of  Tuscany,  was  his  heir.  Two  days  after  the  news  of  Joseph's 
death  reached  Florence,  Leopold  summoned  the  British  Resident, 
Hervey,  to  a  private  interview  in  the  evening.  He  told  his  visitor  that 
he  wanted  peace,  and  that  Hervey  was  to  state  this  emphatically  to 
his  own  Court.  He  referred  to  the  unhappy  Alliance  with  Russia  and 
the  sacrifice  of  the  natural  Austrian  friendship  with  England.  Let 
England  mediate  and  save  hkn  from  a  breach  with  Prussia.  He  would 
dearly  like  a  defensive  alliance  with  England.  He  praised  her  correct 
and  reserved  handling  of  the  Belgian  revolution,  and  said — with 
seeming  sincerity — that  no  nation  in  Europe  was  now  so  highly 
esteemed.  France,  he  added,  was  laid  aside  for  years.  For  himself, 
he  cared  for  no  conquests.  He  would  make  peace  tomorrow.  Russia 
and  the  Porte  were  war-weary,  and  would  no  doubt  concur.  To  the 
Belgians  he  had  made  offers  which  they  could  not  refuse:  if  desired, 
he  would  accept  England  and  Prussia  as  guarantors  of  the  Belgian 
liberties.  To  the  Magyars,  also,  he  would  restore  their  ancient  customs 
and  liberties.  As  for  Poland — he  would  give  back  his  share  of  it 
tomorrow,  if  the  other  Partitioning  Powers  would  do  the  same. 
Hervey  left  the  presence  late  at  night,  with  Leopold's  parting  pro- 
testations of  friendship  in  his  ears3. 

1  Ewart  to  Leeds,  January  gth,  1790.*  For  the  King's  annoyance,  Ewart  to  Leeds, 
February  22nd. 

2  Minute  au  Rot,  March  sth,  1790,  and  the  King's  reply  (Salomon,  p.  465), 
Compare  the  unexpectedly  cordial  reception  given  to  a  despatch  from  Leeds  of 
February  z6th,  as  reported  by  Ewart  to  Leeds,  March  Sth. 

8  The  report  is  in  the  Leeds  MSS.,  dated  February  z8th.    A  full  summary  in 
Salomon,  pp.  467-9. 

W.&G.I.  13 


i94  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

Nothing  could  have  been  more  welcome  to  the  English  Cabinet 
than  Hervey's  report.  "  It  seems  highly  expedient,"  Leeds  wrote  at 
once  to  Ewart,  "to  communicate  to  his  Prussian  Majesty  in  the 
strictest  confidence  some  very  interesting  information  we  have  re- 
ceived respecting  the  general  views  of  the  King  of  Hungary1."  The 
information  followed,  with  hopeful  estimates  of  the  new  Sovereign, 
and  of  his  sincerity.  These  estimates  were  shortly  confirmed  by  the 
shrewd  and  humorous  British  Ambassador  at  Vienna,  Sir  Robert 
Murray  Keith.  "  I  have  every  reason  to  be  persuaded  of  the  sincerity 
of  his  pacific  professions,  and  it  appears  to  me  that  he  uses  his  best 
endeavours  to  restore  the  general  tranquillity."  But  as  a  Scotsman  and 
a  soldier,  Keith  added:  "It  may  not  however  be  amiss  to  remark 
that  with  a  brave  army  of  above  three  hundred  thousand  effective 
men... and  with  a  population  as  well  as  money  sufficient  to  keep  it  up 
to  that  strength,  he  may  be  supposed  to  be  able  to  maintain. .  .a  vigorous 
war  against  Prussia... particularly  if  that  war  shall  be  made  (as  every 
appearance  seems  to  prognosticate)  on  a  plan  merely  defensive2." 

Campaigning  had  now  begun,  and  what  Keith  anticipated  is 
clear.  Leeds  had  followed  up  his  letter  to  Berlin  of  March  i6th  by 
another,  in  which  he  stated  categorically  that  "it  would  be  impossible 
for  this  country  to  give  any  expectation  of  supporting  Prussia  in  a 
contest"  waged  to  tear  Galicia  from  Austria3.  The  Prussian  Court 
was  for  a  moment  dismayed.  Should  Leopold  act  as  reasonably  as 
he  spoke,  and  accept  the  status  quo,  there  would  be  neither  war  nor 
compensations4.  There  was  talk  of  British  treachery  at  Berlin.  But 
having  secured  his  Turkish  and  Polish  treaties,  considering  that  Russia 
was  far  away,  the  King,  after  much  vacillation,  decided  to  risk 
•Great  Britain's  defection  and  stand  by  Hertzberg's  Galician  plans, 
on  the  ground  that  either  he  would  get  something  by  them,  or  they 
would  provoke  Austria  to  war.  He  arranged  "to  have  his  whole  army 
on  the  war  establishment  about  the  middle  of  next  month,"  as  Ewart 
wrote  in  April.  "  This  has  been  judged  necessary  on  every  account  and 
particularly  as  very  considerable  corps  of  Austrian  troops  are  already 
assembled  in  Bohemia  and  Moravia  and  are  daily  receiving  rein- 
forcements5." 

1  Leeds  to  Ewart,  March  i6th,  1790. 

2  Keith  to  Leeds,  April  5th,  1790.   Prince  Henry  of  Prussia,  a  constant  enemy 
of  Hertzberg,  also  thought  that  Austria  would  fight  a  successful  defensive  war. 
Heigel,  op.  cit.  p.  255.  3  Leeds  to  Ewart,  March  soth. 

4  For  details  of  Prussian  opinion  see  Salomon,  pp.  470-1.  See  also  Lecky, 
VI,  127  sqq.  5  Ewart  to  Leeds,  April  i9th,  1790. 


THE  POLICY  OF  LEOPOLD  II  195 

Leopold  wanted  peace;  but,  as  Keith  had  hinted,  he  was  not  pre- 
pared for  humiliation.  Perhaps  his  resolution  was  stiffened  by  the 
maritime  quarrel  about  Nootka  Sound  which  had  suddenly  broken 
out  between  Great  Britain  and  Spain.  It  might  give  the  former  occu- 
pation. But,  as  he  already  knew  that  she  would  not  support  Prussia  in 
a  war  for  Galicia,  this  must  have  been  a  secondary  consideration.  He 
continued  warlike  preparations ;  but  he  wrote  most  reasonable  letters 
to  Berlin1.  In  June,  Frederick  William  moved  to  Schonwalde  on  the 
Silesian  frontier,  whither  Ewart  followed  him,  so  as  to  keep  in  touch2. 
The  King  was  growing  impatient.  "It  is  ridiculous  to  lose  so  much 
time,  when  you  have  an  army  like  mine,"  he  wrote  to  Hertzberg: 
matters  must  be  settled  within  three  weeks,  or  he  would  fight3. 

From  Vienna,  the  British  Ambassador  did  not  vary  his  estimate 
of  Leopold's  good  intentions  and  sincerity.  But  conflicts  of  royal 
with  Ministerial  policy,  very  typical  of  the  State  systems  of  the  day, 
puzzled  Keith.  It  is  possible  that  Leopold  utilised  them  to  throw  dust 
in  his  eyes.  The  old  Chancellor  Kaunitz,  with  his  "haughty  inflexi- 
bility," became  so  impracticable  that  another  Minister,  Count  Philip 
Cobenzl,  was  authorised  by  Leopold  to  explain  away  the  Chan- 
cellor's communications.  Keith  was  asked  to  show  them  to  Cobenzl, 
who  would  bring  back  his  master's  glosses. "  It  is  at  best  (rejoined  I)  but 
an  awkward  method  of  doing  business,  and  the  sooner  an  end  is  put 
to  it  the  better.  But  I  subscribe  to  it  for  the  present....  Here,  My 
Lord,"  Keith  concluded,  "ends  the  history  of  Prince  Kaunitz 's 
political  career :  Heaven  forbid  that  I  should  ever  hereafter  insult  his 
ashes4."  Kaunitz  was  not  so  easily  buried ;  but,  by  June,  the  King  of 
Hungary — Leopold  was  not  yet  Emperor — was  in  effective  control 
of  his  own  policy,  and  seemed  ready  to  accept  British  mediation  of 
a  peace  on  the  basis  of  the  status  quo5. 

Pitt  and  his  Cabinet,  fully  occupied  at  that  time  with  the  Spanish 
problem,  could  not  bring  their  full  weight  to  bear  either  on  Leopold 
or  on  Prussia.  Leeds  had  written,  on  May  2ist,  that  Great  Britain 
would  acquiesce  in  minor  territorial  rearrangements,  should  an 

1  Copies  were  regularly  sent  by  Ewart  to  Leeds. 

2  He  writes  from  Breslauon  June  i6th.  On  June  2ist,  he  moved  to  Reichenbach. 

3  June  i  ith.  Heigel,  op.  cit.  p.  257.  Hertzberg  must  have  told  Ewart,  who  wrote 
to  Leeds  on  the  i6th  in  these  very  words. 

4  To  Leeds,  April  24th,  1790. 

5  Keith's  June  despatches,  passim.    It  may  be  worth  noting  that  the  Dutch 
Ambassador  in  Vienna  reported  at  this  time  that  there  were  three  policies  there — 
Kaunitz's,  Cobenzl's,  and  Leopold's,  "often  totally  distinct  and  separate  from  them 
both."   Auckland  [from  the  Hague]  to  Leeds,  July  i6th,  1790. 

13—2 


196  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

armistice  and,  eventually,  peace  be  attainable  on  no  other  terms.  A  few 
weeks  later,  Leopold,  in  one  of  his  friendly  letters  to  Frederick  William, 
had  made  it  clear  that  he  could  not  go  beyond  some  such  minor  adjust- 
ments without  sacrifice  of  honour1.  At  the  same  time  he  sent  Envoys, 
Baron  Spielmann  and  Prince  Reuss,  to  treat  with  Hertzberg,  who  was 
now  established  within  twenty-five  miles  of  the  Bohemian  frontier, 
at  Reichenbach. 

Here,  the  formal  Conference  opened  on  June  27th.  On  the  first 
day,  Prussians  and  Austrians  discussed  compensations,  exchanges  and 
the  status  quo.  On  the  29th,  Ewart  and  his  Dutch  colleague  van  Rheede 
were  invited  to  attend.  Ewart  found  that  the  negotiators  were  con- 
templating much  more  extensive  "  arrangements  "  than  England  could 
possibly  approve.  The  Austrians  were  standing  out  for  heavy  com- 
pensation at  the  cost  of  the  Porte  —  which  looked  ugly  after  their 
master's  professions.  Leopold,  in  fact,  was  far  less  radically  friendly 
towards  Great  Britain  and  British  schemes  than  he  led  her  agents  to 
suppose.  He  criticised  her  bitterly  in  letters  to  his  sister,  and  he 
would  almost  certainly  have  risked  the  rejection  of  the  status  quo, 
for  his  armies  were  doing  well  on  the  Danube,  had  Catharine  promised 
more  powerful  support2.  On  both  sides,  Great  Britain's  influence 
was  limited  —  far  more  limited  than  a  first  reading  of  Ewart's  des- 
patches suggests.  Ewart  threw  every  ounce  of  it  into  the  scale  ;  but 
the  deciding  weights  were  in  other  hands,  as  can  be  read  between  the 
lines  of  his  despatches3. 

For  a  month  the  discussions  continued.  Private  agents  came  and 
went  between  Reichenbach  and  Vienna.  All  the  personal  forces  at 
work  in  the  Prussian  Court  made  themselves  felt.  Varying  news  from 
the  seat  of  war,  and  as  to  whether  the  Sultan  would  accept  territorial 
sacrifices,  supposing  such  were  suggested  by  his  new  Ally  Prussia  — 
who  left  the  Treaty  of  January  still  unratified  —  affected  the  course  of 
the  negotiations.  The  British  and  Dutch  representatives  laboured 
for  peace.  In  the  back-ground  stood  Russia,  refusing  to  participate  in  a 
conference  which  implied  mediation  from  outside,  but  influencing  its 
course  by  a  policy  shifting  and  hard  to  interpret4.  About  July  2ist, 
war  seemed  certain  ;  and  Frederick  William  sent  Hertzberg  "repeated 
orders  to  prepare  the  manifesto5."  By  this  time,  the  Prussian  King 


1  Copy  in  Ewart  to  Leeds,  June 

2  Wolf,  Leopold  und  Marie  Christine,  pp.  163  sqq.   Salomon,  p.  585. 

3  A  long  series,  July  ist,  8th,  i6th,  i8th,  22nd,  25th,  28th,  August  4th.   I  over- 
rated the  importance  of  Ewart's  influence  in  my  Causes  of  the  War  of  1792,  pp.  61-2. 

4  See  Rose,  I.  527.  5  Ewart  to  Leeds,  July  25th. 


THE  CONGRESS  OF  REICHENBACH  197 

had  anchored  his  tossing  mind  to  the  alternative  of  the  strict  status 
quo  or  war.  He  hoped  to  pin  Austria  on  one  horn  of  this  dilemma. 
Hertzberg's  view  was  that  Leopold  could  not  accept  the  strict  status 
quo  without  dishonour1.  Thus,  he  expected,  and  now  desired,  war. 
At  Vienna,  Kaunitz  shared  Hertzberg's  view.  But  on  July  23rd  came 
news  that  Austria  would  not  fight  for  her  compensation ;  and  on  the 
27th  Declarations  and  Counter-declarations  were  exchanged. 

Austria  declared  herself  ready  to  conclude  an  armistice  with  the 
Porte,  with  a  view  to  a  status  quo  peace,  though  a  hope  was  expressed 
that  the  Sultan  might  accept  a  few  frontier  adjustments.  She  would 
not  participate  in  the  Russo-Turkish  War,  should  it  continue.  Prussia 
stipulated  that,  if  the  Sultan  freely  gave  Austria  anything,  Austria 
must  give  Prussia  something.  Prussia  and  the  Sea  Powers  were  to 
guarantee  Belgium  to  Austria,  but  also  Belgium's  ancient  Con- 
stitutions. The  Sea  Powers  promised  to  support  the  whole  settlement 
— which  was  exactly  what  the  British  Cabinet  had  always  desired — 
and  to  continue  their  mediation  at  the  ensuing  Peace  Congress2.  At 
the  last,  both  Hertzberg  and  Kaunitz  had  to  be  forced  to  sign,  by 
personal  notes  from  their  respective  masters3. 

And  now,  wrote  Frederick  William  to  Hertzberg,  we  must  work 
through  Ewart  to  get  English  support  in  forcing  the  status  quo  on 
Russia.  He  had  already  used  an  opportunity  of  binding  England  to 
him  by  gratitude  for  services  rendered.  Two  months  earlier,  Hertz- 
berg had  told  Ewart  that,  if  England's  quarrel  with  Spain  led  to  war, 
she  might  count  on  Prussia. 

On  January  7th,  1790,  Consul-general  Merry  had  written  to  the 
Duke  of  Leeds  from  Madrid :  "Accounts  have  just  been  received  here 
from  Mexico  that  one  of  the  small  ships  of  war  on  the  American 
establishment... has  captured  an  English  vessel  in  the  port  of  Nootka 
(called  by  the  Spaniards  San  Lorenzo)  in  Lat.  50  North  of  the  coast 
of  California.  There  are  different  relations  of  this  event."  A  month 
later4,  the  Spanish  Ambassador  in  London  claimed  for  his  country 
the  sovereignty  of  those  parts,  i.e.  the  modern  Vancouver  Island  and 
British  Columbia.  Leeds  replied  stiffly  that,  until  the  ship  was 
restored  and  the  violence  atoned  for,  the  question  of  principle  must 
wait5,  though,  as  his  despatches  show,  the  British  Cabinet  had  no 

1  Salomon,  p.  485.  2  Ewart  to  Leeds,  July  28th. 

8  Heigel,  I.  267. 

4  February  nth,  Rose,  I.  565.   As  to  the  very  complicated  question  of  what 
actually  happened  in  Nootka  Sound,  see  Rose,  passim. 

6  February  i6th.  A  rather  bullying  despatch,  drafted  by  Pitt. 


198  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

intention  of  conceding  the  principle.  In  Spain,  Count  Florida  Blanca 
was  distressed,  so  he  said,  at  the  British  tone :  in  these  times  especially, 
such  matters  ought  to  be  discussed  without  heat1.  In  April,  there 
were  preparations  both  in  English  and  Spanish  dockyards;  and  at 
the  end  of  the  month  the  heat  in  this  country  was  not  lowered  by  the 
reception  of  a  memorial  from  the  aggrieved  party,  Meares,  an  ex- 
lieutenant  of  the  Navy,  who  had  bought  land  from  the  Indians  at 
Nootka  and  was  carrying  on  the  fur-trade  there.  He  made  strong 
charges  of  cruelty  and  bad  faith  against  the  Spaniards. 

War  was  already  in  sight.  "  I  can  see  only  one  circumstance,"  Merry 
wrote  on  April  i2th2,  "which  may  incline  the  King  of  Spain  and  his 
Ministry  to  war — it  is  the  idea  that  it  might  be  the  means  to  re- 
establish the  royal  authority  in  France,  as  that  Kingdom  would 
naturally  take  a  part."  The  whole  tone  of  Florida  Blanca's  communi- 
cations with  Eden  in  1789  justifies  the  assumption  that  the  motive 
indicated  may  have  been  at  work3.  But,  when  Merry  wrote,  he  did 
not  think  it  would  prevail  to  overcome  the  Spanish  Minister's  desire 
for  peace.  However,  after  Great  Britain  had  officially  intimated  that 
she  was  arming,  and  had  sent  out  the  pressgangs,  opinion  at  the 
Spanish  Court  became  more  warlike.  This  was  in  the  first  week  of 
May4.  Merry's  explanation  was  "that  the  national  vanity  of  Spain  had 
so  much  increased  of  late,  as  well  by  the  situation  of  France,  as  by  the 
manner  in  which  she  has  been  flattered  by  the  Imperial  Courts  " — in 
connexion,  that  is,  with  the  schemes  for  a  Quadruple  Alliance5.  It 
is  true  that  Florida  Blanca  had  been  losing  his  hold  on  affairs,  since 
the  death  of  Charles  III  in  1788 ;  persons  vain  in  every  sense  of  the 
word  were  acquiring  influence  at  Court.  Indeed,  the  British  agent 
had  suggested  that  the  Count  might  conceivably  be  contemplating 
war,  in  order  to  secure  his  position  against  them6. 

Meanwhile,  Pitt,  who  had  not  forgotten  how  the  Family  Compact 
had  helped  Washington,  took  a  hand  in  the  game  of  revolution- 
making  in  a  rival's  discontented  provinces,  as  played  by  Hertzberg, 

1  Merry  to  Leeds,  March  22nd. 

2  To  Leeds. 

3  See,  especially, Eden  to  Leeds  July  27th;  August  loth.   It  maybe  noted  that 
Eden  had  "never... seen  reason  to  doubt  either  the  veracity  or  the  candour  of  Count 
Florida  Blanca."   To  Leeds,  February  23 rd,  1789. 

4  Leeds  to  Merry,  May  3rd,  notifying  armament,  and  the  May  despatches  from 
Madrid.  The  pressgangs  were  out  on  the  5th.   A  French  agent  in  England  wrote: 
"  Si  Vonjuge  des  projets  du  gouvernement  anglais  par  les  preparaiifs,  on  doit  croire  a  une 
guerre  la  plus  longue  et  la  plus  severe  possible"   Sorel,  n.  85. 

5  To  Leeds,  May  2Oth. 

6  In  his  letter  of  April  i2th. 


NOOTKA  SOUND  199 

by  entering  into  personal  relation  with  Miranda,  Brissot's  friend,  the 
exiled  advocate  of  South- American  independence1.  Pitt,  with  the  full 
support  of  his  King,  was  now  challenging  Spain  on  the  question  of 
principle2 — the  claim  to  sovereignty  over  the  Pacific  coast  up  to 
60°  N.  Not  wishing  to  exclude  a  peaceful  solution,  he  sent  Alleyne 
Fitzherbert  on  a  special  mission  to  Madrid,  at  the  end  of  May.  But 
it  would  appear  that  in  no  case  did  he  mean  to  withdraw.  His  ready, 
almost  brutal,  acceptance  of  this  challenge  to  a  struggle  in  which 
maritime  prestige  and  the  freedom  of  colonisation  were  at  stake  is  in 
notable  contrast  with  his  laboured  approach  to  any  Continental 
problem.  The  reaction  is  instinctive:  there  are  to  be  no  abstract 
rights  over  blocks  of  parallels  of  latitude :  the  beard  of  the  King  of 
Spain  is  to  be  singed. 

Fitzherbert  went  by  Paris,  to  test  the  strength  of  the  Family 
Compact ;  for  no  one  supposed  that  Spain  would  fight,  if  the  Compact 
now  proved  too  weak  to  hold  France  to  her.  He  was  ''inclined  to 
believe  that  M.  de  Montmorin  is  perfectly  sincere  in  the  desire  that 
he  professes  to  see  our  difference  with  Spain  terminated  amicably," 
but  could  "plainly  perceive  that  many  of  the  other  members  of  the 
aristocratical  faction  are  anxious  to  bring  on  a  war."  *  *  However,  their 
opponents  begin  to  be  aware  of  their  drift  and... have  chosen  the 
present  time  for  carrying  into  execution  their  plan  of  transferring  the 
power  of  making  war  and  peace  from  the  Crown  to  the  National 
Assembly3."  It  was  the  King's  intimation,  given  on  May  i4th,  that 
he  proposed  to  arm  forty  ships  of  the  line  as  a  precautionary  measure, 
which  had  roused  the  Assembly.  Montmorin  hoped  that  the  threat 
from  the  old  enemy,  risen  from  her  humiliation  of  seven  years  ago, 
might  rally  the  representatives  of  the  people  to  the  Throne.  On  the 
contrary,  it  crippled  French  diplomatic  and  military  action  by  ren- 
dering the  seat  of  authority  uncertain.  Robespierre  was  up  on  the 
1 5th  of  May,  proposing  that  France  should  renounce  all  wars  of 
conquest;  Petion  followed  on  the  i7th,  Volney  on  the  iSth,  Barnave 
on  the  2 1 st.  Mirabeau  stood  for  the  King  and  was  called  a  traitor. 
By  the  22nd  it  had  been  decided  that  the  King  might  propose  war 
to  the  Assembly,  but  might  not  declare  it  without  their  concurrence. 
"England  has  nothing  more  to  fear  from  France  and  can  lay  hands 
on  the  hegemony  of  the  two  worlds,  without  scruple  and  without 

1  Details  in  Rose,  I.  569. 

2  Despatch  of  May  4th. 

3  Fitzherbert  to  Leeds,  May  2Oth. 


200  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

fear,"  bitterly  wrote  a  French  agent  from  London1.  Fitzherbert  went 
on  to  Madrid  with  some  confidence. 

He  found  the  Spaniards  unexpectedly,  and  as  he  thought  stupidly, 
warlike — from  a  feeling  of  jealousy,  he  supposed.  They  seemed,  he 
said,  not  to  count  much  on  France,  but  had  hopes  of  the  United  States2. 
However,  before  the  end  of  July  he  had  signed  an  agreement  with 
Florida  Blanca  as  to  the  actual  episode  of  Nootka  Sound.  Spain  pro- 
mised satisfaction3.  "Their  present  object,"  he  now  reported,  "is 
to  preserve  peace  on  alnwst  any  terms." 

No  doubt,  one  reason  was  that  they  had  asked  France  for  armed 
assistance  in  the  middle  of  June  and  had  hitherto  received  no  reply. 
Montmorin  only  laid  the  matter  before  the  Assembly  on  August  2nd. 
It  was  referred  to  the  Diplomatic  Committee,  presided  over  by  Mira- 
beau.  Not  knowing  what  the  outcome  might  be,  Pitt  kept  his  fleets 
ready.  On  August  25th,  at  Mirabeau's  suggestion,  the  Assembly 
decided  to  arm  forty-five  capital  ships  and  begin  a  negotiation  with 
Spain  for  the  transformation  of  the  Family  Compact  into  a  National 
Compact.  A  little  earlier,  Florida  Blanca  had  told  Fitzherbert  that 
his  appeal  to  France  had  been  merely  pro  forma  and  occasioned  by 
England's  similar,  and  earlier,  appeal  to  her  Ally  the  United  Provinces. 
He  did  not  expect  help  from  the  National  Assembly,  "nor  in  truth 
did  he  desire  to  receive  any,  at  the  immediate  risk  of  introducing 
by  that  means  into  this  kingdom  those  democratic  principles  now  so 
universally  prevalent. .  .in  France4."  He  would,  however,  welcome 
support  from  Russia  and  Austria,  but — this  of  course  he  did  not  say 
— he  had  received  no  encouragement  from  either.  When  the  proposal 
for  a  new  sort  of  Compact  was  ready,  in  September,  he  explained  that 
his  King  loathed  it, but  would  have  to  accept,  "if  the  Court  of  London 
pressed  too  hardly  upon  him  in  the  present  juncture5."  But,  since 
the  proposal  was  accompanied  by  the  suggestion  that  Spain  should 
restore  Louisiana  to  France,  and  since  Spain  neither  wished  to  do 
this,  nor  desired  an  alliance  with  the  democrats,  nor  yet  believed  in  the 
fighting  value  of  such  an  alliance,  Florida  Blanca  yielded  to  relentless 
pressure  from  London6,  and  signed,  on  October  28th.  The  claim  to 

Sorel,  ii.  91. 

To  Leeds,  June  i6th. 

Fitzherbert  to  Leeds,  July  25th. 

Fitzherbert  to  Leeds,  August  iQth. 

Fitzherbert  to  Leeds,  September  i6th. 

On  October  2nd  Leeds  is  writing  of  "one  further  effort"  and  "our  final  and 
unalterable  decisions,"  which  if  not  accepted  negotiations  are  to  be  broken  off.  To 
Fitzherbert. 


THE  NOOTKA  SETTLEMENT  AND  FRANCE      201 

Pacific  dominion  north  of  the  actual  Spanish  settlements  was  with- 
drawn :  the  Pacific,  though  not  these  settlements,  was  declared  open  to 
British  commerce  and  fishery :  and  full  restitution  and  compensation 
were  guaranteed  to  the  parties  aggrieved  at  Nootka  Sound1. 

In  Continental  history,  the  most  famous  aspect  of  the  Nootka 
Sound  affair  is  its  relation  to  the  career  of  Mirabeau.  What  was 
his  policy  ?  Why  did  he  suggest  armament  yet  go  no  further  ?  What 
were  his  exact  relations  with  Pitt's  two  semi-official  agents,  his  own 
friend  Hugh  Elliot  and  W.  A.  Miles?  Did  either  of  them  use  the 
legendary  "gold  of  Pitt"?  The  probability  is  that  they  did2.  But 
these  are,  in  truth,  all  secondary  problems  in  the  history  of  British 
Foreign  Policy.  Nothing  suggests  that,  had  France  vigorously  sup- 
ported Spain,  Pitt's  policy  would  have  been  altered.  From  the 
French  side,  it  is  most  doubtful  whether  such  vigorous  support  could 
have  been  given,  whatever  course  Mirabeau  had  followed.  And  Spain 
never  really  wanted  alliance  on  the  only  terms  considered  in  France. 
"His  Catholic  Majesty  could  not  reconcile  it  to  His  Feelings  to 
contribute,  at  a  critical  moment  like  the  present,  to  the  extinguishing 
the  reviving  hopes  of  the  partisans  of  the  French  monarchy  by... a 
renunciation  on  his  part  of  the  Family  Compact3." 

But  the  correspondence  relating  to  the  negotiations  with  Mirabeau 
raises  a  wider  issue.  When  consenting  to  Elliot's  mission,  King  George 
stipulated  that  there  should  be  no  interference  whatever  in  French 
internal  affairs,  no  taking  sides  among  the  French  parties.  "  We  have 
honourably  not  meddled  with  the  internal  dissensions  of  France," 
he  wrote,  "and  no  object  ought  to  drive  us  from  that  honourable 
ground4."  Pitt's  relations  with  Miranda  show  that  such  interference 
was  not  beneath  the  dignity  of  the  British  Cabinet ;  but  the  King's 
statement  was  nevertheless  true.  The  British  inaction  had  surprised 
Continental  observers.  Even  in  1789,  the  diplomatic  gossips  in  Berlin 
could  not  understand  Pitt's  conduct;  they  thought  he  could  not  be 
such  a  fool  as  not  to  declare  war5.  And  a  German  scholar  wrote: 
"What  do  you  think  of  the  French  Revolution?  That  England  has 

1  For  the  final  stages  see  Fitzherbert's  despatches  of  October  I4th,  i8th,  24th, 
28th.  On  October  i4th,  on  receipt  of  Leed's  of  October  2nd,  he  feared  rupture. 

2  Rose,  Pitt,  i.  577  sqq. — a  discussion  which  goes  nearer  to  providing  satisfactory 
answers  to  these  questions  than  any  other. 

9  Fitzherbert  to  Leeds,  November  28th,  1790. 

4  To  Pitt,  October  26th,  1790.  P.  V.  Smith  MSS.  p.  368  in  H.M.C.  Duke  of 
Beaufort  MSS.  and  others.  The  collection  was  made  by  Pitt's  secretary,  Joseph 
Smith. 

6  Report  of  the  Comte  d'Esterno  from  Berlin,  September  9th,  1789.  Sorel, 
n.  29*1. 


202  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

allowed  it  is  a  tribute  to  her  heart,  but  not  to  her  head1."  No  doubt, 
the  heart  had  its  influence.  An  English  statesman  could  scarcely 
have  interfered,  had  he  wished  it,  in  the  early  days  of  sympathy  for 
a  people  struggling  for  freedom.  And  the  King's  honourable  horror 
of  such  interference  as  that  from  which  he  had  himself  suffered  during 
the  American  War  was  always  a  restraining  force.  But  a  main  reason 
for  abstention  was  a  calculation  of  the  head,  which  proved  to  be 
wrong — that  France  was  no  longer  dangerous.  That  "the  rival  of 
Great  Britain  was,  at  least  for  the  present  annihilated,"  was  still  an 
axiom  in  the  Foreign  Office  at  the  end  of  ijqo2.  Great  Britain  did  not 
at  once  realise,  as  the  German  scholar  did,  that "  the  republic  of  twenty- 
four  millions  would  give  her  more  trouble  than  the  autocracy."  In 
1789-90,  she  did  not  foresee  a  republic. 

In  one  of  his  despatches  to  Fitzherbert,  Leeds  had  explained  that 
Great  Britain  could  not  reduce  her  naval  establishment  until  France 
did  the  same.  He  had  added  that  it  would  not  be  wise  to  do  so,  with 
the  Russian  matter  still  pending3.  At  that  time,  the  representatives 
of  Great  Britain,  Austria,  Prussia,  Holland  and  Turkey  were  preparing 
to  move  to  the  dirty  little  oriental  town  of  Sistova  on  the  Danube4, 
to  arrange  an  eastern  peace  on  the  basis  of  the  status  quo.  Sir  Robert 
Keith  arrived  there  on  December  2Oth5.  No  Russian  came.  On 
December  22nd,  Suvoroff,  Bessarabia  now  behind  him,  stormed 
Ismail,  far  down  the  river,  and  was  in  a  position  to  organise  an  in- 
vasion of  the  Sultan's  home  provinces,  by  way  of  the  Dobrudja. 
Earlier  in  the  month  (December  2nd),  Leopold's  armies,  set  in  motion 
against  his  rebellious  subjects  in  Belgium,  had  entered  Brussels 
without  difficulty.  The  Belgians  had  been  ruined  by  their  divisions. 
All  through  1790,  the  democratic  party,  headed  by  Vonck,  had  been 
working  against  the  Catholic  and  Constitutional  party  of  van  der  Noot. 
These  "Red  Patriots,"  as  an  English  agent  called  them6,  had  been 
encouraged  by  the  visits  of  two  French  agents,  first  La  Fayette's 
confidant  Semonville,  then  Dumouriez,  who  had  reported  very  un- 
favourably on  the  military  prospects  of  any  Belgian  Government7.  By 

1  Georg  Forster.    Cf.  Gooch,  Germany  and  the  French  Revolution,  p.  304. 

2  From  a  long  unsigned  and  undated  memoir  On  a  Defensive  Alliance  with  Spain, 
a  subject  under  discussion  after  the  Nootka  settlement. 

3  Leeds  to  Fitzherbert,  October  and,  1790. 

4  Now  in  Bulgaria. 

5  Memoirs  of  Sir  R.  M.  Keith,  n.  324. 

6  Colonel  Gardiner  to  Leeds,  February  2nd,  1790. 

7  Gardiner's  reports  of  July  I2th  and  26th  and  August  2nd  contain  a  full 
account  of  this  mission  and  an  excellent  appreciation  of  Dumouriez. 


CONGRESS  OF  SISTOVA.  GUSTAVUS  III  OF  SWEDEN  203 

the  beginning  of  1791,  not  only  had  Belgian  opposition  to  Leopold 
collapsed ;  his  tact  and  discretion  had  calmed  the  rest  of  his  dominions. 

It  is  not  therefore  surprising,  nor  really  very  discreditable,  that 
the  Austrian  representatives  at  Sistova  should  have  wasted  time  and 
attempted  to  escape  from  their  promise  about  the  status  quo1.  The 
promise  had  been  extracted  by  pressure.  Suvoroff  was  now  exerting 
great,  if  indirect,  counter-pressure.  -That  the  Triple  Alliance  would 
be  able  to  force  Catharine  to  renounce  her  conquests  seemed  unlikely. 
If  Turkey  collapsed,  were  the  Habsburgs,  who  had  suffered  much  in 
contributing  to  that  collapse,  to  go  away  empty  handed? 

Catharine's  position  had  been  strengthened  during  1790  by  the 
action  of  Gustavus  III  of  Sweden.  Saved  from  what  looked  like  a  risk 
of  destruction  in  1788,  he  had  managed  to  carry  through  a  coup  d'etat 
against  the  aristocratic  party,  in  1789.  But  his  political  successes 
at  home  had  not  improved  his  financial  position.  He  always  tried 
to  drive  hard  bargains  with  the  Triple  Alliance ;  and,  at  any  time,  the 
prospects  of  active  Swedish  campaigning  depended  on  the  success  of 
such  bargains2.  In  1790,  he  could  only  secure  a  small  part  of  his 
demands — from  Great  Britain  and  Prussia,  the  Dutch  being  unwilling 
to  assist.  Catharine  made  him  attractive  offers  after  Reichenbach. 
Moreover,  ever  since  October,  1789,  he  had  been  passionately  interested 
in  the  fate  of  his  ancient  Ally  the  King  of  France,  and  he  wished  to 
be  free  to  champion  the  cause  of  monarchy.  His  solicitude  for  that 
cause,  if  romantic  and  impracticable,  was  disinterested.  Suddenly, 
in  July,  1790,  although  a  British  fleet  was  ready  to  sail  to  the  Baltic, 
and  although  he  had  promised  not  to  conclude  a  separate  peace  with 
Russia,  he  sent  Baron  Armfelt  to  conclude  such  a  peace.  The  way 
was  made  easy  for  Armfelt,  and  Peace  was  signed  on  August  i4th, 
i79o3. 

This  defection  had  increased  the  desire,  which  had  long  existed 
in  London,  to  widen  the  Triple  Alliance.  Gustavus  himself  had  been 
an  ally  designate.  Among  other  possible  allies  were  Denmark — but 
she  was  unlikely — and  the  reformed  Republic  of  Poland,  which  would 
have  been  glad  of  this  admission  to  the  circle  of  Great  Powers.  As 
the  chief  British  promoters  of  this  extended  system  of  alliances  were 

1  See  Keith's  Memoirs,  n.  369  sqq.   Letters  of  February  to  June,  1791. 

"The  Swede  is  not  much  to  be  depended  on  even  when  highly  paid."  Auck- 
land to  Grenville,  April  zoth,  1791.   Dropmore  Papers,  n.  49. 

3  See  Geffroy,  Gustave  III  et  la  cour  de  France,  u.  102  sqq.  and  Rose,  Pitt, 
I'  530-2.  In  January,  1791,  Gustavus  wrote  to  Catharine  to  suggest  a  joint  refusal 
to  recognise  the  tricolour  flag.  Geffroy,  II.  1 1 1 . 


204  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

Ewart  at  Berlin  and  Hailes  at  Warsaw,  the  chances  of  Poland's 
admission  to  what  these  Ambassadors,  in  their  despatches,  referred 
to  as  "the  great  federal  chain1"  at  one  time  seemed  good.  The  final 
detachment  of  Poland  from  her  Russian  connexion  was  specially 
attractive  at  a  time  when  Catharine  appeared  the  chief  obstacle  to 
"the  restoration  of  general  tranquillity."  But  Prussia  looked  on  Poland 
as  her  own  preserve  and  suspected  any  proposal  for  a  commercial 
treaty,  the  form  into  which  the  projected  Anglo-Polish  rapprochement 
was  first  thrown.  "  It  is  contrary  to  myinterests  and  insidious  and  must 
be  set  aside,"  King  Frederick  William  wrote  in  October2.  He  was  con- 
scious that  any  strengthening  of  Poland  would  make  her  less  likely  to 
cede  the  necessary  minimum  after  all  these  years  of  effort,  that  is,  Thorn 
and  Danzig.  At  the  end  of  the  year  the  Poles  had  a  representative  in 
London,  Count  Oginski,  who  had  a  series  of  interviews  with  Pitt3. 
Poland  was,  also,  in  treaty  with  the  Porte  for  a  commercial  outlet 
down  the  Dniester,  to  evade  a  Prussian  throttling  of  the  Vistula  trade. 
She  was  most  reluctant  to  cede  anything,  and  was  furious  with 
Prussia  who  had  not  won  for  her  any  part  of  Galicia,  yet  still  talked  of 
compensation.  Pitt  gave  Oginski  good  economic  advice,  and  sug- 
gested the  cession  of  Danzig  alone,  in  return  for  a  commercial  treaty 
with  Prussia  providing  for  outlets  in  that  direction.  The  suggestion 
was  acceptable  neither  to  Poland  nor  to  Prussia.  Thus,  when,  in 
January,  1791,  actual  proposals  for  the  admission  of  Poland  to  the 
Triple  Alliance  were  sent  to  Berlin  and  Warsaw,  the  business  lan- 
guished until  the  break  up  of  the  Alliance  in  April;  and  it  was 
never  revived4.  At  this  very  time,  Hertzberg  was  preparing  the  way 
for  the  Second  Partition  by  secret  personal  dealings  with  Russia5. 

Catharine  was  known  to  demand  Oczakoif  and  its  district.  It 
was  supposed,  but  not  certainly  known,  that  this  was  meant  to  cover 
all  the  land  to  the  Dniester,  including  Odessa — at  that  time  a  village 
never  mentioned  in  the  despatches.  Frederick  William  was  com- 
mitted to  the  support  of  Turkey,  and  was  at  this  time  resolute  for  the 
status  quo.  If  he  could  force  it  on  Russia,  Austria  could  not  evade  it, 
and,  at  least,  no  rival  would  gain  territory  and  "  souls  " — the  currency  of 
Princely  bargains — when  he  as  yet  had  acquired  none.  But  he  did  not 
want  war.  In  England,  his  most  valuable  advocates  were  Whitworth, 

1  Hailes  to  Leeds,  June  i8th,  1790.    He  has  heard  with  delight  from  Ewart 
of  the  prospect  of  Poland,  Sweden  and  the  Porte  entering  our  "  great  federal  chain." 

2  October  2ist.   Salomon,  p.  500. 

3  See  Rose,  I.  594  sqq.  and  Salomon,  pp.  506-7. 

4  Rose,  i.  595,  599.  5  See  Rose,  I.  597. 


GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  POLAND.   OCZAKOW       205 

whose  despatches  from  Petrograd  led  Pitt  to  suppose  that  Russia 
must  yield  to  a  threat  of  force1,  and  Joseph  Ewart,  on  leave  from 
Berlin  in  the  winter  of  1790-1.  Ewart  had  laid  before  Pitt  a  series  of 
Considerations  on  the  expediency  of  combining  Poland,  Turkey  and  one 
of  the  inferior  Baltic  Powers  in  the  defensive  System  of  the  Allies*.  He 
insisted  on  the  enormous  importance  of  Oczakoff  and  the  risk  to 
British  prestige  which  its  acquisition  by  Catharine  would  involve. 
There  was  also  the  certainty  of  losing  our  chief  Ally,  who  had  stood 
by  us  in  the  Nootka  business,  and,  with  him,  all  control  over  Leopold 
and  the  course  of  events.  Ewart's  argument  was  traversed  by  Auck- 
land, now  Ambassador  at  the  Hague.  Writing  to  Pitt  personally  he 
urged  "the  importance  of  peace  to  your  whole  system  of  government," 
suggested  that  "we  overrated  the  object  in  question,"  as  Oczakoff 
was  not  really  vital,  and  explained  that  he  had  good  reason  to  believe 
that  the  King  of  Prussia  had  no  wish  for  a  Russian  war3.  The 
Pensionary  van  de  Spiegel  supported  Auckland. 

Ewart  won.  By  the  beginning  of  February  Great  Britain  was  com- 
mitted in  principle  to  the  enforcement  of  the  status  quo  on  Russia 
by  a  threat  of  force,  though  a  final  decision  was  postponed.  Reluctance 
to  risk  the  break  up  of  an  Alliance  which  had  done  much  for  the 
peace  of  Europe  and  our  own  prestige ;  a  measure  of  gratitude  to  the 
King  of  Prussia;  fear  lest  the  Austro-Turkish  Peace,  for  whose 
character  Great  Britain  stood  pledged,  should  miscarry ;  forebodings 
of  an  ultimate  clash  of  interest  between  Russia  and  ourselves  in  the 
Near  East ;  and  perhaps  some  desire  to  school  a  particularly  arrogant 
woman — all  contributed  to  the  decision.  Ewart  was  arguing  his  case, 
but  also  stating  the  main  issue  as  he  induced  Ministers  to  see  it,  when 
he  wrote  to  Auckland  on  January  5th :  "  I  am  sure  your  Lordship  will 
agree  with  me... that  Oczakoff  and  its  district  are  very  secondary 
considerations  in  comparison  of  the  great  influence  which  the  decision 
of  the  present  question  must  have  on  the  strength  and  permanency 
of  the  system  of  the  Allies  on  which  the  preservation  of  peace  likewise 
depends4." 

Auckland  did  his  duty  at  the  Hague  with  reluctance.  "If  that 
Russian  business  could  happily  be  settled  we  might  sit  still  and  look 

1  Rose,  i.  598. 

2  Pitt  MSS.    Salomon,  p.  502.  There  are  also  two  able  Memoirs  by  Ewart  on 
Anglo-Russian  relations,  dated  April,  1791,  in  the  Drop-more  Papers^  II.  44  sqq. 

3  To  Pitt,  January  29th,  1791.   Dropmore  Papers,  n.  22. 

4  Auckland  MSS.,  B.M.  Add.  34435.   J.  B.  Burges,  the  Under-secretary  for 
Foreign  Affairs,  wrote  more  and  more  in  this  same  strain  to  Auckland — e.g.  March 
ist,  1791,  showing  that  Ewart's  doctrine  had  become  official  orthodoxy. 


2o6  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

at  the  French  story  like  spectators  in  a  theatre,"  he  wrote  to  his 
brother  in  January.  And,  in  March,  he  wrote  to  Grenville:  "This 
phantom  of  Oczakoff  has  appeared  to  me  for  some  time  to  beckon 
us  towards  an  abyss  of  new  debts  and  endless  difficulties  at  a  moment 
. .  .when  it  may  be  essential  perhaps  to  the  very  existence  of  our  govern- 
ment and  of  many  other  civilised  states,  that  we  should  maintain  our 
own  internal  peace...1."  Auckland  had  now  comprehended  the 
possible  dangers  from  "a  republic  of  twenty-four  millions,"  which 
Georg  Forster  foresaw  in  1789. 

Pitt  took  no  risks  and  worked  at  all  the  Courts,  beginning  with 
his  Allies,  before  reaching  his  final  decision.  Plans  were  communicated 
to  the  Hague  and  Berlin.  At  the  Hague,  information  was  sought  from 
the  Dutch  Admiral  Kingsbergen,  who  had  recently  visited  Oczakoff. 
Frederick  William  was  told  that  London  saw  no  possible  counter- 
alliance  which  might  prevent  the  humbling  of  Russia  in  the  spring2. 
At  Madrid,  Fitzherbert  was  to  solicit  Spanish  help  or,  failing  that, 
a  promise  of  neutrality.  He  secured  the  latter — a  promise  of  "the 
strictest  neutrality3."  Copenhagen  made  the  same  promise.  At 
Stockholm,  Liston  failed  to  catch  "the  Swede"  with  offers  of  money. 
Lord  Elgin,  who  had  been  sent  on  a  special  mission  to  Leopold  II 
in  November,  1790,  to  congratulate  him  on  his  accession  and  facilitate 
a  Belgian  settlement  by  direct  negotiation,  was,  if  he  could,  to  secure 
Austrian  cooperation  in  a  general  settlement,  and  to  speed  up  the 
Congress  of  Sistova;  or  at  least,  to  keep  Leopold  from  helping  the 
Tsarina4.  Paris  was  not  neglected.  Hugh  Elliot  and  Miles  were  to 
let  it  be  known  privately  that  Pitt  was  not  making  preparations  against 
France5. 

By  the  end  of  February,  Frederick  William  had  learnt,  as  he 
supposed,  that  Austria  might  be  kept  quiet — possibly  by  concessions 
at  Sistova — in  the  event  of  a  Prusso-Russian  war.  He  had  learnt  it,  in 
a  way  characteristic  of  his  methods,  by  the  despatch  to  Vienna  of  his 
personal  favourite  and  confidant  Colonel  Bischoffswerder.  Pitt,  mean- 
while, was  testing  the  information  about  Oczakoff  supplied  from 
Holland,  which,  coming  through  Auckland,  insisted  on  the  un- 

1  To  Morton  Eden,  January   nth;  to   Grenville,   March   5th.     B.M.   Add. 
34435-6- 

2  Leeds  to  Jackson  (Ewart's  deputy),  January  8th. 

3  Leeds  to  Fitzherbert,  January  3rd ;  Fitzherbert  to  Leeds  January  29th. 

4  Elgin's  special  mission,  P.O.  Austria,  vol.  23.    Despatches  of  January  to 
February. 

5  Miles  Correspondence,  i.  43,  280.   All  these  various  negotiations  are  referred 
to  by  Salomon,  pp.  504-6. 


OCZAKOFF.  PITT'S  WITHDRAWAL  207 

important  aspects  of  the  place1.  Leeds  was  talking  of  how  to  avoid 
war  without  sacrificing  honour.  He  feared  we  were  too  far  committed2. 
In  Berlin,  at  the  same  time,  Hertzberg  was  thinking  of  the  same  things, 
though  from  another  angle.  Hertzberg,  however,  was  not  Prussia.  The 
King  did  not  desire  war,  but  wrote,  on  March  nth,  a  personal  letter 
to  his  Ambassador  in  London  explaining  the  reputedly  favourable 
attitude  of  Leopold,  and  suggesting  the  coercion  of  Russia  by  a 
"display  of  force3."  This  letter  decided  the  British  Cabinet.  On 
March  ayth,  the  ultimatum  went  to  Russia,  and  plans  for  naval  and 
military  preparations  to  Berlin4.  Catharine  was  to  resign  all  the 
conquests  of  this  war,  but  might  retain  the  Crimea,  absorbed  in  1783. 
It  was  to  recover  the  Crimea  that  Turkey  had  declared  war  in  1788. 
There  remained  Parliament,  which  was  apprised  next  day  of  the 
need  for  naval  preparations.  The  Lords  were  critical,  but  yielded 
a  substantial  majority.  In  the  Commons,  Pitt  seems  to  have  opened 
badly;  the  Whigs  had  excellent  opportunities;  but  the  majority  was 
again  considerable.  Yet  there  was  no  enthusiasm  for  the  policy  of 
Ministers,  which  is  in  no  way  surprising,  in  view  of  the  remoteness 
of  the  object  and  the  hesitation  they  had  themselves  shown  in  adopting 
it.  Further,  on  the  day  they  despatched  their  ultimatum,  news  came, 
first,  from  Auckland — who  controlled  a  better  cabinet  noir  than  any 
other  British  diplomatist — that  "he  had  happened  to  see"  a  ciphered 
Prussian  despatch  which  showed  clearly  that,  in  spite  of  the  King's 
letter,  the  Emperor  was  not  to  be  trusted,  and,  secondly,  from  Drake 
at  Copenhagen,  that  Catharine  was  likely  to  prove  reasonable  in 
negotiation5.  The  Cabinet  met  often  and  discussed  long,  early  in 
April.  Some  change  of  front  was  suggested,  but  opposed  by  Leeds, 
who  did  not  see  how  it  could  be  managed  with  honour6.  By  April 
loth  Pitt  was  confessing  to  Ewart,  that  he  had  failed  to  make  the 
House  understand  the  matter  and  could  never  carry  the  vote  of  credit, 
and  was  "  repeating,  even  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  that  it  was  the  greatest 
mortification  he  had  ever  experienced7."  Within  a  few  days,  Leeds 
had  refused  to  sign  despatches  suggesting  a  modification  of  the 
ultimatum,  and  had  made  way  for  William  Grenville.  Before  the 

1  Rose,  I.  604. 

2  To  Auckland,  March  nth.    Quoted  in  Rose,  I.  605,  from  B.M.  Add.  34436. 

3  Rose,  I.  607-8,  where  the  King's  letter  is  quoted  from  the  F.  O.  records. 
Salomon  (p.  514)  failed  to  find  the  original  at  Berlin. 

4  Leeds  to  Jackson  and  Leeds  to  Whitworth,  March  27th. 

5  Rose,  i.  614-5. 

6  See  Browning,  Political  Memoranda  of  Francis,  Fifth  Duke  of  Leeds,  1 50-73 . 

7  Major-General  Sir  Spencer  Ewart's  MSS.,  first  used  by  Rose,  I.  617. 


2o8  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

end  of  the  month,  Ewart,  returning  to  Berlin  from  a  sense  of  loyalty 
towards  Pitt,  in  order  to  undo  his  own  policy,  had  seen  the  King,  who 
said  repeatedly  that,  "as  he  was  convinced  the  intentions  were  good, 
however  mortified  he  might  be  at  the  change,  he  would  concur  in 
doing  everything  in  his  power  to  prevent  bad  consequences1."  In 
July,  Auckland  was  explaining  to  his  brother  how  much  he  preferred 
Grenville  to  Leeds,  and  how  "from  the  hour  of  his  taking  the  seals 
we  have  laboured  hard  to  get  not  quite  disgracefully  out  of  a  very 
bad  scrape,  and  I  begin  to  hope  that  it  will  end  tolerably  well2."  This 
was  after  the  flight  to  Varennes — the  hinge  on  which  European  history 
in  1791  swings.  "All  political  speculation  will  now  turn  to  France," 
Auckland  wrote  in  August.  Russian  affairs,  he  said,  were  not  working 
out  so  ill  after  all3.  Catharine  would  obtain  her  Dniester  boundary,  but 
no  more.  His  desire  to  see  these  affairs  out  of  the  way,  that  the 
English  might  "  look  at  the  French  story  like  spectators  in  a  theatre," 
seemed  near  fulfilment. 

Spectators  they  became  for  a  year  and  more.  From  every  Court, 
when  once  the  debris  of  Russian  policy  and  the  Sistova  Congress  have 
been  cleared  up,  the  reports  of  the  British  Ambassadors  are  those  of 
a  profoundly  interested  audience  at  the  great  Continental  play.  The 
Triple  Alliance  faded  into  nominal  life,  a  "conviction  of  good  in- 
tentions" being  a  poor  foundation  even  for  a  political  friendship. 
"I  know  now,"  Ewart  wrote  in  August,  "that  though  the  King  and 
Colonel  Bischoffswerder  professed  to  be  satisfied  with  the  explanation 
I  gave  them,  they  immediately  lost  confidence  in  the  resources  both 
of  the  Alliance  and  of  this  country4."  So,  Great  Britain  lost  her 
diplomatic  point  d'appui.  The  Congress  of  Sistova  was  speeded  up, 
not  so  much  because  Elgin  demanded  it,  as  because  Leopold  became 
absorbed  in  French  affairs,  anxious  to  put  others  aside,  and  thus 
accessible  to  Colonel  Bischoffswerder,  the  leading  Prussian  advocate 
of  interference  in  France.  In  May  and  June,  Elgin  was  following 
Leopold  up  and  down  Italy,  trying  to  detach  him  from  Russia,  ac- 
cording to  instructions.  While  Elgin  was  talking  in  terms  of  the 
previous  year's  diplomacy,  Leopold — aware  of  his  sister's  projected 
flight — was  debating  whether  the  friendship  which  Great  Britain 
offered  might  not  be  used  to  establish  a  European  Concert  for  the 
settlement  of  France.  Elgin  came  to  think  that  Leopold  was  mainly 

1  Ewart  to  Grenville,  April  soth. 

2  July  icth.  B.M.  Add.  34438. 

3  To  Morton  Eden,  August  izth.  B.M.  Add.  34439. 

4  To  Grenville,  August  zist. 


ISOLATION  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN  209 

concerned  to  check  the  "progress  of  democratical  principles."  "  Nay, 
his  Imperial  Majesty  went  so  far  as  to  suggest  the  expediency  of 
guaranteeing  not  only  the  possessions,  but  also  the  Constitutions  of 
the  different  States  of  Europe1." 

A  month  later,  Bischoffswerder  came  to  Italy  from  Berlin  to  offer 
an  alliance,  and  was  well  received.  Before  the  news  of  Varennes 
arrived,  Leopold  had  promised  to  finish  at  Sistova  and  had  issued  the 
necessary  orders.  He  had  agreed  to  a  defensive  alliance  with  Prussia, 
and  to  a  personal  interview  with  Frederick  William.  Elgin,  though 
kept  on  the  fringe  of  affairs,  knew  the  outline  of  all  this2.  After  the 
Varennes  catastrophe,  Leopold  issued  his  Padua  Circular  to  the  Powers, 
with  its  suggestion  of  joint  action  to  "vindicate  the  liberty  and  honour 
of  the  Most  Christian  King  and  his  family,  and  to  limit  the  dangerous 
extremes  of  the  French  Revolution." 

Great  Britain  did  not  commit  herself  over  this  Circular,  until  she 
was  sure  that  Leopold  meant  to  finish  at  Sistova.  Such  was  now  his 
intention.  By  August  i3th  the  Sistova  Treaty  was  ratified  at  Vienna. 
After  the  lapse  of  a  year,  the  Reichenbach  agreement  had  been  strictly 
carried  out  and  British  policy  endorsed.  Attached  to  the  main  Treaty 
was  a  separate  Convention  specifying  "the  small  and  voluntary  con- 
cessions which  the  Turks  were  disposed  to  grant3  " ;  but  this  had  been 
allowed  for  at  Reichenbach.  Three  days  earlier,  Catharine's  negotiators 
had  agreed  to  preliminaries  of  peace  with  Turkey.  No  mediating 
Powers  were  there:  Catharine  had  never  intended  otherwise.  She 
secured  her  Dniester  boundary.  In  consequence  of  Great  Britain's 
volte-face  in  the  matter  of  Oczakoff,  the  event  forms  no  part  of  the 
history  of  British  Foreign  Policy,  though,  perhaps,  but  for  that 
policy  and  its  reactions  on  Austria,  Catharine  might  not  have  re- 
nounced Bessarabia. 

After  that,  Great  Britain  hardly  made  a  pretence  of  remaining  in  the 
Triple  Alliance  or  of  continuing  to  figure  on  the  Continental  stage. 
Witness  Grenville's  private  letter  to  Auckland  of  August  23rd:  "The 
conclusion  of  the  Sistova  business  has  removed  every  difficulty  which 
there  was  in  the  way  of  our  speaking  out,  and  avowing  our  determina- 
tion of  the  most  scrupulous  neutrality  in  the  French  business — and 
I  now  hold  this  language  to  all  the  foreign  ministers,  in  order  that 
it  may  be  clearly  understood  that  we  are  no  parties  to  any  step  the 

1  To  Grenville,  May  9th,  1791. 

2  His  despatches  June  i3th,  I4th,  i8th  contain  fairly  full  accounts,  derived 
apparently  from  Bischoffswerder. 

3  Keith  to  Grenville,  August  2nd,  1791. 

W.&G.I.  14 


aio  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

King  of  Prussia  may  take  on  this  subject1."  Or  see  Grenville's  Instruc- 
tions to  Keith  a  month  later,  after  Leopold  and  Frederick  William 
had  issued  the  Declaration  of  Pillnitz  (August  27th),  and  the  Emigrant 
Princes  their  insolent  address  to  King  Lewis,  in  which  they  told  him 
he  had  no  right  to  sign  the  new  Constitution:  "With  respect  to  the 
concert  which  has  been  proposed  to  His  Majesty  and  to  other  Powers 
by  the  Emperor,  or  to  the  measures  of  active  intervention  which 
appear  to  have  been  in  contemplation  for  the  restoration  of  the  French 
monarchy ..  .the  King  has  determined  not  to  take  any  part  either  in 
supporting  or  in  opposing  them.  This  resolution  he  has  already  ex- 
plained to  his  allies  and  also  to  other  powers,  and... he  commanded 
me  to  instruct  you  to  use  a  similar  language  at  Vienna2." 

Six  months  later,  March  2Oth,  1792,  Auckland,  now  in  retirement 
at  Beckenham,  yet  "every  day  seeing  well-informed  men  of  all 
descriptions,"  wrote  to  a  friend  that  he  had  heard  recently  from 
Mr  Burges,  the  Under- Secretary  at  the  Foreign  Office;  but  that  "the 
remarks  which  he  makes  are  general  and  chiefly  calculated. .  .to  explain 
that  England  has  little  concern  now  in  what  is  going  forward  on  the 
Continent" — the  Revolutionary  Wars  began  a  month  later — "except 
perhaps  with  regard  to  Poland,  to  which  the  Empress  seems  to  turn 
her  attention  in  a  manner  that  may  eventually  interest  other  powers 
though  it  will  not  implicate  us."  Catharine  was  moving  up  her 
armies  to  destroy  the  reformed  Polish  Constitution,  completed  in 
May,  1791,  after  the  Triple  Alliance  and  with  it  Great  Britain's  Polish 
policy  had  cracked.  She  was  also  inciting  Prussia  and  Austria  to 
attack  France,  in  order  to  obtain  "elbow  room"  in  Poland3.  "His 
remark,"  Auckland  continued,  "that  we  have  no  concern  in  foreign 
politics  is  true  in  another  sense  to  a  degree  that  I  cannot  describe  to 
you... and  this  indifference  as  to  foreign  affairs  is  general  thro'  the 
kingdom ;  you  may  trace  it  even  in  your  newspapers ;  perhaps  it  may 
justly  be  attributed  to  the  great  prosperity  of  the  country,  which 
confines  all  attention  to  interior  and  insular  details.  I  have  lately 
much  wished  to  pass  a  day  or  two  at  the  Hague  for  the  sake  of  a  little 
rational  conversation4."  Auckland  instanced,  as  the  kind  of  topic  in 
which  no  interest  whatever  was  taken  by  representative  Englishmen, 
the  death  of  the  Emperor  Leopold  (March  ist,  1792).  It  was  a  well- 

1  B.M.  Add.  34439. 

2  Grenville  to  Keith,  September  igth,  1791. 

3  Sorel,  ii.  216-7.  See  also  Kaunitz'  analysis  of  her  motives  in  Vivenot,  Quellen 
zur  Geschichte  der . .  .Kaiserpolitik  Oesterreichs,  I.  358. 

4  B.M.  Add.  34441. 


BRITISH  INSULARITY  211 

chosen  illustration;  for,  although  it  is  most  unlikely  that  Leopold 
would  have  averted  the  clash  between  Old  Europe  and  revolutionary 
France  in  1792 — both  he  and  the  French  were  too  deeply  committed 
to  war  before  he  died — yet  it  is  certain  that  the  loss  of  his  skilful 
and  mediating  personality  and  the  substitution  for  it  of  a  young  and 
ignorant  Prince,  dominated  by  a  mixed  group  of  advisers,  were  a 
disaster  for  Europe. 

Auckland  wrote  as  a  diplomatist,  with  a  high  standard  of  interest 
in  foreign  affairs.  There  was  in  England  no  lack  of  vague  interest; 
Burke 's  Reflections  sold  well;  but,  from  Pitt  downwards,  the  country 
was  in  a  mood  to  wash  its  hands  of  Continental  matters.  Even  Pitt's 
interest  in  them  had  been  intermittent.  Now,  the  old  enemy  was 
believed  to  be  crippled.  She  must  be  watched,  but  need  not  be 
countered.  Hardly  anyone  had  begun  to  think  regularly  of  Russian 
power  as  a  danger  to  English  interests.  In  1790,  some  attention  had 
been  given  to  a  pamphlet  which  made  much  of  the  Russian  threat  to 
the  Balance  of  Power  in  Europe ;  but  Oczakoff  revealed  the  funda- 
mental indifference.  Only  a  handful  of  experts  had  ever  understood 
the  working  of  the  Triple  Alliance.  It  was  an  affair  of  Cabinets  and 
Courts  and  favourites,  of  intercepted  despatches  and  Congresses  in 
inaccessible  places.  No  single  event  in  its  history,  since  the  initial 
strokes  in  the  Low  Countries,  was  of  the  least  interest  to  the  average 
educated  Englishman.  With  Nootka  Sound  it  had  been  different.  The 
place  was  more  remote  than  Sistova  or  Oczakoff;  but,  even  down  to 
the  No-Popery  mobs  of  London,  Englishmen  could  understand  a 
maritime  quarrel  with  Spain. 

"The  English,"  we  find  Albert  Sorel  writing,  towards  the  end  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  "only  make  up  their  minds  to  fight  when 
their  interests  seem  absolutely  threatened.  But  then,  plunging  into 
the  struggle  because  they  feel  themselves  bound  to  do  so,  they  apply 
to  it  a  serious  and  concentrated  passion,  an  animosity  the  more 
tenacious  because  its  motive  is  so  self-regarding.  Their  history  is 
full  of  alternations  between  an  indifference  which  makes  people  think 
them  decadent,  and  a  rage  which  baffles  their  foes.  They  are  seen,  in 
turn,  abandoning  and  dominating  Europe,  neglecting  the  greatest 
Continental  matters  and  claiming  to  control  even  the  smallest,  turning 
from  peace  at  any  price  to  war  to  the  death1."  During  the  early  years 
of  Pitt's  Ministry,  they  had  been  in  one  of  these  phases  of  apparent 
indifference.  From  1787  to  1791,  they  seemed  to  be  preparing  for 

1  L'Europe  et  la  Revolution  Franfaise,  I.  240.  (First  published  in  1885.) 

14—3 


2i2  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

the  alternative  phase.  Had  Oczakoff  led  to  a  general  war — but  for 
the  change  of  front,  a  very  probable  contingency — then  the  phase  of 
rage  might  have  set  in ;  for  a  general  war  would  soon  have  threatened 
England's  nearer  interests.  As  it  was,  the  phase  of  indifference  never 
seemed  more  complete  than  in  the  eighteen  months  which  preceded 
the  longest  of  her  modern  Wars. 

After  the  rebuff  to  the  Padua  Circular,  the  Powers  of  Europe  made 
no  attempt  to  influence  her.  The  Emigrant  Princes  tried,  now  and  again ; 
but  their  cause  was  so  hopeless,  in  view  of  England's  deliberately 
adopted  attitude,  that  the  details  have  no  place  in  the  history  of  her 
foreign  policy.  "Repeated  applications  have  been  made  to  His 
Majesty,"  Grenville  wrote  at  the  end  of  August,  1791,  "on  the  part 
of  the  Emperor,  of  the  King  of  Sweden,  and  of  the  French  Princes, 
to  concert  in  the  plans  which  are  in  agitation  for  restoring  the  French 
monarchy.  But  His  Majesty  has  determined  not  to  depart  from... 
strict  neutrality1."  From  that  policy  there  was  not  the  slightest 
deviation  during  the  following  year.  It  was  the  same  when  England 
was  approached  from  another  section  of  French  opinion — the  Con- 
stitutional revolutionary  party.  The  approaches  were  made,  first, 
informally  before  the  outbreak  of  war  in  Europe  in  1792,  and  then, 
formally,  after  the  outbreak.  On  both  occasions  Talleyrand  was  the 
agent.  The  object  was  to  ensure  English  neutrality  and  feel  towards 
an  Anglo-French  entente2. 

Talleyrand  came  first,  in  the  middle  of  January,  1792.  The  visit 
and  its  results  were  summarised,  from  the  English  side,  by  Grenville, 
writing  to  Lord  Gower  at  Paris,  early  in  March3.  "Since  I  wrote  to 
Your  Excellency  on  the  subject  of  M.  de  Talleyrand  I  have  seen  that 
gentleman  twice.  The  first  time  he  explained  to  me  very  much  at  large 
the  disposition  of  the  French  Government... to  enter  into  the  strictest 
connection  with  Great  Britain,  and  proposed  that  this  should  be  done 
by  a  Treaty  of  mutual  guaranty,  or  in  such  other  manner  as  the  Govern- 
ment of  this  country  should  prefer."  Grenville  told  him  that  he  did 
not  expect  to  be  able  to  enter  into  any  kind  of  negotiation  with  an 
agent  not  officially  accredited.  At  the  second  interview,  he  confirmed 
this,  but  had  no  difficulty  in  saying  to  Talleyrand,  as  an  individual, 
"that  it  was  very  far  from  being  the  disposition  of  this  Government  to 

1  To  Lord  St  Helens  (Fitzherbert),  August  26th,  1791.    See  W.  Grenville  to 
George  Aust  (of  the  Foreign  Office),  September  2oth,  1791,  with  Instructions  for 
a  reply  to  the  Emigrants.  The  critical  passage  is  quoted  in  Lecky,  v.  558. 

2  See  Pallain,  La  Mission  de  Talleyrand  a  Londres  en  1792. 

3  Grenville  to  Gower,  March  9th. 


THE  VISITS  OF  TALLEYRAND  213 

endeavour  to  foment  or  prolong  the  disturbances  there,  with  a  view 
to  any  profit  to  be  derived  from  them  to  this  country."  This  last 
declaration  was  perfectly  sincere.  The  day  after  Grenville  wrote, 
Talleyrand  returned  to  Paris. 

He  came  back  at  the  end  of  April,  nominally  second  in  command 
to  Chauvelin,  War  against  the  Emperor  having  just  been  declared. 
The  scheme  which  he  was  to  advocate  ran  thus.  For  the  moment, 
England's  benevolent  neutrality  was  to  save  France  from  complica- 
tions with  the  United  Provinces  or  Spain.  She  was  to  be  made  to 
understand  that  the  coming  French  attack  on  Belgium  was  a  military 
necessity,  not  a  prelude  to  annexation.  And  then — then,  when  this 
war  was  over,  the  Constitutional  monarchies  of  the  west,  the  old 
and  the  new,  were  to  rule  Europe  and  the  seas.  There  was  to  be  a  new 
commercial  treaty.  The  Spanish  Colonies  in  South  America  were  to 
be  liberated  and  thrown  open  to  trade.  Hand  in  hand,  France  and 
England  were  to  share  in  that  trade  and  in  the  maintenance  of  Con- 
stitutional liberties  throughout  the  world1. 

Nothing  was  accomplished.  The  English  Court  was  frigid,  the 
people  almost  offensive — so  reported  Dumont,  who  was  a  member  of 
the  Embassy.  Only  the  Whig  houses  were  thrown  open.  Talleyrand 
said  that  the  English  Ministry  was  "the  most  secret  in  all  Europe." 
It  kept  them  waiting  for  a  month ;  then  moved  King  George  to  write 
a  short,  friendly,  empty  note  to  Lewis  XVI  (May  i8th),  and  to  issue 
a  public  Declaration  of  Neutrality  (May  25th).  England  regretted  the 
War;  she  intended  to  respect  all  Treaties;  she  wished  to  live  at  peace 
with  France,  and  trusted  that  France  would  contribute  to  peace  by 
showing  respect  for  the  rights  of  His  Majesty  and  His  Allies.  There 
were  no  real  negotiations,  and  Talleyrand  spent  his  generous  leisure 
in  composing  his  Lettres  sur  les  Anglais.  He  left  this  country  early  in 
July ;  the  indiscreet  Chauvelin  remaining2. 

The  rising  tone  of  the  French  propaganda,  and  the  attack  on 
Belgium,  explain  the  suspicious  reticence  of  the  British  Ministry. 
It  is  indeed,  at  first  sight,  surprising  that  Pitt  did  not  take  an  even 
stronger  line  as  to  Belgium.  But,  at  this  time,  he  was  not  faced,  as 
he  supposed,  with  that  risk  of  absorption  of  the  Belgian  Provinces 
into  France  which  he  had  so  clearly  stated,  in  1789,  to  be  at  all  times  a 
casus  belli  for  Great  Britain.  The  first  French  attack  northwards,  at  the 

1  Reflexions  pour  la  Negotiation  d'Angleterre  en  cos  de  Guerre,  March  soth. 
Pallain,  pp.  172  sqq. 
z  Sorel,  II.  440  sqq. 


214  PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE,  1783-1792 

end  of  April,  proved  a  pitiable  failure.  All  through  May  and  June,  full 
accounts  of  the  mismanagement  and  insubordination  of  the  French 
armies  in  Flanders  were  arriving  at  the  Foreign  Office,  from  a  most 
capable  British  representative  on  the  spot1.  By  the  beginning  of 
July,  it  was  reported  that  the  French  had  "entirely  evacuated"  those 
frontier  districts  into  which  they  had  penetrated.  A  month  later,  the 
news  came  that  the  garrison  towns  and  camps  on  the  French  side  of 
the  frontier  were  in  good  order,  the  fortifications  "in  the  most  perfect 
repair,  and  even  considerably  added  to,  since  the  probability  of  a 
war  with  the  Emperor."  But  there  was  no  discipline.  The  Emigration 
had  ruined  the  corps  of  officers;  "nor  is  there  a  remedy  against  this 
evil."  So,  although  Dumouriez  was  said  to  be  confident  and  "the 
soldiery  (by  which  is  meant  only  the  private  men)  and  the  peasantry 
universally  revolutionists,"  it  seemed  impossible  that  France  should 
"frustrate,  or  even  derange,  the  plans  of  the  combined  army"  of 
Prussia  and  Austria2.  Pitt  might  well  conclude  that  the  Belgian 
Provinces  were  in  no  danger.  '.. 

Throughout  the  summer,  the  best-informed  men  in  England 
discussed  Continental  affairs  on  the  assumption  that  the  military 
plans  of  the  Allies  would  not  be  "even  deranged."  "As  soon  as  the 
German  troops  arrive  in  Paris,"  Grenville  wrote  to  Auckland  on 
June  i  Qth,  "whatever  is  the  ruling  party  in  Paris  must  apply  to  us  to 
mediate  for  them.  Such  at  least  is  my  speculation.  Even  in  that 
case,  it  would,  I  think,  be  right  to  hold  back,  and  to  show  no  anxiety 
for  that  sort  of  interference.... But  if  the  opportunity  presents  itself, 
I  know  no  end  of  this  troubled  scene  so  advantageous  as  the  bringing 
about  by  our  assistance,  an  agreement  which,  I  am  convinced,  all  the 
parties  will  equally  wish3." 

On  the  day  on  which  Colonel  Gardiner  sent  his  sanguine  military 
report  to  Grenville,  the  French  monarchy  fell.  Great  Britain  recalled 
her  Ambassador,  accredited  to  a  King,  not  to  a  revolutionary  Assembly ; 
but  her  calculations  as  to  the  near  future  remained  unchanged.  A 
circular  was  sent  round  the  Courts  of  Europe,  explaining  that  the 
withdrawal  of  the  Minister  made  no  difference  to  her  neutrality. 
Grenville  had  still  no  reason  to  doubt  the  early  arrival  of  the  Germans 
in  Paris.  Presumably,  he  continued  his  speculations  as  to  the  most 
advantageous  thing  that  could  happen  next.  On  September  3rd — the 

1  Colonel   Gardiner  to   Grenville,   May  and   June   despatches,  passim   (P.O. 
Flanders). 

2  Gardiner  to  Grenville,  August  loth,  1792. 

3  Dropmore  Papers,  II.  281. 


THE  MISCALCULATION  OF  1792  215 

day  after  that  on  which  the  massacres  had  begun — he  heard  from  his 
Foreign  Office  subordinate  the  latest  news  from  France.  It  announced 
that  the  successful  march  on  Paris  was  sure1.  From  every  source  came 
the  same  confident  news. 

Before  the  month  of  October  was  out,  Valmy  had  been  fought  and 
lost ;  Ferdinand  of  Brunswick  had  recrossed  the  French  frontier ;  and 
Custine  with  his  army  of  the  Vosges  had  dashed  into  Germany,  to 
occupy  Mainz  and  Frankfort.  On  November  6th,  Dumouriez,  taking 
up  in  person  the  Belgian  plan  of  campaign,  broke  the  Austrians  at 
Jemappes  by  Mons ;  and  two  days  later  the  Austrian  Government  fled 
from  Brussels.  The  postulates  of  British  Foreign  Policy  had  become 
uncertain. 

1  J.  B.  Burges  to  Grenville,  September  3rd.  Dropmore  Papers,  n,  308. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

I 

THE  overthrow  of  the  French  monarchy  on  August  loth,  1792, 
established  the  supremacy  of  men  who  owed  their  power  chiefly 
to  the  populace  of  Paris;  and  the  ensuing  September  massacres, 
carried  out  by  the  Revolutionary  Commune  of  that  city,  helped  still 
further  to  cow  the  moderates,  disgust  the  provincials,  and  establish 
the  domination  of  the  capital.  Thenceforth,  it  was  the  misfortune  of 
the  French  democratic  movement,  which  had  claimed  to  be  universal, 
that  the  driving  force  was  mainly  Parisian — a  fact  which  goes  far  to 
explain  the  course  of  French  politics  during  the  next  two  years.  The 
Girondin  chiefs,  now  installed  in  office,  possessed  little  power;  it 
rested  with  the  men  of  the  streets  and  of  the  clubs ;  and  the  nominal 
leaders  always  followed  the  spasmodic  impulses  of  a  populace  agitated 
by  Marat  and  infuriated  by  the  threats  of  vengeance  that  came  from 
Emigres  serving  with  Brunswick's  army. 

The  psychology  of  Revolution  renders  difficult  the  maintenance 
of  peace  with  neighbouring  States  of  the  old  type.  Suspicion  and 
aversion  naturally  set  in ;  and  these  are  the  parents  of  war.  Never- 
theless, proofs  abound  that,  from  August  to  October,  1792,  Pitt  and 
Grenville  sought  to  continue  the  policy  of  strict  neutrality  which  they 
had  laid  down  as  their  guiding  principle.  True,  they  decided  to 
recall  Earl  Gower  from  Paris,  an  act  which  seemed  to  betoken  illwill. 
But  Grenville  at  once  informed  him,  and  through  him  the  Revolu- 
tionary Government,  that  his  recall  followed  as  a  matter  of  course 
on  the  lapse  of  the  authority  of  Lewis  XVI,  to  whom  he  had  been 
accredited,  and  was  "conformable  to  the  principles  of  neutrality 
which  His  Majesty  has  hitherto  observed."  Lebrun,  the  new  Minister 
for  Foreign  Affairs,  welcomed  this  announcement  and  expressed  a 
hope  for  the  continuance  of  friendly  relations,  especially  in  com- 
mercial matters.  The  credentials  of  Chauvelin,  French  Envoy  at 
London,  having  been  signed  by  the  deposed  monarch,  he  was 
informed  that  he  could  no  longer  be  officially  recognised1 ;  but  he  was 

1  O.  Browning,  Despatches  of  Earl  Gower  (1790-2),  p.  209;  Ann.  Reg.  1792, 
pp.  327-8. 


NON-INTERVENTION  POLICY  MAINTAINED      217 

received  unofficially.  For  some  time,  he  offered  no  objection  to  this 
arrangement;  but  later,  whether  from  injured  vanity  or  from  a  desire 
(as  an  ex-noble)  to  show  his  democratic  ardour,  he  represented  it  as 
a  slight  to  the  French  Republic.  His  frequent  association  with 
Opposition  clubs  in  London  tended  to  annoy  Ministers,  but  assured 
his  popularity  in  Paris.  Unfortunately,  during  the  autumn  his 
appointed  adviser,  Talleyrand,  fell  under  the  suspicions  of  the  French 
Convention,  which  decreed  his  arrest.  He,  therefore,  remained  in 
London,  and  his  sage  warnings  conveyed  to  Paris  against  the  aggressive 
tendencies  of  French  policy  remained  unheeded1. 

The  characters  of  the  French  Ministers  were  calculated  to  inspire 
distrust  and  dislike  in  George  III  and  his  advisers.  Danton's  appoint- 
ment as  Minister  of  Justice  seemed  a  hideous  farce ;  Roland  for  Home 
Affairs  was  a  respectable  nonentity ;  Claviere,  originator  of  the  assignats, 
became  responsible  for  Finance;  and  Foreign  Affairs  fell  to  Lebrun, 
an  adventurous  journalist,  well  versed  in  the  Belgian  disputes,  but 
otherwise  displaying  the  half-knowledge  and  consequent  conceit 
which  marked  his  patrons,  Brissot  and  Dumouriez2.  With  such 
Ministers,  ever  impelled  by  Robespierre  and  the  all-powerful 
Commune  of  Paris,  there  was  reason  to  expect  the  extension  of 
Jacobin  propaganda  and  the  widening  of  the  circle  of  hostilities.  Yet 
Pitt  and  Grenville  showed  no  sign  of  joining  the  party  that  called  for 
intervention  on  behalf  of  the  cause  of  monarchy.  They  differed  even 
more  sharply  from  Burke,  on  grounds  not  only  of  sentiment  but  of 
policy.  They  believed  royalists  of  the  old  school  to  be  a  less  potent 
force  in  home  politics  than  radical  reformers,  whose  influence  would 
be  enhanced  if  the  cause  of  peace  were  associated  with  them.  The  great 
Irishman  scouted  these  calculations  as  both  timid  and  false.  He 
dreaded  revolutionary  principles  as  a  pest  which,  if  not  stamped  out, 
would  in  its  rank  growth  desolate  all  nations.  Pitt,  and  to  a  less 
extent  Grenville,  trusted  in  the  inherent  strength  of  British  institu- 
tions and  their  consequent  immunity  from  Gallic  ailments,  formidable 
only  to  weakly  organisms.  Stripped  of  its  literary  adornments,  Burke 's 
crusading  policy  was  one  of  pessimism  and  panic.  Their  policy,  on  the 
other  hand,  however  briefly  and  baldly  set  forth,  was  nevertheless  one 
of  trust  in  the  good  sense  of  the  two  nations  and  in  the  principle  of 
non-intervention.  So  late  as  November  6th,  1792,  Grenville  wrote  that 

1  For  his  M£moire  of  November  25th,  1792,  see  Pallain,  Le  Ministers  de  Talley- 
rand sous  le  Directoire  (App.),  and  a  summary  in  Sorel,  in.  221-3. 

2  A.  W.  Miles,  Corresp.  on  the  French  Rev.  I.  24,  144-6. 


218    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

he  had,  throughout,  disapproved  of  the  invasion  of  France  by  the 
Austrian  and  Prussian  armies  as  tending  to  consolidate  the  power 
of  the  Jacobins  and  delay  the  reestablishment  of  order.  He  now 
expressed  some  apprehension  lest  Republican  principles  should 
spread  into  England,  but  deemed  the  danger  minimised  by  the 
maintenance  of  a  policy  of  non-intervention1. 

The  comparative  passivity  of  George  III  during  this  crisis  in  the 
fortunes  of  monarchy  is  not  a  little  curious ;  but  it  may  be  explained 
by  his  dislike  of  a  policy  of  costly  adventure,  his  desire,  owing  to  the 
growing  claims  of  his  family,  to  reduce  national  expenditure,  his  trust 
in  Pitt  and  Grenville,  and  his  inveterate  dislike  of  Burke.  He  also 
utterly  distrusted  the  quixotic  proposals  of  Gustavus  III  of  Sweden 
for  the  rescue  of  Marie- Antoinette  by  armed  force2.  On  September 
22nd,  while  at  Weymouth,  he  approved  the  somewhat  bold  proceeding 
of  Grenville  in  discouraging  similar  appeals  from  Vienna  and  Naples 
on  her  behalf,  and  added  these  words :  "  Undoubtedly  there  is  no  step 
that  I  should  not  willingly  take  for  the  personal  safety  of  the  French 
king  and  his  family  that  does  not  draw  this  country  into  meddling 
with  the  internal  disturbances  of  that  ill-fated  kingdom3."  He  viewed 
the  Revolution  as  a  series  of  disturbances  judicially  inflicted  by 
Providence  on  France  as  a  penalty  for  her  intervention  on  behalf  of 
the  American  rebels  against  divinely  constituted  authority,  and 
therefore  discountenanced  any  attempt  to  shorten  the  period  of 
retribution.  Thus  it  came  about  that,  even  after  the  September 
massacres  at  Paris,  Burke's  fervid  appeals  for  action  remained  mere 
echoes  in  the  void. 

Alike  in  temperament  and  conviction,  the  men  who  guided  British 
foreign  policy  were  averse  from  a  policy  of  warlike  adventure.  A 
decade  of  unremitting  efforts  in  the  direction  of  retrenchment  and 
reconstruction  attested  the  devotion  of  Pitt  to  the  cause  of  peace. 
From  this,  as  the  sequel  will  show,  he  was  with  great  reluctance  drawn 
aside  by  the  course  of  events ;  and  to  it  he  sought  to  return  at  the 
earliest  opportunity  compatible  with  prudence.  Had  he  possessed 

1  Dropmore  Papers,  in.  463-7;  Burke's  Works  (Bohn  edit.)  v.  231-3;  Auckland 
Journals,  n.  464-6;  J.  H.  Rose,  Pitt,  part  II.  ch.  11. 

2  Klinckowstrom,  Per  sen  et  la  Cour  de  France,  I.  p.  173. 

3  Dropmore  Papers,  n.  3 17.  Even  on  November  25th,  George  wished  for  a  general 
peace,  if  it  could  be  made  "to  the  real  satisfaction  of  the  parties  concerned"  (Ibid. 
II.  339).  This  corrects  the  statement  of  E.  D.  Adams  (The  Influence  of  Grenville  on 
Pitt's  Foreign  Policy,  p.  21)  that  after  September,  1792,  George  III  was  hostile  to 
France.   It  was  her  Decrees  of  November  i6th  and  i9th,  1792,  which  changed  his 
attitude. 


LIMITATIONS  OF  PITT  AND  GRENVILLE        219 

more  imagination,  greater  foresight,  and  a  readier  power  of  ex- 
pression, he  might  perhaps  have  succeeded  in  appealing  to  the  heart 
of  France  during  the  negotiations  of  1795-7,  and  have  stood  forth  as 
the  pacificator  of  Europe.  But  in  his  nature  there  was  too  much  of 
the  Grenville  stiffness  for  him  to  understand,  still  less  to  placate, 
Gallic  susceptibilities.  In  truth,  he  had  no  knowledge  either  of 
Continental  peoples  or  their  politics.  But  as  to  his  longing  for  peace 
there  can  be  no  doubt1.  Equally  certain  is  it  that  his  mistakes  during 
the  period  1793-1805  arose  largely  from  inability  to  grasp  the  stern 
exigencies  of  war  and  the  calculating  selfish  ness  which  it  often  engenders 
in  the  conduct  of  Allies  towards  one  another.  Virtuous,  high-souled, 
patriotic  and  intensely  hopeful,  he  lacked  the  critical  faculties, 
especially  those  of  distrust  and  detachment,  which  are  needed  for  the 
unravelling  of  intrigues,  the  detection  of  rogues,  or  a  due  appreciation 
of  the  chances  of  success  and  failure  in  complex  enterprises.  He  under- 
stood mankind  in  the  abstract,  but  he  did  not  understand  men.  There- 
fore, while  excelling  in  the  more  familiar  spheres  of  British  statecraft, 
he  fell  short  of  full  success  at  a  world-crisis.  His  nature  was  far  better 
suited  to  the  decade  of  reconstruction  than  to  that  of  revolution. 

Similar  limitations  marked  even  more  strongly  the  character  of 
his  cousin.  Lord  Grenville's  accession  to  the  Foreign  Office  in  the 
spring  of  1791  marked  the  definite  triumph  of  a  pacific  policy;  but  a 
certain  austerity  of  manner  and  narrowness  of  outlook  hampered  his 
usefulness  at  all  times.  Uninspiring,  prolix  and  somewhat  tactless, 
both  as  a  speaker  and  writer,  he  chilled  his  friends  and  irritated  his 
enemies ;  so  that,  in  1794,  we  ^n<^  ^m  expressing  to  Pitt  a  wish  at  the 
termination  of  the  War,  to  retire  from  his  uncongenial  duties2.  We 
shall  not  be  far  wrong  in  connecting  this  desire  with  his  later  con- 
fession: "I  am  not  competent  to  the  management  of  men.  I  never 
was  so  naturally,  and  toil  and  anxiety  more  and  more  unfit  me  for  it." 
A  phrase  of  Windham's  explains  this  failure:  "He  [Grenville]  knows 
nobody  and  is  known  by  nobody."  Yet  that  acute  observer  pronounced 
him  well-informed,  high-minded,  and  more  imbued  than  Pitt  with 
ideas  of  national  dignity.  In  Windham's  view,  the  Prime-Minister 
was,  also,  unacquainted  with  mankind  and  too  disposed  to  live  on  by 
making  concessions  and  "  tiding  it  over3."  In  these  respects,  Grenville 

1  Malmesbury  Diaries,  n.  101,  in.  96,  516 ;  Sorel,  11.  383.  R.  Guyot,  Le  Directoire 
et  la  Paix  de  V Europe,  p.  303. 

2  Dropmore  Papers,  n.  p.  513.   See,  too,  Malmesbury  Diaries,  II.  441,  for  Gren- 
ville's predilection  for  non-intervention  on  the  Continent. 

3  Stanhope,  Pitt,  n.  122;  Malmesbury,  in.  590. 


220    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

supplied  backbone  to  the  more  pliant  and  pacific  nature  of  Pitt ;  but 
in  knowledge  of  men  and  management  of  Parliament  they  both  so 
far  yielded  the  palm  to  that  versatile  bonvivant,  Henry  Dundas,  that 
the  Administration  was  dubbed  Scottish.  To  Dundas,  however,  and  his 
impulsive  and  acquisitive  ways  Grenville  felt  an  instinctive  aversion, 
which  was  to  become  more  marked  as  he  gained  in  experience  of  fyis 
own.  His  career  is  remarkable  for  the  growth  of  confidence  in  the 
great  qualities  of  the  British  people ;  and  it  is  hardly  an  exaggeration 
to  say  that  his  will-power,  patriotic  pride  and  indomitable  persistence 
provided  the  mainspring  of  the  first  two  Coalitions  against  France. 
Grenville,  however,  lacked  the  wide  sympathies,  imaginative  outlook 
and  inspiring  influence  that  mark  a  leader  of  men.  To  him,  still  more 
than  to  Pitt,  the  French  Revolution  was  incomprehensible.  He  sought 
to  combat  it  with  the  old  weapons  in  the  traditional  ways.  Therefore, 
despite  his  constancy,  honesty  of  purpose  and  unflinching  courage, 
he  figures  merely  as  an  able  Minister  of  George  III,  but  unequal 
(like  most  of  his  colleagues)  to  the  novel  demands  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary era. 

Henry  Dundas,  Secretary  of  State  for  Home  Affairs,  supervised 
far  more  than  the  business  of  that  Department  and,  in  fact,  claimed 
participation  in  all  affairs  of  moment.  To  him  Pitt  entrusted  the  chief 
oversight  of  executive  war  policy ;  and  in  this  sphere  his  unbounded 
energy  and  assurance  not  seldom  led  him  to  impulsive  and  diffuse 
designs.  Indian  affairs  interested  him  intensely,  and,  from  1792 
onwards,  the  development  of  British  influence  in  the  Mediterranean 
was  his  special  care.  For  the  present,  he  opposed  all  interference  with 
France.  So  late  as  November  25th,  1792,  he  wrote:  "I  think  the 
strength  of  our  cause  consists  in  maintaining  that  we  have  nothing  to 
do  with  the  internal  politics  of  foreign  nations1." 

The  Under- Secretary  of  Foreign  Affairs  up  to  the  year  1795  was 
James  Bland  Burges,  1751-1814,  who  was  unremitting  in  his  warnings 
as  to  French  aggressiveness  and  the  danger  of  democracy.  He,  prob- 
ably, inclined  Grenville  to  the  stiffer  attitude  adopted  from  November 
to  December,  1792.  On  December  i8th,  he  wrote  to  Auckland  that 
a  war  with  France  was  inevitable,  and  the  sooner  it  came,  the  better; 
for  public  opinion  in  England  was  excellent,  and  there  was  "an 
earnest  desire  to  go  to  war  with  the  French2."  Bland  Burges  was 

1  Veitch,  The  Genesis  of  Parliamentary  Reform,  p.  235.   For  mordant  attacks  on 
Dundas,  see  Fortescue,  British  Statesmen  of  the  Great  War,  and  Hist,  of  the  British 
Army,  vol.  iv.  parts  I.  and  n. 

2  Brit.  Mus.  Add.  MSS.  34446. 


BRITISH  DIPLOMACY:  MALMESBURY ;  AUCKLAND   221 

probably  the  only  one  of  our  leading  officials  or  diplomats  who  had 
as  yet  come  to  this  conclusion.  We  may  note  here  that,  in  1794,  he 
received  a  hint  from  Grenville  that  his  services  would  be  better 
appreciated  abroad ;  and,  on  ignoring  it,  he  was  superseded  by  a  friend 
of  his  chief.  George  Hammond,  who  became  his  successor  in  October, 
1795,  had  been  British  Envoy  at  Washington. 

The  influence  of  our  Ambassadors  has  rarely  counted  for  more  in 
the  shaping  of  Foreign  Policy  than  in  this  period ;  for,  as  the  ablest  of 
them  noted  in  1785,  Ministers  at  home  were  too  engrossed  in  parlia- 
mentary affairs  to  attend  to  events  on  the  continent.  "I  never  yet 
received  an  Instruction  that  was  worth  reading1."  This  irreverent 
assertion  (less  applicable  after  Grenville's  acceptance  of  the  Foreign 
Office)  was  made  by  Sir  James  Harris  [1746-1820],  who  in  1788 
became  Baron,  and  afterwards  first  Earl  of,  Malmesbury.  After  the 
retirement  of  Sir  Murray  Keith  from  the  embassy  at  Vienna,  Malmes- 
bury was  the  most  distinguished,  though  not  the  most  important, 
personage  in  the  British  Diplomatic  Service2.  In  1792-3,  his 
predilections  were  hostile  to  France,  and  his  severance  from  the 
Foxites  in  1793  paved  the  way  for  diplomatic  missions  of  the  first 
importance.  The  doyen  of  the  diplomatic  circle  was  then  William 
Eden,  first  Baron  Auckland  (1744-1814).  As  Ambassador  Extra- 
ordinary at  the  Hague  in  1790-3,  he  displayed  exceptional  activity 
in  the  acquisition  of  news,  for  which  his  position  gave  him  unequalled 
facilities ;  and  his  intimacy  with  both  Pitt  and  Grenville  contributed 
to  the  enriching  of  a  correspondence  which  is  of  prime  importance, 
Auckland  advocated  strict  neutrality  in  regard  to  French  affairs: 
"Our  general  wishes  on  the  one  hand"  (he  wrote  on  September 
1 8th,  1792)  "are  that  France  may  never  again  resume  the  same  rest- 
less and  troublesome  system  which  has  so  often  been  fatal  to  the  peace 
of  nations ;  and,  on  the  other,  that  an  executive  government  may  exist 
there  so  as  to  restrain  the  present  lawless  and  atrocious  spirit."  He, 
also,  agreed  with  Grenville  in  thinking  that  the  armed  intervention 
of  Austria  and  Prussia  only  emphasised  the  disorders  in  France  which 
it  was  designed  to  crush3.  On  November  9th,  he  suggested  tentatively 
to  Grenville  the  advisability  of  recognising  the  French  Republic  (in 
order  to  ensure  Lewis  XVI  and  Marie- Antoinette  against  violence)  and 

1  Malmesbury,  Diaries,  n.  112. 

2  Cf.  ante,  pp.  160  ff.,  as  to  the  personality  and  early  achievements  of  le  ruse  et 
audacieux  Harris  (as  Mirabeau  termed  him). 

3  Journal  and  Corresp.  of  Lord  Auckland,  n.  443,  465. 


\ 


222    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

of  making  secret  overtures  to  Austria  and  Prussia  with  a  view  to 
ending  their  contest  with  France1. 

The  secondary  figures  in  the  diplomatic  circle  were  Auckland's 
younger  brother,  Sir  Morton  Eden,  Ambassador  first  at  Berlin  and 
then  at  Vienna,  where  his  mediocre  abilities  failed  to  make  head 
against  the  masterful  personality  of  the  Chancellor,  Thugut;  also, 
Sir  Charles  Whitworth,  Ambassador  at  Petrograd  in  the  years  1788- 
1800,  a  man  of  soldierly  bearing  and  firmness  of  character  which 
withstood  alike  the  craft  of  Catharine  and  the  whimsical  impulses  of 
Paul  I.  At  Madrid,  Lord  St  Helens  and  his  successor,  Francis 
Jackson,  worked  tactfully,  and  for  a  time  successfully,  in  conciliating 
that  Court,  always  touchy  and  exacting  as  an  ally;  and  scarcely  less 
difficult  were  the  tasks  of  John  Hampden  Trevor  at  Turin  and  Colonel 
Gardiner  at  Warsaw,  the  latter  being  instructed  by  Grenville  to  avoid 
entanglement  in  the  Polish  imbroglio2.  The  Hamiltons  at  Naples 
belong  rather  to  the  spheres  of  art  and  romance,  until  the  crisis  of  the 
autumn  of  1798  involved  them  in  events  from  which  they  emerged 
with  discredit.  Ainslie  and  his  successors  at  Constantinople  helped 
to  avert  the  danger  of  a  Franco-Turkish  Alliance,  which  seemed 
probable  in  the  winter  of  1792-3 ;  but,  with  this  partial  exception, 
British  Ambassadors  strictly  upheld  the  policy  of  non-intervention 
enjoined  by  Grenville. 

The  general  diplomatic  situation  furnished  adequate  reasons  for 
a  policy  of  strict  neutrality.  The  Triple  Alliance  of  1788  with  Prussia 
and  the  United  Netherlands  had  virtually  lapsed,  so  far  as  the 
Hohenzollern  Power  was  concerned3.  Frederick  William  II  now 
sought  to  withdraw  as  speedily  as  possible  from  his  adventure  beyond 
the  Rhine,  in  order  to  procure  more  profitable  spoil  on  the  Vistula. 
With  our  former  Ally,  Austria,  we  were,  also,  on  cool  terms,  both  the 
German  Powers  maintaining  that  they  had  fought  our  battles  for  us 
in  Champagne,  while,  as  has  already  appeared,  we  disapproved  of 
that  enterprise  and  somewhat  distrusted  Francis  II  and  his  advisers4. 

1  Dropmore  Papers,  n.  329.   Many  more  of  his  letters  are  in  the  Brit.  Mus. 
(Add.  MSS.  34446  et  seq.). 

2  Gardiner's  predecessor,  David  Hailes,  in  his  last  despatch,  of  July  25th,  1792, 
warned  Grenville  of  the  fragility  of  the  Polish  Constitution  of  May  3rd,  1791,  and 
the  discredit  attaching  to  its  authors.  On  August  4th,  Grenville  instructed  Gardiner 
that  Great  Britain  would  not  intervene  in  favour  of  Poland  and  charged  him  to 
discover  the  intentions  of  the  three  neighbouring  Powers  "on  whom  the  fate  of 
Poland  seems  now  entirely  to  depend"  (P.O.  Poland,  6). 

s  Dropmore  Papers,  II.  194,  241,  257,  262,  279. 

4  Stratton,  our  Charge  d'affaires  at  Vienna,  thought  the  Emperor's  ability  and 
steadfastness  unequal  to  his  moral  rectitude;  he  had  no  mental  vigour  or  decision 


DOUBTFUL  ATTITUDE  OF  CATHARINE  II  OF  RUSSIA  223 

Spain,  too,  was  still  smarting  under  the  grievance  of  the  Nootka 
Sound  affair,  which  the  now  all-powerful  Minister,  Godoy,  Duke  oi 
PAlcudia,  kept  open  by  all  the  arts  of  chicanery.  It  soon  transpired 
that  Spanish  officials  at  Nootka  refused  to  give  up  Nootka  to  Captain 
Vancouver,  who  had  been  despatched  to  take  it  over1.  Further,  the 
odd  complaisance  of  Spain  to  the  new  French  Republic  betokened  a 
desire  for  friendly  relations  with  Paris,  which,  in  fact,  were  only  to 
be  severed  by  the  execution  of  Lewis  XVI.  Even  at  the  close  of  i^i, 
Great  Britain  had  to  reckon  Spain  among  her  possible  enemies. 

Moreover,  the  attitude  of  Catharine  II  of  Russia  was  ambiguous. 
The  unscrupulous  ambitions  of  the  Tsarina,  far  from  sated  by  recent 
triumphs  over  the  Turks,  now  turned  in  the  direction  of  Poland.  Her 
many  incitements  to  the  Monarchs  of  Sweden,  Austria  and  Prussia 
to  champion  the  cause  of  Lewis  XVI  and  Marie- Antoinette  were 
accompanied  by  no  tangible  proof  of  crusading  zeal;  and,  on  November 
9th,  1792,  Whitworth  reported  that  she  would  "  continue  to  look  on 
at  the  conflagration  with  the  utmost  composure" ;  and  again,  that  she 
had  throughout  sought  "to  engage  all  Europe  in  the  quarrel  [with 
France]  and  to  remain  herself  a  spectator  of  the  desolation."  The 
knowledge  of  her  Machiavellian  designs  on  Poland  not  only  weakened 
the  efforts  of  the  German  Sovereigns  against  France,  but  imposed 
caution  on  the  one  Power  which  had  maintained  its  neutrality  (as 
Whitworth  put  it)  "with  so  much  dignity  and  sound  policy."  A 
slight  ruffle  of  anxiety  overspread  the  serenity  of  the  Tsarina  when  she 
learnt  that  the  French  Republic  was  vigorously  striving  to  set  the 
Turks  against  her;  for  the  incursion  of  a  Franco-Turkish  fleet  into 
the  Black  Sea  might  involve  the  destruction  of  the  new  and  almost 
unprotected  fleet  at  Sevastopol.  By  the  end  of  the  year,  therefore, 
a  feeling  of  relief  pervaded  the  Russian  Court  at  the  news  of  the 
Anglo-French  complications,  as  tending  to  restrain  the  Republic  from 
oriental  adventures  and  thereby  to  leave  Catharine  free  for  her  long 
meditated  move  against  Poland2.  It  was  now  discovered  that  French 
principles  were  making  alarming  progress  among  the  Poles — a  source 
of  infection  which  neither  she  nor  Frederick  William  II  could  allow 
on  the  borders  of  their  dominions. 

of  character.  On  Grenville  pressing  for  a  declaration  of  Austria's  war  aims,  the  Acting 
Chancellor,  Count  Philip  Cobenzl,  on  December  22nd  stated  that  she  would  insist 
on  the  complete  liberty  of  Lewis  XVI,  and  on  applying  to  France  the  essentials  of 
a  monarchical  Constitution  (P.O.  Austria,  32). 

1  P.O.  Spain,  25.    F.  J.  Jackson  to  Grenville,  December  2Qth,  1792. 

2  P.O.  Russia,  23.  Whitworth  to  Grenville,  November  gth,  23,  December  nth; 
Sorel,  La  Question  d'Orient,  p.  770. 


224    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

The  atmosphere  being  charged  with  electricity  in  both  the  east 
and  the  west  of  Europe,  the  only  wise  course  for  the  British  Govern- 

*?:>^ment  was  to  maintain  a  watchful  aloofness.  But  an  unkindly  fate 
began  to  extend  the  storm  area  over  these  islands.  The  persistent 
rains,  which  hindered  Brunswick's  operations  in  Champagne,  also 
ruined  the  harvests  of  Great  Britain  and  the  north  of  France,  thereby 
causing  widespread  dearth  and  an  eager  competition  for  foreign  corn. 
Hence  arose  not  only  commercial  tension  between  the  two  nations, 
but  internal  discontent,  resulting,  on  both  sides,  in  a  notable  increase 
of  democratic  and  levelling  ardour.  These  sentiments,  again,  were 
accentuated  by  the  astounding  triumphs  of  the  French  arms.  Sep- 
tember saw  the  Austro-Prussian  forces  retreat  from  Champagne  and 
the  Sardinians  driven  from  the  capital  of  Savoy;  in  October,  the 
Allies  recrossed  the  Rhine  in  disorder ;  early  in  November,  the  French 
occupied  Frankfort  and  utterly  defeated  the  Imperialists  at  Jemappes — 
a  victory  which  laid  at  their  feet  the  Austrian  Netherlands  and  brought 
the  victorious  tricolour  to  the  borders  of  the  Dutch  Republic1. 

In  the  nervous  and  irritable  state  of  public  opinion,  these  events 
wrought  a  magical  change.  The  French  were  filled  with  boundless 
confidence  in  the  complete  triumph  of  democracy  over  all  the  old 
Governments;  and  cognate  aspirations  spread  among  their  many 
sympathisers  in  the  British  Isles.  The  sharp  rise  in  prices  favoured 

N^  the  growth  of  discontent,  which  found  expression  in  numerous 
"Constitutional  clubs,"  where  the  principles  of  the  new  French 
Constitution  were  vehemently  acclaimed.  The  next  development  was 
destined  to  have  far-reaching  results.  Delegates  from  the  most 
important  of  these  clubs,  especially  those  of  London,  Newington, 
Manchester,  Derby  and  Norwich,  proceeded  to  Paris,  and  read  to  the 
Convention  addresses  of  congratulation  and  fraternity  at  the  sittings 
of  October  3ist,  November  yth,  icth  and  28th.  The  address  bearing 
the  signatures  of  Thomas  Hardy  and  Maurice  Margarot  declared  that 
the  Elector  of  Hanover  was  uniting  his  troops  to  those  of  traitors  and 
robbers;  but  that  England  was  not  Hanover. — "A  Triple  Alliance, 
not  of  crowned  heads,  but  of  the  people  of  America,  France  and  Great 
Britain,  will  give  liberty  to  Europe  and  peace  to  the  world2."  These 
addresses,  which  were  circulated  throughout  France,  created  the 

1  Jomini,  Guerres  de  la  Revolution,  Bk  u.  chs.  ix.  x. 

2  "A  Collection  of  Addresses... to  the  Nat.  Convention  of  France,"  London, 
Debrett,  1793 ;  Ann.  Reg.  (1793),  pp.  344-352.   Veitch,  op  cit.  pp.  221-230,  363-6; 
Moniteur,  November  8th  and  i2th,  1792. 


THE  SCHELDT  DECREE  225 

impression  there  that  the  British  people  would  support  France  in  any 
effort  made  by  her  on  behalf  of  democratic  movements  in  other  lands. 

The  French  Convention,  hereupon,  conceived  aggressive  designs. 
Already,  it  had  ostentatiously  favoured  addresses  from  Dutch 
"Patriots";  and,  elated  by  the  occupation  of  Brussels  and  by  pro- 
mises of  support  from  British  and  Dutch  democrats,  it  passed  the 
Decrees  of  November  i6th  and  igth.  By  the  former,  the  navi- 
gation of  the  Scheldt  and  the  Meuse  was  declared  open  to  and  from 
the  sea,  though  the  Dutch  Republic,  by  the  terms  of  the  Treaty  of 
Westphalia  (1648),  absolutely  controlled  that  navigation  within  its 
borders.  On  the  same  day,  the  French  Executive  Council  resolved 
that  Dumouriez  should  pursue  the  enemy  even  on  Dutch  territory, 
if  he  took  refuge  there.  On  the  igth,  the  Deputies  of  France  decided 
to  grant  fraternity  and  assistance  to  all  peoples  desirous  of  re- 
covering their  liberty.  Lebrun  laid  great  stress  on  the  Scheldt  Decree, 
and,  on  November  3Oth,  communicated  a  dissertation  on  the  subject 
to  Chauvelin,  in  which  he  spoke  of  it  as  an  affair  decided  by  the 
imprescriptible  laws  of  universal  justice,  which  France  must  have  the 
courage  to  apply1.  By  that  time,  he  must  have  known  of  the  British 
Declaration  to  support  the  United  Provinces  at  all  points;  but  his 
language  implied  a  resolve  to  go  to  war  rather  than  compromise  on 
this  head.  The  importance  of  the  Scheldt  question  has  often  been 
denied.  Now,  it  may  freely  be  granted  that  the  right  of  the  Dutch 
to  close  the  navigation  of  that  estuary  to  all  other  vessels  was  per  se 
unjust2.  But  they  had  enjoyed  it  since  1648.  So  late  as  1785,  France 
had  formally  recognised  it;  and  to  abrogate  it  without  consultation 
was  an  unheard-of  proceeding.  Moreover,  most  Dutchmen  clung  to 
the  privilege  in  question.  In  1784,  the  Grand  Pensionary  declared 
that  the  Netherlands  ought  to  expend  their  last  florin  in  maintain- 
ing it3. 

Meanwhile,  the  conditions  which  induced  the  French  Convention 
to  pass  these  decrees,  also  led  the  British  Ministers  stiffly  to  oppose 
the  first  signs  of  aggression.  In  mid- October,  they  prepared  to 
reassure  the  King  of  Sardinia  by  a  Declaration  stating,  inter  alia,  that 
the  retention  of  Savoy  by  France  would  create  a  new  order  of  things 
which  Great  Britain  could  not  accept4.  But  far  more  significant  was 

1  Sorel,  in.  233.  2  Cf.  ante,  ch.  I,  pp.  161  ff. 

t8  Malmesbury,  Diaries,  n.  89:  see,  too,  Marsh,  Politics  of  Great  Britain  and 
France,  chs.  x,  xi,  xm. 

4  Dropmore  Papers,  n.  322.  On  November  27th,  the  French  Convention  annexed 
Savoy  to  France  (Sorel,  in.  203). 

W.&G.I.  15 


226    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

their  action  on  receipt  of  the  news  that  the  French  forces  were  before 
Brussels.  Antwerp  would  be  the  next  stage;  and  the  siege  of  that 
stronghold  must  bring  up  the  vexed  question  of  the  navigation  of  the 
Scheldt  estuary.  Moreover,  on  its  banks,  France  would  impinge  on 
territory  which  for  naval  and  commercial  reasons  England  has  never, 
'  since  the  days  of  Edward  III,  allowed  to  pass  into  the  hands  of  a  great 
rival  Power.  From  the  time  of  the  battle  of  Sluys  to  that  of  the  battle 
of  Jutland,  her  action  has  been  consistent  on  this  head ;  and  her  resolve 
now  to  warn  the  French  off  the  Scheldt  estuary  and  neighbouring 
coasts  opened  the  struggle  which  ended  in  1815  with  the  expulsion  of 
Napoleon  from  Belgium. 

On  the  receipt  at  Whitehall  of  the  news  of  the  evacuation  of 
Brussels  by  the  Austrians,  the  Dutch  Ambassador,  Nagel,  took  alarm 
and  came  to  Pitt  to  request  advice  and  help.  Pitt  suggested  the 
despatch  of  notes  to  the  two  German  Powers  offering  mediation,  with 
a  view  to  ending  the  War  with  France.  Grenville  met  the  crisis  more 
stiffly.  He  at  once  informed  Auckland  at  the  Hague  that  the  danger 
to  the  Dutch  must  be  encountered  firmly — "  for,  much  as  H.M.  desires 
to  maintain  peace,  he  does  not  hesitate  to  aid  the  Dutch  Republic 
against  any  attempt  to  invade  it  or  disturb  its  Government1." 
Accordingly,  he  forwarded  a  Declaration  to  that  effect,  which  was 
at  once  to  be  delivered  publicly  to  the  States  General  of  the  United 
Provinces.  It  assured  them  of  H.M.'s  "determination  to  execute  at 
all  times  with  the  utmost  good  faith  all  the  different  stipulations  of 
the  treaty  of  alliance  so  happily  concluded  in  1788,"  but  added  that 
the  correct  conduct  of  the  two  nations  ought  to  remove  all  grounds 
of  apprehension.  Auckland  delivered  it  to  the  States  General  on 
November  i6th — the  very  day  on  which  the  National  Convention 
passed  the  Decree  abrogating  the  rights  of  the  Dutch  over  the  estuary 
of  the  Scheldt  and  the  Meuse.  The  States  General  thanked  the  British 
Government  for  its  assurances  of  support,  but  expressed  the  hope 
that  it  might  not  be  needed.  The  Stadholder,  Prince  William  V  of 
Orange,  in  a  letter  dated  November  i6th,  thanked  King  George  III 
for  the  Declaration,  and  suggested  that  British  warships  should  be 
moored  in  the  Downs,  in  readiness  to  proceed  to  the  Scheldt  if 
occasion  demanded.  It  soon  arrived.  On  November  22nd,  the  senior 

1  P.O.  Holland,  41,  Grenville  to  Auckland,  "most  secret,"  November  i3th, 
1792.  Pitt  also  believed  that  "the  explicit  declaration  of  our  sentiments  is  the  most 
likely  to  prevent  the  case  occurring."  See,  too,  Pitt  to  the  Marquis  of  Stafford, 
November  i3th,  1792  (Diaries,  etc.  of  the  Hon.  G.  Rose,  I.  115);  also  my  article  in 
the  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.  (January,  1912). 


THE  CONVENTION'S  NETHERLANDS  POLICY     227 

officer  of  two  French  gunboats  at  Rammekens  demanded,  in  the  name 
of  Dumouriez,  the  right  to  pass  up  the  Scheldt li  pour  fair e  prosper er 
les  armes  de  la  Republique  Franfaise" — obviously,  in  order  to  assist 
their  land  forces  in  reducing  the  Austrian  garrison  of  the  citadel  of 
Antwerp.  The  Dutch  authorities  refused  permission,  but  secretly 
instructed  the  commander  of  their  guardship  not  to  use  force  if  the 
gunboats  persisted  in  forcing  a  passage.  They  did  so,  and  were  soon 
reinforced  by  more  powerful  craft.  Auckland  explained  to  Grenville, 
that  the  Dutch  intended  "to  temporise  as  far  as  may  be  practicable 
without  essential  disgrace  or  detriment";  but  Nagel  made  a  strong 
appeal  to  the  British  Government  for  succour  to  a  faithful  Ally  in  view 
of  the  imminence  of  a  French  invasion1.  In  fact,  the  Dutch  were 
utterly  unprepared  for  war,  and  saw  with  alarm  a  large  French  force 
on  their  borders,  having  all  but  open  communications  with  the  mal- 
content "Patriots"  who  sought  to  overthrow  the  Dutch  Constitution. 
The  chief  difficulty  of  the  situation  lay  in  the  Dutch  Government  not 
daring  to  plead  openly  for  British  succour,  lest  the  French  should 
burst  in,  with  the  aid  of  the  Patriots.  To  temporise  and  quietly  prepare 
for  defence  was  therefore  the  only  prudent  course.  Grenville  under- 
stood their  difficulties,  and  hoped  by  maintaining  a  firm  attitude  to 
conjure  the  danger. 

The  occurrence  of  riots  in  parts  of  Great  Britain,  also,  alarmed 
him ;  and  he  concluded  that  there  was  a  close  connexion  between  the 
aggressive  policy  of  the  National  Convention  towards  the  Netherlands 
and  the  republican  propaganda  in  these  islands.  On  hearing  of  the 
Scheldt  Decree  (on  or  just  before  November  27th),  he  wrote  to 
Auckland:  "There  is,  I  am  afraid,  little  doubt  that  the  whole  is  a 
concerted  plan  to  drive  us  to  extremities  with  a  view  of  producing  an 
impression  in  the  interior  of  the  country,  which  I  trust  and  hope  will 
fail."  These  statements  (repeated  even  more  strongly  in  his  letter 
of  December  4th)  differ  entirely  from  those  of  November  25th, 
when  he  heard  from  Auckland  of  a  possible  opportunity  of  setting 
on  foot  an  informal  negotiation  for  a  general  peace,  through  the 
medium  of  a  French  agent  in  Holland.  Grenville  then  commended 
the  scheme  and  secured  a  guarded  expression  of  approval  from 
George  IIP.  Two  days  later,  after  hearing  of  the  Scheldt  Decree,  he 
completely  changed  his  language ;  and  thenceforth  he  never  swerved 

1  P.O.  Holland,  41 .  Nagel  to  Grenville,  November  2Qth ;  Auckland  to  Grenville, 
November  27th,  3Oth. 

z  Dropmore  Papers,  11.339,  341,  3 44.  His  letter  of  November  i4th  to  the  Marquis 
of  Buckingham  makes  light  of  the  supposed  sedition.  (Mems.  of  C.  J.  Fox,  in.  29.) 

15—2 


228    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

in  his  resolve  to  oppose  the  novel  pretensions  of  France.  On 
November  3©th  he  informed  Auckland  that  a  small  squadron  of 
observation  would  be  sent  to  the  Downs.  On  December  yth,  owing 
to  the  outbreak  of  sporadic  disorders,  the  Government  issued  a 
Proclamation  ordering  the  embodying  of  the  militia  in  certain  counties, 
in  consequence  of  the  conduct  of  evil-disposed  persons  "acting  in 
concert  with  persons  in  foreign  parts" — a  statement  repeated  in 
the  King's  Speech  of  December  i3th.  Fox  denied  the  existence  of 
seditious  practices,  and  denounced  Ministers  for  creating  and  utilising 
a  panic.  The  charge  has  been  repeated;  but  the  utmost  that  can 
fairly  be  urged  is  that  they  exaggerated  the  connexion  between 
British  democrats  and  French  aggressions.  Such  a  connexion  un- 
doubtedly existed;  but  it  was  unfair  to  charge  our  democrats  with 
consciously  provoking  French  action.  All  the  addresses  to  the  National 
Convention  were  drawn  up,  and  half  of  them  presented,  before  that 
body  passed  the  aggressive  Decrees  which  occasioned  the  volte-face 
of  November  27th  in  British  policy. 

War  was  certain  to  result  from  the  decisions  of  the  British  and  the 
French  Governments,  publicly  announced  on  November  i6th,  unless 
one  side  gave  way.  But  to  give  way  was  difficult;  for  principles, 
considerations  of  honour  and  material  interests  were  alike  at  stake. 
Great  Britain  took  her  stand  on  the  sanctity  of  treaties ;  France,  on 
the  imprescriptible  laws  of  nature  as  to  the  navigation  of  rivers  in 
general  and  the  rights  of  Antwerp  in  particular.  Great  Britain  was 
resolved  to  stand  by  her  Dutch  Ally;  France,  to  support  the  Dutch 
Patriots  in  the  attempt  to  reverse  the  events  of  1787.  Moreover, 
neither  side  could  retreat  without  loss  both  of  prestige  and  material 
advantages.  For  the  French  Republic,  to  secure  control  of  the  Dutch 
Netherlands  involved  a  gain  of  power  such  as  Lewis  XIV  had  never 
achieved;  for  Great  Britain,  it  meant  the  establishment  of  her  rival 
in  estuaries  that  threatened  the  mouth  of  the  Thames  and  her  long 
and  exposed  east  coast.  At  bottom,  the  issue  was  naval,  therefore 
vital. 

Events  now  tended  towards  war.  Dumouriez'  occupation  of 
Liege  and  his  demand  to  enter  Maestricht  (over  which  the  deposed 
Prince- Bishop  had  joint  control  with  the  Dutch)  threw  new  light  on 
the  French  Decree  freeing  the  navigation  of  the  lower  Meuse1. 

1  Nagel  in  a  note  verbale  of  November  zgth  to  Grenville  stated  that  French 
vessels  were  assembling  at  Dunkirk  and  Ostend  to  ascend  the  Meuse  and  Scheldt 
into  the  heart  of  the  United  Provinces.  He  begged  for  British  support.  (P.O. 
Holland,  41.) 


PROVOCATIVE  ACTION  OF  THE  CONVENTION    229 

Nevertheless,  Pitt  and  Grenville  endeavoured  to  come  to  a  friendly 
agreement  with  the  French  Republic  by  means  of  informal  dis- 
cussions with  a  private  French  agent.  On  December  2nd  and  i4th, 
Maret  (the  future  Due  de  Bassano)  had  interviews  with  Pitt,  the 
earlier  of  which  promised  a  good  understanding;  but,  in  the  later, 
Maret  had  to  announce  the  resolve  of  his  Government  to  adhere  both 
to  the  November  Decrees  and  to  its  demands  for  the  recognition  of 
the  French  Republic  and  of  Chauvelin  as  a  fully  accredited  Envoy. 
To  the  recognition  of  the  Republic  Pitt  and  Grenville  might  possibly 
have  acceded  at  an  earlier  date ;  but  that  of  Chauvelin  (now  a  persona 
ingrata  at  Whitehall)  was  out  of  the  question1.  With  Maret  in  his 
place  much  more  might  have  been  accomplished,  though  probably, 
in  any  case,  George  III  would  have  vetoed  the  recognition  of  the 
Republic.  Fox's  motion  in  Parliament  on  December  i5th  for  sending 
a  Minister  to  Paris  to  treat  with  the  French  Government  was  nega- 
tived. The  occasion  was  rendered  memorable  by  Burke,  Windham 
and  other  Whigs  taking  their  seats  on  the  Ministerial  side. 

The  French  Convention  now  took  a  highly  provocative  step.  In 
a  Decree  of  December  i5th,  it  declared  for  the  suppression  of  the 
existing  authorities  in  all  districts  occupied  by  the  French  troops, 
whose  Generals  were  ordered  to  place  under  the  protection  of  the 
French  Republic  the  whole  property  of  the  deposed  Government  and 
of  its  adherents.  Further,  it  invited  the  liberated  people  to  accept  the 
principles  of  liberty  and  equality,  and  to  form  a  Provisional  Govern- 
ment on  those  bases.  Wide  powers  were,  also,  given  to  French 
Commissioners  to  provide  means  for  the  maintenance  of  the  troops. 
Finally,  it  denounced  as  hostile  any  people  which  desired  to  preserve 
its  Prince  and  privileged  castes.  This  Decree,  offering  limitless 
opportunities  of  extortion,  plunder  and  malversation,  was  an  added 
threat  to  neighbouring  nations \ 

To  Grenville 's  practical  mind,  this  profession  of  a  desire  to  extend 
the  bounds  of  liberty  meant  merely  spreading  the  control  of  France 
over  all  lands  which  she  coveted.  Such  is  the  dominant  note  of  his 
reply  of  December  2Qth  to  a  recent  proposal  of  Catharine  II  for  joint 
action  of  the  Powers  in  setting  bounds  to  the  expansion  of  French 
power  and  influence.  He  stated  that  King  George  III  saw  with  great 

1  For  details  of  these  interviews  and  those  of  Auckland  with  a  French  agent  in 
the  Netherlands,  see  Rose,  Life  of  Pitt,  H.  chs.  in.  iv.;  W.  A.  Miles,  Correspondence, 
i.  61-72. 

2  Fox  privately  expressed  horror  at  the  Decree  of  December  i5th  and  "thought 
war  likely"  (Malmesbury,  Diaries,  H.  482). 


23o    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

satisfaction  the  similarity  of  their  views  and,  while  abstaining  from 
x.  all  interference  in  French  domestic  affairs,  he  would  oppose  the  efforts 
of  the  National  Convention  to  abrogate  treaties  and  overturn  all 
institutions  in  neighbouring  countries.  He,  therefore,  agreed  with  the 
Empress  in  desiring  to  form  a  League  of  the  Powers,  not  for  the 
purpose  of  imposing  on  France  by  force  any  form  of  government  or 
.  Constitution,  but  in  order  to  assure  their  own  safety  and  curb  French 
"  aggrandisement.  In  a  covering  letter  of  the  same  date  to  Whitworth 
at  Petrograd,  Grenville  emphasised  the  distinction,  already  drawn  in 
the  Russian  note,  between  the  policy  of  imposing  a  particular  form  of 
government  on  France,  and  that  of  providing  for  the  security  of  the 
other  Powers.  He  then  suggested  tentatively  that  the  Powers  not  at 
war  should  consult  together  as  to  the  conditions  which  they  might 
offer  to  the  French — viz.,  "the  withdrawal  of  their  arms  within  the 
limits  of  the  French  territory,  the  abandonment  of  their  conquests, 
the  rescinding  any  acts  injurious  to  the  sovereignty  or  rights  of  any 
other  nations,  and  the  giving  in  some  public  and  unequivocal  manner 
a  pledge  of  their  intention  no  longer  to  foment  troubles  or  to  excite 
disturbances  against  other  Governments."  If  France  assented  to 
these  terms,  they  would  forego  all  thought  of  hostility  to  her  and  live 
in  amity  with  her  Government.  If  not,  they  would  take  active  steps 
to  secure  those  ends,  and  possibly  require  some  indemnity  for  their 
exertions.  For  Great  Britain  and  Russia,  the  War  with  France,  if  it 

ensued,  would  be  mainly  maritime  and  would  assure  supremacy  at 

sea,  especially  if  Spain  did  not  join  the  French.  Russia  should  induce 
Denmark  and  Sweden  to  stop  all  supplies  going  to  France ;  and  she 
might  possibly  send  a  force  to  be  landed  on  the  French  coast  under 
cover  of  the  British  fleet1. 

These  pronouncements  mark  out  clearly  the  line  of  policy  which 
British  statecraft  was  to  follow  down  to  1815.  They  differ  entirely 
from  the  original  plans  of  Prussia  and  Austria,  which  aimed  at  the 
restoration  of  monarchy  in  France  (together  with  considerable  gains 
of  territory  at  her  expense)  and  very  extensive  acquisitions  in  Central 
and  Eastern  Europe.  Great  Britain  desired  little  more  than  the  status 
quo  ante  bellum,  and  was  prepared  to  recognise  the  existing  Govern- 
ment in  France,  in  case  it  made  peace  and  ceased  all  subversive 
propaganda.  Catharine  assented  to  these  proposals,  except  that  which 
referred  to  a  negotiation  with  the  French  Government ;  for  she  refused 
to  take  any  step  which  seemed  to  imply  an  acknowledgment  of  the 

1  P.O.  Russia,  23;  also  in  B.M.  Add.  MSS.  34446. 


POLICY  OF  THE  GREAT  POWERS:  RUSSIA       231 

Republic.  Whitworth  toned  down  Grenville's  expressions  on  this 
head,  but  without  avail ;  the  Tsarina  scouted  the  thought  of  recognising 
any  country  in  revolt  from  its  lawful  sovereign, and  had,  for  this  reason, 
refused  to  recognise  the  United  States  of  America.  In  vain  Whit- 
worth  pointed  out  "how  difficult  it  would  be  for  His  Majesty  to  make 
the  establishment  of  any  form  of  government  in  France  the  pretext 
of  a  war  with  that  country1." 

With  a  royalism  so  flaming  as  Catharine's  the  cool  and  cautious 
Grenville  could  with  difficulty  frame  a  concert.  Her  political  creed 
corresponded  very  nearly  to  those  of  the  Habsburgs  and  Hohen- 
zollerns.  But  under  this  display  of  zeal  there  was  cunning.  Whitworth 
found  reason  for  believing  that  her  recent  overture  was  prompted  by 
a  desire  to  stiffen  the  attitude  of  the  British  Government  towards 
France,  and  thereby  to  increase  the  chances  of  a  rupture  between  the 
Western  Powers.  Her  scheme  of  partitioning  Poland  was  maturing 
apace;  and,  on  the  2yth,  he  reported  the  general  desire  in  Russian 
official  circles  that  it  should  remain  unknown  in  London  until  the 
Anglo-French  rupture  occurred.  That  wish  was  to  be  gratified;  for 
on  March  ist,  the  day  on  which  the  Partition  Treaty  was  ratified,  he 
stated  that  there  was  great  satisfaction  at  our  being  forced  into 
hostilities  "without  any  further  negotiation,  from  which  it  was  always 
feared  some  pacific  system  might  ultimately  have  resulted2."  It  soon 
appeared,  then,  that  between  the  United  Kingdom  and  the  Great 
Powers  there  existed  a  deep  contrariety.  We  could  count  on  frank  and 
complete  union  with  only  one  State — the  United  Netherlands. 

We  may  pass  rapidly  over  the  ensuing  negotiations  with  France. 
They  were  complicated  by  the  suspicion  that  Chauvelin  was  in- 
triguing with  British  malcontents,  and  desired  to  bring  about  the 
overthrow  of  the  Pitt  Administration.  Certainly,  he  was  jealous  of  the 
preference  shown  by  our  Ministers  to  Maret;  and,  perhaps  because 
Maret's  tone  was  conciliatory,  his  was  haughty.  He  associated 
ostentatiously  with  the  Opposition,  and  announced  the  resolve  of 
Lebrun  not  to  retract  the  Scheldt  Decree,  but  to  insist  upon  the 
acknowledgment  of  the  French  Republic  in  the  person  of  Chauvelin. 
He  also  boasted  that,  if  he  were  not  received  as  Ambassador,  the 
height  of  his  ambition  was  to  leave  England  with  a  Declaration  of 
War3.  These  assertions  harmonised  with  the  Report  of  the  French 

1  P.O.  Russia,  23.  Whitworth  to  Grenville,  January  22nd,  1793. 

2  Ibid.   Whitworth  to  Granville,  January  22nd,  25th,  27th,  March  ist,  1793. 

3  W.  A.  Miles,  Authentic  Corresp.  with  Lebrun  (1792),  p.  84;  id.  Corresp.  on  the 
French  Revolution,  I.  369. 


232    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

Diplomatic  Committee,  of  which  that  mischievous  busybody,  Brissot, 
was  chairman.  In  presenting  it  to  the  Convention  on  January  ist, 
1793,  Kersaint  pointed  out  the  vulnerable  character  of  the  British 
Empire,  which  could  be  revolutionised  in  Ireland  and  attacked  with 
deadly  effect  in  Canada  and  the  East  and  West  Indies.  War,  should 
it  take  place,  ought  to  be  considered  as  Pitt's  War,  not  that  of  the 
British  nation1. 

Chauvelin  echoed  these  statements  in  his  next  notes,  which 
elicited  vigorous  retorts  from  Whitehall.  His  reiterated  claim  to  be 
considered  the  official  representative  of  the  French  Republic  met  with 
a  cold  refusal.  He  also  attacked  the  Aliens  Bill  for  subjecting  all 
foreigners,  including  himself,  to  official  supervision  (December  3ist, 
1792),  alleging  that  that  measure  infringed  the  Commercial  Treaty 
of  1786,  which  stipulated  freedom  of  intercourse  and  sojourn  for  the 
inhabitants  of  both  countries.  But  this  Aliens  Bill  was  less  rigid 
than  a  similar  measure  adopted  at  Paris  in  May,  1792,  which  con- 
sequently had  already  infringed  that  Treaty.  Equally  unfounded  was 
Chauvelin's  assertion  that  the  refusal  to  recognise  him  officially 
implied  a  rupture  of  relations  with  the  French  Republic.  Grenville 
retorted  that  he  (Chauvelin)  could  not  be  officially  acknowledged 
except  as  the  Envoy  of  Lewis  XVI,  though  unofficial  explanations 
might  still  pass  between  them.  In  answer  to  Chauvelin's  assurances 
that  the  Decree  of  November  i6th  was  not  intended  to  impugn  Dutch 
rights,  save  in  a  matter  of  minor  importance  (the  Scheldt),  and  that 
the  Decree  of  November  i9th  applied  to  a  community  desirous  of 
assuring  its  new-found  liberty — not  to  a  few  seditious  persons  in  that 
community — Grenville  pointed  out  that  a  French  flotilla  had  forced 
an  entrance  up  the  Scheldt  in  spite  of  Dutch  protests,  and  that  the 
whole  affair  showed  a  resolve  to  set  at  naught  treaties  and  the  rights 
of  neutral  nations;  also,  that  the  later  Decree  was  accompanied  "by 
the  public  reception  given  to  the  promoters  of  sedition  in  this  country 
and  by  the  speeches  made  to  them  precisely  at  the  time  of  this  Decree." 
He  further  denied  the  imputation  of  harbouring  illwill  towards 
France,  but  enjoined  her,  if  she  desired  to  maintain  friendship,  "to 
renounce  her  views  of  aggression  and  aggrandisement  and  to  confine 
herself  within  her  own  territory,  without  insulting  other  Governments, 
without  disturbing  their  tranquillity,  without  disturbing  their  rights." 
The  whole  despatch,  though  needlessly  stern  in  form,  proves  that 
Pitt  and  Grenville  did  not  object  to  the  French  Republic  per  se,  but 

1  Hist.parl.  xxn.  365-378;  O.  Browning,  p.  278. 


FRENCH  DESIGN  ON  THE  UNITED  PROVINCES    233 

to  its  aggressive  claims  and  subversive  propaganda.  Lebrun's  answer 
of  January  yth,  was  temperate  in  tone;  but  he  refused  to  give  way 
on  the  main  point  at  issue,  the  Scheldt  Decree.  On  the  same  day, 
Chauvelin  wrote  an  acrid  note  respecting  the  Aliens  Bill ;  indeed,  on 
this  and  other  topics  his  tone  embittered  the  discussions.  The  points  at 
issue  were  far  from  irreconcilable ;  and  a  tactful  negotiator  like  Maret 
would  perhaps  have  found  means  to  effect  a  reconciliation. 

The  whole  affair,  however,  was  complicated  by  the  deepening 
conviction  of  Grenville  (perhaps  also  of  Pitt1)  that  the  French  were 
working  hard  to  undermine  the  British  and  Dutch  Constitutions,  and 
that  Dumouriez'  forces  were  preparing  to  invade  the  United  Provinces. 
Such  was  the  news  derived  from  a  French  agent  at  the  Hague,  who 
was  on  a  confidential  footing  with  the  Grand  Pensionary,  and 
informed  him  secretly,  but  with  absolute  certainty,  that  the  French 
would  invade  his  country  by  January  25th.  Grenville  received  this 
news  on  December  29th,  and  thereafter  disregarded  the  pacific 
assurances  of  Lebrun  and  Chauvelin2.  His  despatch  of  January  loth 
to  Trevor  at  Turin  implied  that  hostilities  were  imminent — an 
inference  rendered  the  more  probable  by  the  shifty  character  of 
Dumouriez3.  So  far  back  as  November  2Oth,  that  General  wrote  to 
Maulde,  French  Envoy  at  the  Hague,  that  he  intended  to  carry  liberty 
to  the  Dutch  as  he  had  to  the  Belgians4.  During  his  visit  to  Paris 
at  the  end  of  1792,  he  seems  to  have  convinced  the  French  Ministers 
of  the  feasibility  of  that  enterprise  and  of  the  immense  results  certain 
to  accrue  from  it;  for,  on  January  loth,  the  Executive  Council  sent 
secret  orders  to  his  second  in  command,  General  Miranda,  to  prepare 
to  invade  Dutch  Flanders  and  Zealand  within  twelve  days5.  Probably, 
he  would  have  done  so,  but  for  lack  of  food  and  transport.  Grenville 
did  not  know  of  these  orders ;  but  the  evidence  coming  from  the  Hague 
pointed  to  the  imminence  of  a  French  invasion.  Thus,  when  most  of 
the  British  warships  were  about  to  be  withdrawn  from  off  Flushing  in 

1  On  December  i3th,  Noel,  a  French  agent  in  London  wrote  to  Lebrun  de- 
scribing Miles's  informal  efforts  for  peace  and  his  assurances  that  Pitt  was  entirely 
for  peace — more  so  than  Grenville.   Miles  added:  " Ne  craignez  rien  de  notre  arme- 
ment"  (referring  to  the  embodying  of  part  of  the  militia  and  the  sending  of  a  small 
squadron  to  the  Downs).   Miles,  Corresp.  on  the  French  Revolution,  i.  68. 

2  Dropmore  Papers,  n.  360.    For  his  reply  of  December  29th  to  Auckland,  see 
Appendix  A. 

3  See  W.  Eliot's  despatch  of  February  23rd,  1793  from  Berlin  to  Grenville  in 
Appendix  B. 

4  F.O.  Holland,  41.    Enclosure  in  Auckland's  despatch  of  November   23rd, 
1792- 

5  "Corresp.  de  Miranda  avec  Dumouriez..."  (Paris,  1793),  pp.  3-8. 


234    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

order  that  their  crews  might  help  the  press-gang,  the  Prince  of  Orange 
begged  that  they  might  not  depart,  as  their  presence  greatly  encouraged 
his  Government.  On  January  2Oth  Grenville  enclosed  for  Auckland's 
use  a  copy  of  the  French  plan  of  campaign,  which  had  been  secretly 
procured  at  Paris,  and  urged  greater  expedition  in  the  Dutch  defensive 
preparations.  He  also  stated  that  the  transactions  with  Chauvelin, 
and  the  manifestos  recently  issued  by  the  Convention,  left  little 
doubt  as  to  the  resolve  of  that  body  to  bring  about  a  rupture. 
If  the  Dutch  were  attacked,  a  British  force  would  be  sent  to  aid 
in  their  defence.  By  that  date,  even  Pitt  deemed  a  war  with  France 
inevitable1. 

In  all  these  discussions,  the  fate  of  Lewis  XVI,  which  was  then 
trembling  in  the  balance,  was  scarcely  mentioned.  Obviously,  the 
rupture  would  have  occurred,  even  if  his  execution  had  not  taken 
place .  But ,  on  the  news  of  that  event  reaching  London  on  January  24th , 
the  Privy  Council  at  once  met  and  ordered  the  withdrawal  of  Chauvelin 
from  the  realm  within  eight  days.  Technically,  this  measure  was 
correct,  as  that  Envoy  had  been  accredited  by  Lewis  XVI  and  was 
received  solely  in  that  capacity.  On  his  arrival  at  Paris,  Brissot  and 
the  Diplomatic  Committee  drew  up  a  report  declaring  that  George  III 
had  not  ceased,  especially  since  August  loth,  1792,  to  give  proofs  of 
his  malevolence  to  France  and  his  attachment  to  the  Coalition  of  the 
Kings;  that  he  had  violated  the  Anglo-French  Treaty  of  1786  and 
ordered  armaments  clearly  intended  against  France ;  that  he  had  just 
concluded  a  Secret  Treaty  of  Alliance  with  the  Emperor,  and  had 
drawn  the  Stadholder  of  the  United  Provinces  into  the  same  Coalition. 
These  falsehoods  found  ready  acceptance ;  and  an  inflammatory  speech 
by  Brissot  decided  the  Convention  to  pass  unanimously  a  Declara- 
tion of  War  against  the  King  of  Great  Britain  and  the  Stadholder 
(February  ist)2.  The  inclusion  of  the  latter  in  this  Decree  proved  the 
aggressive  designs  of  the  French  Government ;  for,  whatever  might 
be  thought  of  the  action  of  the  British  Government,  that  of  the  United 
Provinces  had  given  no  cause  of  offence.  The  acquisitive  spirit  of  the 
Convention  further  appeared  in  the  Decree  of  January  3ist,  annexing 
Nice,  and  in  that  of  a  few  days  later,  annexing  the  Belgic  Provinces,  to 
France.  It  is  also  noteworthy  that,  among  the  charges  drawn  up  in 
October,  1793,  by  the  Jacobins  against  the  Girondins  as  a  party  and 
against  Brissot  in  particular,  he  and  they  were  accused  of  brusquely 

1  Malmesbury,  Diaries,  n.  501. 

2  Hist.  Parl.  xxiv.  194-207. 


BRITISH  GOVERNMENT  AND  WAR  WITH  FRANCE   235 

proclaiming  war  against  the  British  and  Dutch  peoples  and  other 
Powers  which  had  not  yet  declared  themselves1. 

It  has  often  been  stated  that  a  conflict  between  Great  Britain  and 
the  French  Republic  was  inevitable  because  the  one  represented  the 
old  order,  the  other  the  new,  so  that  between  them  there  was  a  fixed 
antagonism.  The  statement  is  overstrained.  There  was  no  irrecon- 
cilable opposition  between  British  statesmen  and  the  French  leaders, 
until  the  latter,  amidst  the  exaltation  produced  by  the  conquest  of 
Belgium,  adopted  an  aggressive  policy  which  was  at  variance  with  the 
best  traditions  of  their  predecessors.  The  French  conquest  of  Belgium 
and  the  ensuing  trial  of  Lewis  XVI  produced  an  artificial  excitement, 
a  flamboyant  patriotism,  an  eager  competition  between  Jacobins  and 
Girondins  each  to  outdo  the  other,  which  infused  a  dash  of  the  old 
Chauvinism  into  the  fanaticism  of  the  new  age.  The  heady  mixture 
was  not  the  true  wine  of  the  Revolution.  It  was  nauseous  to  Talley- 
rand, the  inheritor  of  the  Mirabeau  tradition;  and,  in  his  obscure 
lodgings  in  London,  he  had  to  look  on  helplessly  while  the  fate  of 
France  and  of  Europe  was  decided  by  the  coxcomb  Chauvelin,  the 
journalist-adventurer  Lebrun  and  the  charlatan  Brissot.  To  assert  that 
these  men  represented  either  France  or  the  Revolution  is  to  insult  her 
and  degrade  her  progeny. 

Furthermore,  the  statement  errs  in  assuming  that  George  III,  Pitt 
and  Grenville  desired  to  make  war  on  the  Revolution.  The  reverse  is  the 
case.  Until  near  the  close  of  1792,  the  King  wished  to  remain  at  peace. 
Pitt  and  Grenville  disapproved  of  the  two  German  Powers  embarking 
on  a  monarchical  crusade,  because  they  foresaw  its  effect  in  identifying 
Jacobinism  with  France  and,  up  to  the  end  of  November  1792,  they 
hoped  by  an  understanding  with  all  the  Powers  to  mediate  with  a  view 
to  a  general  pacification.  They  were,  also,  prepared  to  recognise  such 
de  facto  rulers  of  France  as  should  conclude  peace — that  is,  to  recognise 
the  French  Republic  if  it  proved  to  be  pacific  and  non-interfering. 
True,  in  Parliament,  in  December,  1792,  they  opposed  the  motion  for 
sending  a  Minister  to  Paris ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  they  were  quietly 
taking  steps  which  might  lead  to  the  resumption  of  friendly  relations, 
if  France  renounced  her  aggressive  designs.  For  they  were  aggressive. 
The  Scheldt  Decree  was  a  violation  of  a  recent  French  Treaty  with 

1  Hist.  ParL  xxix.  435.  For  proofs  that  the  so-called  mission  of  Maret  to 
London  at  the  end  of  January  was  unauthorised,  and  that  the  pacific  proposals  of 
Dumouriez  were  unimportant  and  doubtful,  see  Rose,  Life  of  Pitt,  n.  109-111; 
W.  A.  Miles,  Correspondence  on  the  French  Revolution,  u.  62;  Lecky  (vi.  126)  over- 
rates their  importance. 


236    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

the  United  Provinces  and  infringed  the  Anglo-Dutch  Treaty  of  1788. 
The  British  Government  has  been  blamed  for  laying  too  much  stress 
on  the  Decrees  of  November  i6th  and  i9th;  but,  viewed  collectively, 
they  constituted  a  claim  to  the  right  to  abrogate  treaties  and  interfere 
in  the  internal  affairs  of  neighbouring  lands.  Moreover,  the  French 
authorities  followed  up  the  Scheldt  Decree  by  action  which  revealed 
their  design  of  making  Antwerp  a  French  naval  port.  Their  whole 
conduct  with  regard  to  the  Austrian  Netherlands  was  such  as  to 
warrant  the  belief  that  annexation  was  intended.  The  Decrees  of 
November,  therefore,  became,  not  only  a  test  question  with  respect 
to  the  maintenance  of  treaties,  but  a  matter  of  vital  importance  to 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  Provinces. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  procedure  of  Pitt  and  Grenville  must  be 
pronounced  stiff  and  ineffective.  Without  divulging  too  much  of  the 
sacrosanct  treasures  of  the  Foreign  Office,  they  might  surely  have 
made  it  clear,  not  only  to  diplomats  but  to  the  two  nations  concerned, 
that  British  policy  was  essentially  peaceful  and  aimed  at  achieving 
a  just  settlement  of  the  War,  with  a  view  to  the  eventual  recognition 
of  any  truly  pacific  Government  established  at  Paris.  A  declaration 
of  this  kind  would  have  at  the  same  time  allayed  resentments  in  France 
and  discontents  at  home.  But  Ministers  allowed  their  good  intentions 
to  be  shrouded  by  old-world  reserve;  and  Grenville  met  the  pert 
insistence  of  Chauvelin  with  an  aristocratic  hauteur  which  irritated 
that  Envoy  and  played  into  the  hands  of  the  aggressive  party  at 
Paris.  Pedantic  insistence,  there, on  the  imprescriptible  laws  of  nature, 
and  rigid  adherence,  here,  to  the  text  of  treaties  complicated  a  question 
which,  with  goodwill  and  tactfulness  on  both  sides,  might  have  been 
settled  in  a  month.  As  it  was,  the  two  great  nations  of  the  West  drifted 
into  a  conflict  which  stirred  the  dying  embers  of  Continental  strife 
into  a  mighty  conflagration,  destined  to  rage  over  the  whole  of  Europe 
and  finally  to  bring  back  the  exhausted  principals  to  the  original  point 
in  dispute — Antwerp. 

II 

The  divergence  between  the  policy  of  Great  Britain  and  that  of 
the  chief  potentates  of  the  Continent  appeared  very  clearly  so 
soon  as  they  deemed  her  entangled  in  the  dispute  with  France.  The 
conduct  of  Catharine  has  already  been  described,  and  that  of  Austria 
and  Prussia  now  claims  attention.  In  the  first  days  of  1793 ,  Sir  Morton 
Eden  reported  that  Prussia  was  about  to  send  her  best  troops  against 


GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  GERMAN  GREAT  POWERS     237 

Poland,  and  that  his  request  to  spare  some  for  the  defence  of  the 
United  Provinces  was  disregarded.  The  reason  became  clear  in  the 
course  of  an  interview  which  Grenville  had  at  Whitehall,  on  January 
1 2th,  with  the  Austrian  and  Prussian  Ambassadors,  Count  Stadion 
and  Baron  Jacobi.  They  stated  the  decisions  of  their  Courts:  that 
Prussia  should  obtain  in  Poland  an  indemnification  for  her  expenses 
in  the  French  War,  and  should,  in  return,  withdraw  her  opposition 
to  the  long-cherished  Habsburg  plan  of  acquiring  Bavaria  in  exchange 
for  the  Belgic  Provinces.  Grenville  protested  against  this  cynical 
scheme  and  pointed  out  "the  mischief  which  must  result  to  the 
common  cause  from  such  an  evident  act  of  injustice1."  But  the 
transaction  was  irrevocably  settled  between  Vienna  and  Berlin;  for 
on  January  i9th  Eden  reported  that  the  King  of  Prussia  would  no 
longer  act  as  a  principal  in  the  French  War,  if  these  indemnifications 
were  not  forthcoming;  also,  that  Russia  had  her  plans  for  aggrandise- 
ment at  the  expense  of  Poland,  those  of  Austria  in  that  quarter  being 
doubtful2.  On  February  5th,  when  the  French  Declaration  of  War 
was  known,  Grenville  informed  the  German  Powers  that  Great 
Britain,  while  protesting  against  the  Partition  of  Poland,  would  not 
oppose  it  by  force ;  also,  that,  if  France  continued  the  War,  the  Great 
Powers  must  exact  from  her  the  renunciation  of  all  her  conquests 
and  of  "all  policy  of  interference  in  the  affairs  of  other  States." 

As  this  programme  involved  the  abandonment  by  France  of  the 
Belgic  Provinces,  part  of  the  Rhineland,  Savoy  and  Nice  (not  to  speak 
of  Avignon),  it  opened  the  way  to  an  understanding  with  the  German 
Powers  and  the  Empire,  as  also  with  Sardinia  and  the  Pope;  and  this 
prospect  undoubtedly  encouraged  the  Empire  to  declare  war  on 
France,  as  it  did  on  March  23rd,  1793.  The  Court  of  Turin  also 
resolved  to  persevere  in  a  contest  which,  without  Britain's  financial 
and  naval  assistance,  must  have  been  hopeless.  On  this  territorial 
basis,  then,  the  foundations  of  the  First  Coalition  could  be  laid;  but 
in  the  sphere  of  moral,  as  distinct  from  material,  interests  there  was 
slight  hope  of  an  understanding,  save  with  the  smaller  States  threatened 
by  France.  Our  attention  may  now  be  concentrated,  first,  on  the 
formation  of  the  Treaties  which  built  up  the  First  Coalition,  secondly, 
on  British  efforts  to  secure  the  active  cooperation  of  Prussia  and  to 
lessen  the  friction  with  Spain. 

1  P.O.  Prussia,  27.   Draft  of  January  i2th,  1793,  in  Grenville's  writing. 

2  Ibid.  Eden  to  Grenville,  January  1 9th.  On  February  5th,  Eden  was  appointed 
to  succeed  Sir  Murray  Keith  at  Vienna.  He  arrived  there  at  the  end  of  the  month. 


238    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

Before  the  entry  of  Great  Britain  into  the  War,  no  attempt  (apart 
from  the  rather  doubtful  proposal  of  Catharine)  had  been  made  to 
frame  a  general  concert  of  the  Powers ;  and  in  that  sphere  British  policy 
was  to  effect  results  no  less  important  than  in  the  naval  and  military 
operations.  From  Catharine,  little  was  to  be  expected  except  skilfully 
baited  incitements  to  the  continuation  of  the  War.  They  took  the 
form  of  two  companion  Treaties,  signed  by  Grenville  with  Vorontzoff 
at  London  on  March  25th,  1793,  viz.,  a  Commercial  Treaty  renewing 
that  of  1766,  with  a  few  variations  favourable  to  British  trade,  and  a 
Treaty  of  Alliance  containing  vague  offers  of  mutual  assistance  in  the 
War,  but  binding  each  of  the  two  Powers  to  prohibit  all  exports  to 
France  and  to  hinder  neutrals  from  sending  them,  or  from  granting 
any  protection  to  French  property  Or  commerce,  whether  in  their 
v  ports  or  at  sea.  This  last  proviso,  besides  rendering  impossible  a 
renewal  of  the  League  of  Armed  Neutrality  of  1780,  implied  an 
embargo  on  French  ships  and  property  in  the  ports  or  in  the  territory 
of  neutrals.  Moreover,  it  prevented  the  revival  of  the  old  French 
practice  which,  in  time  of  war,  opened  up  to  neutrals  commerce  with 
French  Colonies  forbidden  in  time  of  peace. 

On  April  25th,  Grenville  signed  with  the  Sardinian  Ambassador, 
the  Comte  de  Front,  a  Treaty  granting  to  that  kingdom  during  the 
War  a  subsidy  of  £200,000  a  year,  conditional  on  the  maintenance  of 
a  Sardinian  army  of  50,000  men.  Great  Britain  engaged  to  send  a 
fleet  into  the  Mediterranean,  and  to  secure  the  restoration  to  Sardinia 
of  her  lost  provinces  of  Savoy  and  Nice.  A  month  later,  the  Treaty 
of  Aranjuez  with  Spain  established  a  close  concert  for  the  purpose  of 
opposing  French  views  of  aggrandisement,  and  binding  the  two  Powers 
to  prevent  neutrals  from  according  protection  to  French  commerce. 
With  Naples  no  treaty  was  signed,  until  that  Power  knew  that  Lord 
Hood  with  a  powerful  fleet  was  in  the  Mediterranean.  Then,  on 
July  i2th,  1793,  Sir  William  Hamilton  and  General  Acton,  Prime- 
Minister  at  that  Court,  signed  a  compact  of  a  more  intimate  nature 
than  the  preceding.  The  King  of  the  Two  Sicilies,  thereby,  agreed  to 
supply  for  service  with  the  British  forces  in  the  Mediterranean  6000 
troops,  4  sail  of  the  line,  and  8  smaller  warships;  while  Great  Britain 
engaged  to  maintain  in  that  sea  "uneflotte  respectable"  and  to  protect 
Neapolitan  commerce.  With  Prussia,  owing  to  the  exertions  of  Sir 
James  Murray  and  Lord  Beauchamp,  a  Treaty  was  signed  on  July  i4th , 
1793,  at  the  headquarters  of  Frederick  William  II  at  Mainz.  It  estab- 
lished a  perfect  concert  with  her,  and  assigned  a  subsidy  for  her 


I  AUSTRIAN  TURN  TOWARDS  GREAT  BRITAIN    239 

military  support,  while  obtaining  from  her  assurances  as  to  neutral 
commerce  similar  to  those  secured  from  Russia  and  Spain.  These 
assurances,  also,  reappeared  in  the  otherwise  rather  vague  compacts 
concluded  on  August  3Oth  and  September  26th  with  the  Emperor  and 
the  King  of  Portugal  respectively.  Subsidy  Treaties  with  Baden  and 
the  two  Hesses  also  promised  to  swell  the  totals  of  the  Allied  armies. 

The  Treaty  of  1788  still  subsisted  with  the  United  Provinces; 
and  the  first  naval  and  military  efforts  were  put  forth  by  Great  Britain 
in  February,  1793,  resulting  in  the  blocking,  at  the  Hollandsdiep,  of 
Dumouriez'  scheme  of  invasion  of  Holland.  Foiled  there,  he  was 
utterly  beaten  on  March  i7th  by  the  Austrians  at  Neerwinden,  with 
the  result  that  the  Belgic  Provinces  once  more  came  under  their 
control.  When  Dumouriez,  after  planning  the  overthrow  of  the 
regicides  at  Paris,  was  constrained  to  fly  for  refuge  to  the  Austrians, 
the  Allies  seemed  to  have  the  game  in  their  hands1.  The  opportunity 
was  lost,  largely  because  the  Austrian  commander,  Prince  Frederick 
Josias  of  Coburg,  in  the  course  of  a  conference  on  military  affairs  held 
at  Antwerp  early  in  April,  issued  a  proclamation  which  implied  that 
the  Allies  would  demand  territorial  indemnities  from  France.  Nothing 
could  have  tended  more  certainly  to  unite  all  Frenchmen  together 
in  defence  of  la  patrie. 

For  this  blunder  Prussia's  action  in  Poland  was  largely  responsible. 
By  the  end  of  March,  it  was  clear  that  Prussia  and  Russia  would  share 
between  them  the  spoils  of  the  Second  Partition,  to  the  exclusion  of 
Austria.  In  consequence,  Francis  II  honourably  removed  the  Vice- 
and  Acting-Chancellor,  Count  Philip  Cobenzl,  who  had  been  duped 
by  those  two  Powers,  and  in  1794  appointed  to  the  general  control  of 
Foreign  Affairs  Thugut,  a  diplomat  remarkable  alike  for  his  versa- 
tility in  the  choice  of  means  and  for  his  persistent  pursuit  of 
fundamental  aims.  Thugut  resolved  that  Austria,  while  opposing 
the  Partition,  should  make  use  of  Prussia  and  Great  Britain  to 
secure  acquisitions  of  territory  proportionate  to  those  of  Prussia 
and  Russia  in  Poland.  He  declined  to  specify  where  those  acquisi- 
tions should  be  found2.  The  most  obvious  were  the  recovery  of  the 
Belgic  Provinces  (together  with  Liege)  and  the  addition  of  territory 
to  be  conquered  from  France.  He  therefore  pressed  a  close  under- 
standing with  Great  Britain ;  and  Grenville  now  held  out  to  the  Court 
of  Vienna  the  prospect  of  acquiring  Lille,  Valenciennes  and  other 

1  So  urgent  was  the  crisis  that  Lebrun  wrote  to  Grenville,  on  April  2nd,  to 
propose  discussions  for  peace.    For  Grenville's  reception  of  the  proposal  see  his 
letter  of  May  i8th,  1793  (Appendix  B). 

2  P.O.  Austria,  32.   Eden  to  Grenville,  April  isth,  1793. 


24o    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

strong  and  populous  cities  of  north-eastern  France  as  a  barrier  against 
that  Power.  This  revived  Barrier-scheme  offered  some  temporary 
advantages.  It  would  root  Austria  more  firmly  in  her  Belgic  lands,  and 
thereby  tend  to  efface  her  desire  for  the  Belgic-Bavarian  exchange,  a 
project  always  strongly  opposed  at  Whitehall.  When  the  Allied  arms 
prospered  in  May- July,  the  Court  of  Vienna  viewed  these  proposals 
with  favour,  and,  in  deference  to  British  representations,  seemed  to 
abandon  finally  the  proposals  for  the  exchange.  This  decision  pleased 
the  Hohenzollern  Court;  but,  dissembling  its  satisfaction,  it  now 
proceeded  to  mark  time  in  the  west,  to  the  exasperation  of  Great 
Britain  and  Austria.  The  motives  of  Prussia  were  clear  enough.  Having 
secured  her  booty  in  the  east,  she  now  desired  to  see  her  southern  rival 
go  empty  away  from  the  territorial  scramble  planned  between  them 
early  in  1792 ;  and,  at  the  close  of  August  i793,Lucchesini,the  Prussian 
Envoy  at  Vienna,  declared  that  his  Government  would  object  to  any 
serious  diminution  of  the  power  of  France  as  detrimental  to  the  balance 
of  Europe1. 

These  facts  explain  the  course  of  the  campaign  in  France.  The  slow 
and  methodical  reduction  of  the  French  Barrier  fortresses  in  the  north- 
east (most  faulty  as  a  military  measure,  when  France  had  no  good  army 
in  the  field)  was  due  mainly  to  the  Anglo-Austrian  understanding  as  to 
the  eventual  acquisition  of  those  fortresses  by  the  Habsburgs ;  and  the 
efforts  of  Coburg  and  the  Duke  of  York,  which,  on  the  reduction  of 
Valenciennes  (July  28th),  came  very  near  to  success,  were  wasted 
by  the  calculating  selfishness  of  Prussia.  The  remonstrances  of  British, 
Austrian  and  Dutch  statesmen  at  her  feeble  and  belated  operations 
in  the  west  had  no  effect.  Finally,  on  September  23rd,  Lucchesini 
handed  to  Lord  Yarmouth,  our  special  Envoy  at  Prussian  head- 
quarters (where  Frederick  William  still  was)  a  note  bewailing  the 
expenses  of  the  campaign,  the  troubles  in  Prussian  Poland,  and  so 
forth,  and  requiring,  not  only  our  guarantee  for  the  possession  of  that 
land,  but  also  a  subsidy  by  the  Allies  towards  the  expenses  of  the  War. 
These  demands  being  declined,  Frederick  William  quitted  his  army, 
ordering  it  not  to  engage  in  serious  undertakings;  whereupon 
George  III  commented:  "The  sudden  retreat  of  the  King  of  Prussia 
completes  the  very  ill-advised  line  of  conduct  that  has  attended  every 
step  he  has  taken  for  these  four  or  five  years2." 

The  results  of  Prussia's  apathy  were  severely  felt  in  another  sphere 

1  F.O.  Austria,  34.   Eden  to  Grenville,  August  3ist,  1793. 

2  Drop-more  Papers,  n.  441.   See  too,  pp.  446,  451,  470. 


TENSION  BETWEEN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  SPAIN    241 

of  war,  Toulon.  On  August  a8th,  the  French  Royalists,  dominant 
in  that  city,  handed  it  over,  with  its  dockyard  and  fleet,  in  trust  to 
the  British  Vice- Admiral,  Lord  Hood.  The  Spanish  fleet  under 
Admiral  Langara  sailed  in  immediately  after.  The  plan  of  the  British 
Government,  who  on  September  i3th  heard  of  this  unexpected 
success,  was  to  collect  as  large  a  force  as  possible  of  Austrians, 
Spaniards,  Sardinians  and  Neapolitans  for  the  succour  of  the  Royalist 
cause  in  the  South  of  France,  and  to  press  the  Republic  hard  on  that 
side.  The  unwarlike  character  of  the  Spanish  and  Neapolitan  con- 
tingents (those  of  Sardinia  were  highly  efficient)  rendered  very  neces- 
sary the  despatch  of  at  least  5000  seasoned  Austrian  troops  from  her 
Milanese  province.  On  September  24th,  Thugut  reluctantly  assented 
to  Eden's  requests  to  this  effect ;  but,  on  various  pretexts  (chiefly  the 
inactivity  of  Prussia  in  the  Rhenish  campaign),  the  Imperial  Govern- 
ment delayed  the  fulfilment  of  its  promise  until  too  late.  Toulon  fell  on 
December  i  Qth,  before  the  Austrian  troops  began  their  march  seawards. 
This  disaster  also  strained  severely  the  relations  between  Great 
Britain  and  Spain.  The  Court  of  Madrid  had  claimed  the  right  to 
appoint  the  Commander-in-chief  on  shore,  even  though  Toulon  was 
surrendered  to  Hood,  and  though  most  of  the  seamen  and  troops 
present  by  the  end  of  September  were  British  or  subsidised  by  Great 
Britain.  Much  friction  ensued,  but  Pitt  and  Grenville  ordered  the 
retention  of  the  command  by  a  British  General.  Spain,  also,  har- 
boured resentment  at  the  overtures  made  by  Paoli  on  behalf  of 
Corsican  Royalists  to  Lord  Hood  for  placing  their  island  under  the 
protection  of  George  III.  Another  faction,  headed  by  Buttafoco, 
treated  with  Langara  for  calling  in  the  Spanish  forces1.  Neither 
move  had  any  effect  until  after  the  evacuation  of  Toulon  by  the 
Allies  on  December  iQth;  but  Hood  thereafter  resumed  his  relations 
with  the  Paolists;  and  in  the  spring  of  1794  British  forces  set  about 
the  reduction  of  the  remaining  French  garrisons.  The  Spanish 
Government  resented  this  conduct  as  unfriendly  on  the  part  of  an 
Ally,  and  declared  it  one  of  the  causes  of  the  rupture  of  1796. 
Grenville  sought  to  divert  the  thoughts  of  Spain  to  acquisitions  in 
Roussillon  and  Beam ;  but  his  motive  of  promoting  hostility  between 
her  and  France  was  too  obvious  to  draw  away  her  attention  from 
the  leading  preoccupations  of  her  statesmen,  viz.,  the  extension  of 
British  power  in  the  West  Indies  and  the  Mediterranean2. 

1  P.O.  Genoa.   F.  Drake  to  Grenville,  December  22nd,  1793. 

2  P.O.  Spain,  27.   Grenville  to  St  Helens,  July  iQth,  1793.   (See  Appendix  B.) 

W.&G.i.  16 


242    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

Another  relation  which  the  Toulon  affair  brought  to  a  crisis 
was  that  of  the  British  Government  to  the  French  Princes  and  the 
Royalist  party.  Up  to  the  month  of  August,  1793,  the  British  Govern- 
ment declared  its  resolve  not  to  intervene  in  favour  of  any  party  or 
form  of  Constitution.  But  the  informal  alliance  with  the  Royalists 
of  Toulon — perhaps,  also,  disgust  at  the  deepening  atrocities  of  the 
Reign  of  Terror — somewhat  modified  its  attitude.  It  continued  to 
discountenance  the  Emigres.  In  common  with  all  who  had  experienced 
their  intolerable  arrogance  and  old-world  bigotry,  British  statesmen 
and  commanders  were  determined  to  keep  them  at  arm's  length1. 
But  a  very  delicate  situation  arose  in  October,  when  it  appeared  that 
the  Comte  de  Provence  (afterwards  King  Lewis  XVIII)  who  had 
assumed  the  title  of  Regent  of  France,  proposed  to  proceed  to  Toulon ; 
also,  that  the  Spanish  Court  favoured  the  scheme  as  a  rrieans  of 
increasing  Spanish  influence  there.  At  once,  British  Ministers  took 
alarm ;  for  it  was  certain  that  Monsieur  would  dictate  military  and 
political  measures,  and  would  prevent  the  Allies  from  holding  any  terri- 
torial conquests  as  gages  for  the  indemnities  on  which  they  were  still 
hopefully  counting.  On  October  22nd,  Grenville  fired  off  despatches 
to  St  Helens  at  Madrid  and  Drake  at  Genoa,  bidding  the  former 
oppose  the  scheme  and  the  latter,  in  the  last  resort,  even  prevent  the 
embarkation  of  the  Prince2.  His  slow  progress  and  the  rapid  success 
of  the  Republican  arms  prevented  that  harlequinade  from  taking 
place;  but  the  whole  affair  strained  our  relations  both  with  Spain 
and  with  the  Royalists  of  Toulon. 

While  discouraging  the  "pure"  Royalists,  George  III  and  his 
Ministers  avowed  their  preference  for  a  limited  monarchy.  In  the 
Instructions,  drawn  up  almost  entirely  by  Pitt  and  signed  on 
October  igth,  for  the  three  British  Commissioners  appointed  to 

^administer  Toulon,  there  occurs  this  passage:  "You  will  be  par- 
ticularly careful  on  all  occasions  in  stating  H.M.'s  conviction  that  the 
acknowledgment  of  an  hereditary  monarchy  and  of  Lewis  XVII  as 
lawful  sovereign,  affords  the  only  probable  ground  for  restoring 
regular  government  in  France."  A  less  distinctly  monarchist  Declara- 
tion, drafted  by  Grenville  and  issued  from  London  on  October  29th, 
stipulated  merely  that  "some  legitimate  and  stable  government  should 

\    be  established,  founded  on  the  acknowledged  principles  of  universal 
justice,  and  capable  of  maintaining  with  other  Powers  the  accustomed 

1  P.O.  Sardinia,  13.   Mulgrave  to  Trevor,  October  iQth,  1793. 

2  Cottin,  pp.  425,  428. 


UNCERTAIN  RELATIONS  WITH  PRUSSIA         243 

relations  of  union  and  peace."  On  this  head,  Grenville's  policy  was 
more  flexible  than  that  of  Pitt  and  left  the  Administration  free  to  treat 
with  any  French  Government  that  did  not  pursue  aggressive  and  sub- 
versive aims.  Of  this  wider  definition  Pitt  was  glad  to  avail  himself 
in  the  negotiations  of  1796  and  1797 ;  though  by  that  time,  as  will  duly 
appear,  Grenville's  predilections  had  become  less  pacific  and  rather 
more  monarchical  than  those  of  Pitt1.  The  British  Declarations  were 
less  royalist  in  tone  than  those  of  our  German  Allies  and  far  less  so  than 
the  vehement  professions  of  Catharine.  Thus,  by  the  autumn  of  1793, 
the  four  Allies  had  taken  up  a  standing  not  unlike  that  of  the  year 
1814.  For  the  present,  their  pronouncements  placed  them  signally 
at  variance  with  French  Republicans,  and  tended  to  rally  all  of  them 
round  any  Government  which  could  drive  out  the  invaders.  Thus, 
the  Toulon  episode,  which  bred  discord  among  the  Allies,  solidified 
Jacobin  rule  in  France.  By  the  end  of  the  year,  her  soil  was  almost 
freed  from  the  Allied  armies — a  result  due  no  less  to  the  fatuities  of 
their  Generals  than  to  the  blunders  and  selfishness  of  their  Cabinets. 
The  signal  failures  of  the  Allies  in  the  campaign  of  1793  emphasised 
the  need  of  securing  substantial  help  from  Prussia  for  that  of  1794. 
That  Court,  however,  seemed  resolved  to  continue  marking  time  on 
the  Rhine,  while  acting  energetically  beyond  the  Vistula.  Its  guiding 
spirit  was  Lucchesini,  formerly  reader  to  Frederick  II.  Having 
espoused  the  sister-in-law  of  Bischoffswerder,  the  still  powerful 
favourite,  he  had  secret  means  of  influencing  the  highly  susceptible 
Monarch ;  and,  by  dint  of  cajolery  or  bullying,  generally  had  his  way. 
Though  his  policy  was  persistently  anti- British  and  anti- Austrian,  he 
had  gained  too  great  an  influence  over  our  Envoy,  the  Earl  of  Yarmouth. 
Pitt,  therefore,  advised  the  despatch  of  Lord  Malmesbury  on  a  special 
mission  to  Berlin  to  clear  matters  up.  At  Whitehall  Ministers  differed 
as  to  the  value  of  Prussia's  Alliance.  Grenville  was  so  convinced  of 
her  falseness  as  to  advise  the  refusal  of  all  further  subsidies.  Pitt  was 
more  hopeful;  but,  on  October  9th,  the  Cabinet  decided  on  the  with- 
drawal of  the  subsidy  and  the  transmission  of  remonstrances  (toned 
down  at  Pitt's  suggestion)  to  the  Court  of  Berlin.  It  was  well  not  to 
insist  overmuch ;  for  the  Prussian  Ministers  could  claim  that  they  had 
as  much  right  to  crush  the  so-called  Polish  revolt  as  we  had  to  extend 
British  sway  in  the  East  and  West  Indies ;  and,  later,  the  Anglophil 
Duke  of  Brunswick  mildly  reproved  our  exigence  at  Berlin.  Frederick 

1  Dropmore  Papers,  11.  433,  438,  443;  Part.  Hist.  xxx.  1060;  Cottin,  p.  423; 
E.  D.  Adams,  pp.  22-24. 

16— 2 


244    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

William  II,  with  all  his  defects,  was  not  devoid  of  chivalry,  and  a 
personal  appeal  of  George  III  to  him  would  probably  have  cleared 
the  air.  As  it  was,  the  British  remonstrance  produced  an  angry 
counterblast,  which  Yarmouth  explained  as  due  to  annoyance  at  our 
refusal  to  meet  Prussia's  lofty  demands  for  payment  of  actions 
required  by  her  treaty  obligations1. 

The  Prussian  problem  being  insoluble  except  by  consummate 
skill  and  tact,  Yarmouth  was  superseded  by  Lord  Malmesbury.  On 
his  way  to  Berlin,  he  stayed  at  the  Hague,  Brussels  and  Frankfort, 
in  order  to  probe  the  situation.  He  found  it  unpromising.  At  Brussels, 
he  met  the  Austrian  Ambassador,  Mercy  d'Argenteau,  formerly  the 
Anglophobe  counsellor  of  Marie- Antoinette,  who  now,  under  the 
chastening  stroke  of  her  execution,  confessed  that  everything  depended 
on  the  union  of  England  and  Austria.  He  extolled  the  exertions  of 
the  Duke  of  York's  army,  but  declared  that  Austria  had  no  further 
troops  available  except  10,000  in  the  Milanese.  In  his  view,  the 
conduct  of  the  Prussians,  both  Ministers  and  Generals,  was  equally 
reprehensible  and  foolish;  but  Frederick  William  must  understand 
that  abandonment  of  this  contest  spelt  ruin.  At  Alost,  Malmesbury 
found  the  Duke  of  York  indignant  at  the  mismanagement  of  the 
campaign,  and  his  officers  discontented  or  even  insubordinate.  At 
Frankfort,  he  gleaned  useful  hints  from  the  Dutch  Envoy,  Vice- 
admiral  Kinckel,  as  to  the  influences,  male  and  female,  which  played 
upon  the  Prussian  monarch,  and  as  to  the  success  of  that  arch-intriguer 
Lucchesini,  in  removing  from  the  royal  councils  all  friends  of  Austria 
and  Great  Britain.  Austria's  representative,  Count  Lehrbach,  was 
unpopular,  owing  to  his  rough  overbearing  ways.  The  Prussian  Court, 
therefore,  oscillated  between  hatred  of  French  principle  and  fear  of 
Russia,  the  dominating  motive  being  to  incorporate  thoroughly  its 
late  gains  in  Poland  and  to  leave  Austria  beggared  by  her  Rhenish 
campaigns.  An  imperious  necessity,  however,  controlled  these  oscilla- 
tions. The  treasury  at  Berlin  was  nearly  empty.  Frederick  William 
having  squandered  money  on  mistresses  and  official  embezzlers,  four- 
fifths  of  the  treasure  inherited  from  Frederick  the  Great  had  vanished ; 
and  Prussia  possessed  no  system  of  finance  capable  of  meeting  the 
huge  yearly  deficits2. 

Herein  lay  the  secret  of  Frederick  William's  complaisance  to 

1  Dropmore  Papers,  n.  442,  446,  470. 

2  Malmesbury,  Diaries,  in.  14-23;  Vivenot,  Quellen  zur  Geschichte  der  Politik 
Oesterreichs,  IV.  n  et  seq.;  P.O.  Prussia,  28.   G.  Rose  to  Grenville,  November  3rd, 
1793. 


PRUSSIA  AND  THE  SUBSIDIES  245 

Malmesbury.  When  our  Envoy  saw  him  at  Berlin  on  December  25th, 
he  proffered  almost  indignant  assurances  of  his  fidelity  to  the  Treaty 
of  1788,  though  recent  notes  from  Berlin  had  left  it  doubtful;  but  he 
added  that,  in  the  exhausted  state  of  his  exchequer,  he  could  not 
undertake  another  campaign,  and  that,  a  loan  being  out  of  the 
question,  he  must  recall  nearly  all  his  troops  from  the  Rhine  unless  his 
Allies  granted  pecuniary  support.  Such  a  step  he  would  regret,  for 
he  abhorred  the  French  Jacobins ;  and  he  trusted  that  Great  Britain 
would  not  leave  him  "degraded  and  sunk,"  but  would  enable  him  to 
proceed  with  the  French  War.  These  earnest  professions,  added  to  the 
assurances  of  George  Rose  (Charge  d'affaires  at  Berlin)  as  to  Prussia's 
poverty,  produced  a  great  impression,  especially  when  the  King  stated 
his  keen  desire  to  increase  his  Rhenish  army  to  100,000  men.  Malmes- 
bury hoped  that,  if  the  honest  old  Field-marshal  Mollendorff  com- 
manded such  a  force,  the  results  would  be  decisive.  Despite  warnings 
from  Lehrbach,  that  Prussia  meant  to  desert  her  Allies  and  join 
France,  our  Envoy  hoped  for  the  best;  and  his  influence  turned  the 
scale  in  Downing  Street1.  Grenville  cast  off  his  scepticism,  and, 
while  grumbling  that  the  Germans  thought  England  a  pretty  good 
milch-cow,  looked  about  anxiously  for  the  necessary  subsidy  of 
£2,000,000.  On  January  28th,  1794,  he  wrote  to  Malmesbury, 
promising  this  sum — Great  Britain  to  contribute  two-fifths,  Austria 
and  Holland  each  one-fifth,  the  last  fifth  remaining  as  a  charge  either 
on  a  beaten  France  or  on  the  conscience  of  Catharine2. 

The  reception  accorded  to  these  offers  at  the  Allied  capitals  threw 
light  on  the  loose  texture  of  the  First  Coalition.  Frederick  William 
at  once  computed  that  such  a  sum  would  not  enable  him  to  act  up 
to  the  limit  of  his  desires  for  the  great  cause.  To  the  Dutch  their  quota 
seemed  excessive.  The  appeal  to  the  conscience  of  Catharine  found  it 
numb ;  and  Thugut  saw  in  the  British  subsidy  to  the  Hohenzollerns 
a  means  whereby  they  could  arm  a  great  force,  maintain  it  in  a  central 
position  and  possibly  even  launch  it  against  Vienna3.  The  Austrian 
General,  while  less  nervous  than  the  Minister,  protested  against  the 
advent  of  the  great  Prussian  subsidised  force  near  Liege,  and  pointed 
out  West  Flanders  as  its  proper  sphere  of  operations.  As  the  spring 
approached,  much  ink  was  spilt  in  drafting  plans  for  the  defence  of 

1  After  January  24th,  1794,  the  F.O.  despatches  were  dated  from  Downing 
Street.  2  Dropmore  Papers,  11.  491-7. 

3  F.O.  Austria,  36.  Eden  to  Grenville,  February  isth,  27th,  1794.  Malmesbury, 
Diaries,  m.  53-68.  The  best  survey  of  Thugut's  policy  is  in  H.  Hiiffer's  Quellen, 
edited  by  F.  Luckwaldt  (1907),  Pt  n,  vol.  i. 


246    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

Ypres  and  the  lines  of  the  Lys  and  Sambre ;  but  the  Imperialists  now 
pointed  out  that  the  British  and  Dutch  contingents  were  30,000  below 
strength1.  Worst  of  all,  a  revolt  of  the  Poles  strengthened  the  Franco- 
phil party  at  Berlin,  which  always  received  powerful  support  from 
the  King's  uncle,  Prince  Henry.  Finally,  the  British  Envoy  induced 
the  chief  Prussian  Minister,  Count  Haugwitz,  to  suggest  the  trans- 
ference of  the  negotiation  to  the  Hague.  There,  on  the  scene  of 
Malmesbury 's  former  triumphs  in  1787-8,  they  concluded  a  Treaty 
(April  1 9th,  1794),  whereby  Prussia  was  to  supply  an  army  of  62,400 
men,  under  a  Prussian  Commander-in-chief,  for  service  against 
France,  Great  Britain  and  the  United  Provinces  paying  her  £50,000 
a  month  and  £300,000  for  initial  expenses,  also  her  costs  in  bread 
and  forage,  calculated  at  the  rate  of  32  shillings  a  month  per  head. 
The  movements  of  this  army  and  the  conquests  made  by  it  were  to 
be  at  the  decision  and  disposal  of  the  Maritime  Powers.  Of  the  yearly 
subsidy  Great  Britian  was  chargeable  for  £1,600,000  and  the  United 
Provinces  £400,000  a  year;  also,  for  the  other  expenses  in  similar 
proportion.  The  Treaty  was  framed  ostensibly  for  the  year  1794,  but  a 
separate  article  stipulated  its  renewal  and  for  the  duration  of  the  War2. 
Malmesbury  had  somewhat  exceeded  Grenville's  instructions ;  but 
he  could  plead  that  only  by  liberal  payments  to  Prussia  could  she 
be  induced  to  act  with  vigour.  As  the  compact  aided  her  finances, 
spared  those  of  Russia,  and  promised  to  fulfil  the  aims  of  the  Allies, 
it  should  have  formed  the  basis  of  a  stable  Coalition.  Various  cir- 
cumstances, however,  militated  against  it.  Inter  alia,  Pitt  and  Grenville 
recalled  Malmesbury  to  London  for  further  information,  but,  on  his 
arrival,  were  so  absorbed  in  the  suppression  of  sedition  as  not  to  see 
him  or  provide  for  the  payment  of  the  first  subsidy  during  nearly 
three  weeks.  The  delay  was  disastrous.  It  gave  a  handle  to  the 
Francophils  at  Berlin,  and  they  seem  to  have  won  over  to  their  side 
Haugwitz,  whose  constancy  had  always  depended  on  the  influence  of 
Malmesbury.  Thereafter,  the  Count  always  shunned  meeting  him3. 
Lucchesini  now  had  his  way  at  Berlin,  the  result  being  that  Mollen- 
dorff,  commanding  the  subsidised  Prussian  army,  was  induced  to 
raise  various  difficulties  as  to  the  method  of  its  employment  beyond 
the  Lower  Rhine.  Seeing  that  the  Austro-British  force  under  Clerfait 
and  the  Duke  of  York,  on  May  i8th,  suffered  a  heavy  defeat  at 

1  Vivenot,  iv.  367. 

2  Martens,  v.  283 ;  Garden,  v.  233 ;  Malmesbury,  Diaries,  in.  91-3. 

3  Malmesbury,  Diaries,  ill.  91-6. 


AUSTRIAN  EVACUATION  OF  BELGIUM  247 

Turcoing-Roubaix,  the  arrival  of  the  Prussians  for  the  defence  of  the 
United  Provinces  was  urgently  necessary1.  The  British  and  Dutch 
Envoys,  General  Cornwallis  and  Kinckel,  added  their  arguments  to 
those  of  Malmesbury  during  lively  interviews  with  the  Marshal  near 
Mainz,  but  failed  to  overcome  his  objections  to  so  lengthy  a  march. 
Malmesbury  discovered  that  the  Anglophobes  of  the  Prussian  Court 
had  been  influencing  him;  and,  in  the  absence  of  Haugwitz,  Baron 
Hardenberg  seemed  to  be  the  only  official  at  Prussian  headquarters, 
anxious  for  the  fulfilment  of  the  Treaty.  Hardenberg  consented  to 
represent  to  Mollendorff  the  disgrace  and  isolation  which  must  befall 
Prussia,  if,  after  receiving  the  British  and  Dutch  subsidies,  she  failed 
to  perform  her  bounden  duty  to  those  hard  pressed  Allies.  It  was  in 
vain.  Not  without  some  show  of  reason,  the  septuagenarian  Marshal 
represented  the  immense  difficulty  of  a  march  northwards,  and  kept 
his  army  in  cantonments  with  the  maximum  of  economy,  British  and 
Dutch  money  being  therefore  available  for  the  other  requirements  of 
Berlin2. 

Meanwhile,  events  had  occurred  which  began  to  awaken  jealousy 
of  British  maritime  power.  The  occupation  of  the  French  colony  of 
Hayti  and  the  conquest  of  Tobago  and  Pondicherry  in  1793  were 
followed  up,  early  in  1794,  by  the  capture  of  Martinique  and  St  Lucia, 
the  keys  to  the  West  Indies.  On  June  ist,  1794,  Lord  Howe  gained  a 
decisive  victory  over  the  Brest  fleet,  thus  confirming  British  naval 
supremacy.  On  the  other  hand  the  Anglo-Austrian  forces  sustained 
a  serious  reverse  at  Fleurus  (June  25th).  Thereupon,  in  pursuance  of 
Thugut's  policy,  Coburg  tamely  evacuated  the  Belgic  Provinces, 
abandoning  the  garrisons  of  Valenciennes  and  three  neighbouring 
fortresses.  Probably  Thugut  now  cherished  the  hope  that,  if  Belgium 
were  to  be  recovered  at  all,  it  would  be  at  the  cost  of  Colonial 
sacrifices  made  by  Great  Britain  for  the  sake  of  maintaining  the 
Flemish  Barrier  system.  Thenceforth,  he  took  little  interest  in  the 
recovery  of  Belgium.  The  entry  of  Austria's  troops  into  southern 
Poland,  early  in  July,  manifested  her  intention  to  claim  her  share  of 
the  now  imminent  Partition3. 

This  event  should  have  convinced  British  Ministers  that  Thugut's 
policy  of  finding  an  indemnity  there  for  the  loss  of  Belgium  had 
definitely  triumphed.  Even  in  June,  Whitworth  reported  from 

1  Fortescue,  Hist,  of  the  Brit.  Army,  iv.  (Pt  I),  ch.  x.  Mollendorff  always  opposed 
the  compact  with  England.  See  Hardenberg,  Denkwurdigkeiten,  I.  186. 

2  Cornwallis  Mems.  n.  248-256;  Dropmore  Papers,  n.  577. 

3  P.O.  Austria,  37.   Stratton  to  Grenville,  July  gth,  1794. 


248    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

Petrograd  that  the  King  of  Prussia  pressed  the  Empress  Catharine 
to  undertake  a  Third  Partition.  For  a  time,  she  seemed  to  disapprove, 
probably  from  a  surmise  that  the  scheme  would  palsy  his  efforts 
beyond  the  Rhine,  and  thereby  leave  Austria  weak  for  the  acquisition 
of  her  promised  indemnities  in  that  quarter.  In  July,  however,  her 
scruples  seemed  to  vanish,  and  her  only  difference  with  Frederick 
William  was  as  to  Austria  sharing  in  the  proposed  Partition1.  The 
Empress  favoured  it;  he  opposed  it;  but,  after  the  Prussian  troops 
had  suffered  sharp  reverses  at  the  hands  of  the  Poles,  his  opposition 
relaxed.  She, also, read  him  some  severe  lectures  as  to  the  evil  influence 
of  the  former  Partitions  (primarily  due  to  Berlin)  on  the  struggle 
against  France,  and  reminded  him  that  she  had  shared  in  them  only  on 
condition  of  his  waging  war  vigorously  beyond  the  Rhine.  There  is 
no  sign  that  these  reproofs  were  received  any  more  seriously  than  the 
original  advice.  But  Whitworth  continued  to  assure  Grenville  of 
Catharine's  enthusiasm  for  the  French  War,  in  which,  however,  she 
reluctantly  declined  to  participate  until  after  the  settlement  of  the 
Polish  question2. 

The  almost  complete  silence  of  Grenville  on  this  question  be- 
tokens a  feeling  of  despair.  Indeed,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  Great 
Britain,  when  immersed  in  the  Revolutionary  War,  could  have  averted 
the  Partitions.  Certainly,  neither  Pitt  nor  Grenville  assigned  sufficient 
importance  to  these  events.  Pitt's  knowledge  of  Continental  politics, 
especially  of  those  of  eastern  Europe,  was  scanty;  and,  looking  at  the 
European  situation  from  a  somewhat  insular  standpoint,  both  he  and 
Grenville  underestimated  the  drag  of  the  eastern  undertow.  A  signal 
proof  of  Pitt's  hopeful  half-knowledge  appears  in  his  Memorandum 
of  July,  1794.  While  the  Imperialists  were  evacuating  Belgium,  and 
Mollendorff  refused  to  move  northwards,  the  Prime-Minister  insisted 
on  the  necessity  of  bringing  up  the  total  of  the  former  to  100,000  men, 
with  a  view  to  the  rescue  of  the  besieged  garrisons  and  the  recovery 
of  that  land;  he  also  demanded  "  the  immediate  march  to  Flanders  of 
the  army  under  Marshal  Mollendorff."  The  hoped-for  result  of  these 
combinations  was  to  be  the  muster,  by  the  spring  of  I7953,  of  238,000 
Allied  troops  in  Belgium. 

1  P.O.  Russia,  27.  Whitworth  to  Grenville,  June  27th,  July  i8th,  1794. 

2  Ibid.  Whitworth  to  Grenville,  September  26th,  October  i4th,  November  4th, 
1794. 

3  Dropmore  Papers,  n.  599-600.    Grenville's  note  of  July  i9th  to  Spencer  and 
T.  Grenville  gives  an  estimated  total  of  230,000 — a  proof  of  the  close  relations 
between  him  and  Pitt.  (P.O.  Austria,  38.) 


AUSTRIAN  RETIREMENT  249 

Pitt  was,  at  this  time,  elated  by  the  accession  of  the  Portland  Whigs, 
which  left  the  Foxite  or  anti-War  party  a  mere  handful.  One  of  the 
Old  Whigs,  Thomas  Grenville,  brother  of  the  Minister,  was  now 
selected,  together  with  Earl  Spencer,  to  proceed  on  a  special  mission 
to  Vienna  for  the  purpose  of  stimulating  Austria  to  further  efforts 
by  the  prospect  of  her  acquiring  the  French  Barrier  fortresses  from 
Lille  to  Sedan1.  A  further  attempt  to  galvanise  Mollendorff  into 
activity  was  made  by  a  Supplementary  Convention  with  Prussia  on 
July  2yth,  1794,  which  renewed  and  extended  the  stipulations  of  the 
recent  Treaty. 

It  was  a  characteristic  of  British  policy,  in  this  period,  to  make  these 
convulsive  efforts,  after  the  misfortunes  which  prompted  them  had 
become  irreparable.  Spencer  and  Grenville,  on  their  arrival  at  Vienna, 
found  a  very  general  disposition  to  give  up  the  struggle.  The  Emperor 
had  just  dissolved  his  Government  of  the  Belgic  Netherlands2,  thus 
fulfilling  the  wishes  of  Thugut  to  be  rid  of  that  encumbrance.  The 
Chancellor  now  founded  his  chief  hopes  on  Catharine's  intervening  to 
keep  Prussia  in  the  right  path.  To  the  British  Envoys  he  laid  stress  on 
the  financial  plight  of  Austria,  and,  insisting  that  she  could  not 
continue  her  efforts  without  a  liberal  subsidy,  claimed  for  Vienna  that 
which  was  wasted  on  Berlin.  On  August  i2th,  Thomas  Grenville 
thus  summed  up  the  situation:  "They  (the  Austrians)  will,  I  fear, 
again  play  with  us  by  giving  orders  to  move  when  they  get  money 
only,  and  they  will  probably  get  none  till  the  places  are  lost  which  they 
ought  to  recover3."  In  comparison  with  this  dominant  fact,  the 
difficulty  of  Lord  Grenville  having  omitted  to  specify  how  extensive 
a  barrier  the  Emperor  was  to  acquire  from  France  seemed  trivial.  In 
truth,  the  Allies  were  about  to  lose  all  the  French  strongholds  acquired 
in  1793 ;  and,  whatever  promises  were  forthcoming  at  Vienna,  per- 
formance was  lacking.  To  keep  up  appearances,  Coburg  was  replaced 
by  Clerfait ;  but  the  retirement  continued4.  When  the  French  advance 
threatened  Maestricht,  Clerfait  called  on  the  Duke  of  York  with  his 
scanty  British  and  Dutch  forces  to  rescue  it,  but  himself  remained 
inactive,  in  spite  of  vigorous  protests  from  Downing  Street.  Early 
in  October,  he  retired  behind  the  Rhine5.  The  Dutch  troops,  dismayed 

1  P.O.  Austria,  38.   Despatch  of  July  igth. 

2  Vivenot,  iv.  375. 

3  Dropmore  Papers,  n.  614. 

4  Pitt  and  Grenville  wished  the  Archduke  Charles  to  take  over  the  command, 
with  Mack  as  adviser.  (P.O.  Austria,  38.   Grenville  to  Spencer  and  T.  Grenville.) 

5  Fortescue,  iv.  Pt  I,  ch.  n ;  Vivenot,  iv.  365-8. 


250    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

at  their  abandonment  by  both  Prussia  and  Austria,  had  already  shown 
signs  of  collapse,  the  stronghold  of  Bois-le-Duc  being  surrendered  in 
disgraceful  fashion  (September  28th). 

This  display  of  ineptitude  and  cowardice  at  the  front  was  accom- 
panied by  chicanery  both  at  Berlin  and  Vienna.  Malmesbury  had 
noticed  a  semblance  of  activity  in  MollendorfFs  army,  whenever  the 
British  subsidies  fell  due,  and  a  rapid  relapse  after  their  payment1. 
At  Berlin,  also,  the  politicians  showed  alarm  at  the  mere  report  that 
the  British  subsidy  was  to  be  transferred  from  them  to  the  Habsburg 
Court.  The  hope  of  such  a  transfer  (with  substantial  additions),  kept 
up  a  show  of  energy  at  Vienna ;  but  Thugut  more  than  once  hinted 
that  Great  Britain,  having  virtually  destroyed  the  navy  and  commerce 
of  France  and  captured  several  of  her  colonies,  could  well  afford  to 
"buy  back"  the  Belgic  Provinces  for  Austria  at  the  general  peace2. 

He  thus  gave  expression  to  a  notion  always  popular  among  Great 
Britain's  Allies.  It  amounted  to  this:  that  her  triumphs  at  sea  were 
to  atone  for  their  failures  on  land,  the  sacrosanct  principle  of  the 
Balance  of  Power  being  also  invoked  to  justify  her  colonial  renuncia- 
tions ancf  their  territorial  recoveries.  The  classic  instance  of  this 
procedure  had  been  the  Treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  (1748),  when 
George  II  sacrificed  an  important  conquest  overseas  in  order  to  re- 
establish Austria  in  the  Flemish  Barrier  fortresses.  Thugut,  however, 
knew  little  of  the  British  people,  or  even  of  George  III,  if  he  believed 
that  a  similar  bartering  away  of  colonial  gains,  made  or  likely  to  be 
made,  would  take  place  after  the  Flemish  campaigns  had  aroused 
general  disgust  with  the  Austrian  Alliance3.  Mercy  d'Argenteau,  who 
was  sent  as  Austrian  Special  Envoy  to  London,  seems  not  to  have 
urged  any  such  argument.  Thugut  hoped  that  Mercy's  action  would 
avail  at  least  to  procure  a  loan ;  but  he  died  at  London  on  August  25th, 
after  accomplishing  there  nothing  worthy  of  note.  The  Ambassador, 
Starhemberg,  continued  to  press  for  a  considerable  loan4.  The  more 
flagrant  the  incapacity  of  Habsburg  officers  and  officials,  the  more 
urgent  became  their  demands  for  money.  Thugut  now  insisted  on  a 

1  P.O.  Prussia,  35.    Malmesbury  to  Grenville,  September  26th,   1794.    On 
September  3oth  he  threatened  to  stop  the  subsidy  unless  Mollendorff  moved  to 
cover  Clerfait. 

2  Dropmore  Papers,  11.  627. 

3  Those  feelings  were  increased  by  the  cowardice  of  the  Austrian  commander 
of  Valenciennes,  who,  on  surrendering  that  fortress,  tamely  handed  over  a  large 
number  of  Emigrh  to  be  butchered.  (Vivenot,  iv.  447.) 

4  Vivenot,  IV.  389-407.    See  ibid.  p.  441  for  Austria's  hopes  of  a  new  Barrier. 
It  included  Lille. 


APPROACHING  COLLAPSE  OF  THE  ALLIANCE    251 

loan  of  £6,000,000,  which  both  Spencer  and  Thomas  Grenville 
declared  to  be  an  impossibly  large  sum.  They  returned  to  London 
late  in  October,  re  infectd.*i/ 

Early  in  that  month,  Pitt's  indignation  against  Prussia  boiled 
over  in  an  interview  with  her  Ambassador,  Jacobi ;  and  thereupon  he 
stopped  the  subsidies.  Grenville  promptly  intervened  and  resumed 
the  payments ;  but  the  mischief  could  not  be  undone.  Berlin  clamoured 
at  the  breach  of  the  Treaty;  and  Frederick  William  threatened  to 
recall  his  Rhenish  army,  unless  the  full  arrears  were  paid  up1.  Pitt's 
intervention  in  the  affairs  of  the  Foreign  Office  was  the  more  unfor- 
tunate, because,  as  the  autumn  wore  on,  the  rot  spread  alarmingly  in 
the  Grand  Alliance.  On  October  24th,  the  Elector  of  Mainz  proposed 
to  the  Diet  of  the  Empire  a  motion  in  favour  of  peace,  begging  the 
Emperor  and  the  King  of  Prussia  to  concert  measures  for  an  armistice, 
with  a  view  to  a  pacification2,  provided  that  the  integrity  of  the 
Imperial  frontiers  were  maintained.  Disgust  at  the  War  also  pervaded 
the  Allied  armies,  and  to  this  cause,  rather  than  to  any  special  prowess 
of  the  French  arms,  must  be  assigned  the  discreditable  collapse  in  the 
campaign  of  1794.  Not  a  sign  appeared  of  the  ancient  determination 
of  the  Dutch  in  the  defence  of  their  land ;  and  the  powerful  faction  of 
the  Patriots  assisted  the  French  invaders  and  paralysed  the  military 
preparations.  In  vain,  the  Prince  of  Orange  added  his  entreaties  to 
those  of  the  British  Government  for  help  from  Prussia.  Frederick 
William  replied  that  he  was  engaged  in  a  war  with  Poland ;  and  that, 
as  the  Dutch  could  not  supply  him  with  succours  for  that  struggle, 
their  demands  on  him  were  consequently  cancelled.  Another  ominous 
symptom  was  the  discontent  of  the  Germans.  Malmesbury  found  the 
Rhinelanders  clamorous  for  peace,  and  prejudiced  against  Great  Britain 
because  of  her  "  views  of  ambition  and  conquest."  They  were  proof 
against  his  arguments  that  she  was  the  chief  bulwark  against  French 
ambition  and  conquest3. 

In  a  last  attempt  to  stay  the  flood  of  French  invasion  over  Holland, 
the  British  Government  decided  to  despatch  Malmesbury  to  Brunswick 
with  a  formal  request  to  the  Duke  to  command  an  Allied  army  assembled 
behind  the  Waal  for  the  defence  of  the  United  Provinces.  The  Duke 

1  P.O.  Prussia,  35.    Grenville  to  Malmesbury,  November  isth,  1794;  Paget 
Papers,  I.  50,  63. 

2  Malmesbury 's  despatch  of  October  2ist  to  Grenville  ascribes  this  proposal 
to  Barthe'lemy,  French  Envoy  at  Berne,  though  Barthelemy  said  France  would 
probably  demand  the  Rhine  boundary  down  to  Coblentz  or  Cologne.  (F.O.  Prussia, 
35-) 

3  Malmesbury,  Diaries,  ill.  143;  Paget  Papers,  I.  57. 


252    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

himself  had  made  proposals  as  to  the  operations  of  such  a  force1,  and 
the  recent  engagement  of  his  daughter  Caroline  to  the  Prince  of  Wales 
furnished  another  reason  for  his  consent.  Malmesbury,  therefore, 
undertook  the  mission  with  some  degree  of  hope,  but  he  met  with  a 
refusal.  The  Duke  made  it  clear  that  His  Prussian  Majesty  vetoed  the 
project2.  The  Envoy  passed  judgment  on  Prussian  policy  as  embodying 
"  as  many  bad  political  qualities  as  can  possibly  exist  at  the  same  time 
in  the  same  Power,  weakness,  perfidy,  insolence,  avarice  and  folly3." 

The  contempt  felt  by  the  Russians  for  their  Prussian  fellow-con- 
spirators against  the  independence  of  Poland  appeared  in  an  incident 
at  Warsaw.  Scarcely  had  the  King  of  Poland  abandoned  that  city  than 
the  victorious  Russians  tore  down  the  insignia  from  the  Prussian 
embassy  with  every  sign  of  contumely.  Francis  II  so  far  demeaned 
himself  as  to  congratulate  the  victor,  Suvoroff ,  by  declaring  in  a  letter 
to  him  that  his  success  would  be  the  means  of  changing  the  system 
of  all  the  Cabinets  of  Europe4.  The  fact  was  largely  true,  though  the 
admission  of  it  was  needlessly  humiliating.  The  fierce  jealousies  of 
the  Central  Powers  subordinated  them  to  Catharine;  she  virtually 
dictated  the  terms  of  the  Third  Partition  now  imminent,  though  it 
was  not  completed  until  October,  I7955.  Great  Britain,  of  course, 
was  helpless  to  prevent  this  catastrophe.  Thus, in  the  winter  of  1794-5, 
as  two  years  before,  the  scramble  for  Polish  lands  distracted  the  policy 
\Jp!  Berlin  and  Vienna,  nullifying  all  the  efforts  of  Great  Britain  to 
construct  a  solid  barrier  against  French  aggressions  in  the  West.  When 
those  efforts  appeared  to  be  futile,  Pitt  and  Grenville  turned  to  Russia, 
and  concluded  a  Defensive  Alliance,  signed  at  Petrograd  on  February 
1 8th,  1795,  for  granting  mutual  armed  assistance  in  case  either  party 
"was  attacked,  Russia  furnishing  12,000  troops  and  Great  Britain  12 
sail  of  the  line6. 

Meanwhile,  the  Dutch  in  despair  of  defending  their  land,  proposed 
to  the  British  Government  to  enter  into  negotiations  fora  general  peace. 
With  this  plan  our  Government  did  not  comply,  but  signified  that,  if 
the  United  Provinces  chose  to  seek  their  safety  in  a  separate  peace, 

1  Paget  Papers,  I.  79. 

2  P.O.  Prussia,  35.    Malmesbury  to  Grenville,  November  25th,  1794;  Paget 
Papers,  i.  98. 

3  Drop-more  Papers,  11.  653. 

4  P.O.  Poland,  8.   Gardiner  to  Grenville,  January  7th,  loth,  1795. 

5  Sorel,  iv.  447. 

6  Garden,  v.  297.    Probably  the  treaty  contained  a  secret  article  specifying 
Russia's  naval  help;  for  in  June,  1795,  she  sent  12  sail  of  the  line  to  reinforce 
Duncan  in  the  North  Sea. 


THE  WRECK  OF  THE  FIRST  COALITION         253 

we  would  not  oppose  such  a  step1.  The  overtures  were  abruptly  ended 
by  the  French,  so  soon  as  weather  conditions  favoured  a  renewal  of 
their  advance.  Before  the  utter  collapse  of  the  Allied  defence  on  the 
Waal,  Pitt  and  Grenville  induced  the  King  to  recall  the  Duke  of  York2. 
The  leadership  of  that  prince  had  been  meritorious ;  but  he  was  clearly 
unequal  to  the  ever  increasing  difficulties  ahead,  not  the  least  of  them 
being  the  almost  open  insubordination  of  the  British  army  and  the 
active  ill  will  of  the  Dutch.  The  Duke  reported  at  Windsor  that  he  was 
in  every  instance  thwarted  by  the  people  whom  he  was  trying  to  save3. 
Pitt  further  showed  his  zeal  for  the  public  service  by  substituting  Lord 
Spencer  at  the  Admiralty  for  the  too  leisurely  Lord  Chatham. 

But  no  changes  of  men  could  as  yet  avail  to  turn  the  tide  of  events. 
What  was  needed  was  a  change  in  the  spirit  of  the  nations  concerned ; 
and  this  came  about  only  under  the  pressure  of  overwhelming  calamities. 
The  French  Revolution,  under  the  subtle  alchemy  of  militarism,  was 
to  become  by  turns  conquering,  rapacious  and  tyrannical  to  its  neigh- 
bours, until  finally  it  was  personified  in  the  most  awe-inspiring  ruler 
of  the  modern  world.  Under  his  vigorous  but  oppressive  sway,  peoples 
previously  torpid  acquired  new  strength  and  a  passion  for  independence 
unknown  before.  Rulers,  too,  were  compelled  to  rely  wholly  on  their 
subjects ;  and  the  national  consciousness  thus  aroused  on  all  sides  served 
to  endow  peasants  with  patriotism,  Generals  with  determination,  officials 
with  honesty  and  Governments  with  efficiency.  That  transformation, 
however,  was  to  come  only  with  a  radical  change  in  the  methods  of 
waging  war  and  with  the  overthrow  of  the  old  governmental  systems. 
So  long  as  the  Allies  could  jog  along  with  hired  troops  and  British 
subsidies,  no  reform  was  possible.  The  payment  of  such  subsidies  was 
irritating  to  the  donor  and  humiliating  to  the  receiver.  It  promoted 
exacting  captiousness  on  the  one  side  and  slack  performance  on  the 
other.  Not  until  both  parties  could  unite  frankly  and  enthusiastically 
under  the  stimulus  of  a  great  cause  could  great  deeds  be  accomplished. 
The  story  of  the  year  1794  is  the  story  of  the  wreck  of  an  imposing 
Coalition,  partly  through  divergences  of  aim,  but  also  through  a 
demoralising  reliance  upon  the  cash-nexus4. 

1  Dropmore  Papers,  n.  646.   Minute  of  Cabinet  of  November  i8th,  1794.  This 
corrects  the  misstatement  of  Garden  (Traites,  v.  249),  that  we  opposed  the  Dutch 
proposal. 

2  For  the  correspondence  on  this  topic  see  Rose,  Pitt  and  Napoleon :  Essays  and 
Letters.  3  Dropmore  Papers,  n.  644,  659. 

4  Thus,  a  delay  (due  to  bankers)  in  the  payment  of  the  July  subsidy  led  Frederick 
William  at  once  to  order  Mollendorff  to  halt,  until  the  sum  due  was  paid.  (F.O. 
Prussia,  35,  Paget  to  Grenville,  July  26th,  1794.) 


\ 


254    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

As  always  happens,  perseverance  in  a  bad  system  led  to  increasingly 
evil  results.  The  year  1795  completed  what  1794  had  begun.  Illwill 
between  London  and  Berlin  strengthened  the  Francophils  at  the 
Prussian  Court ;  and  overtures  made  by  the  French  Republic  through 
the  Prussian  legation  at  Bale  were  warmly  welcomed  on  the  ground  of 
the  inner  community  of  interests  between  the  two  Powers.  Haugwitz 
and  others  assured  Sir  Arthur  Paget  (now  Secretary  of  Legation  at 
Berlin),  that  Frederick  William  entered  on  this  discussion  only  in  order 
to  sound  the  intentions  of  France,  and  to  discover  whether  a  general 
pacification  were  possible1.  It  soon  appeared  that  the  reverse  was  the 
case.  Despite  an  urgent  remonstrance  from  Catharine  against  his  nego- 
tiations with  France,  the  Prussian  monarch  persevered  with  them.  The 
Tsarina,  thereupon,  more  decidedly  favoured  Austria's  territorial 
claims  in  the  Partition  of  Poland2.  The  Prussian  politicians,  attributing 
her  conduct  to  a  resolve  to  humiliate  their  country,  were,  all  the  more, 
bent  on  making  peace  with  France.  Thus,  as  at  all  stages  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary War,  the  efforts  of  Great  Britain  in  the  west  were  thwarted  by 
the  intriguers  of  the  east,  over  whom  (as  Grenville  now  perceived)  she 
had  no  sure  hold.  Indeed,  her  subsidies  to  them,  which  were  intended 
for  the  protection  of  Flanders,  were  often  used  to  effect  the  subjection 
of  Poland.  Earl  Spencer,  during  a  mission  to  Berlin,  found  the  im- 
pressionable monarch  occasionally  intent  on  renewing  the  struggle 
against  France ;  but,  with  very  few  exceptions,  all  his  advisers  counselled 
peace.  Seeing  that  Grenville  now  differed  from  his  colleagues  as  to 
the  advisability  of  making  further  advances  to  Prussia,  Spencer  long 
remained  without  instructions,  and  could  only  observe  helplessly 
Prussia's  policy  of  drift.  Instructions  from  Dundas  reached  him  on 
April  2Oth,  fifteen  days  after  Prussia  and  France  had  concluded  peace 
at  Bale. 

That  Treaty  (due  largely  to  the  tact  of  Barthelemy,  and  the  con- 
ciliatory ways  of  Hardenberg)  empowered  the  French  troops  to  occupy 
Prussia's  lands  west  of  the  Rhine,  prevented  the  Allies  from  passing 
across  any  of  her  territories,  and  brought  about  a  truce  with  all  the 
northern  States  of  Germany.  In  pursuance  of  this  last  clause,  a  line 
of  demarcation  was  agreed  on,  including  the  Circles  of  Saxony,  West- 

1  P.O.  Prussia,  37.    Spencer  to  Grenville,  January  6th,  loth,  1795.    See,  too, 
Appendix  B.   Sir  Arthur  Paget  (1771-1840)  had  been  in  the  Berlin  Embassy  under 
Ewart,  then  at  Petrograd.  After  1794,  he  was  Minister  at  Mainz,  Ratisbon,  Naples 
and  Vienna. 

2  P.O.  Russia,  29.   Whitworth  to  Grenville,  February  i6th,  March  3rd,  i9th, 
27th,  1794. 


AUSTRIA,  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  RUSSIA         255 

phalia,  Franconia,  and  part  of  those  of  the  Rhine,  in  order  to  separate 
the  territories  no  longer  at  war  with  France  from  those  which  remained 
true  to  the  Emperor  and  therefore  at  war.  Prussia,  also,  invited  the 
Diet  of  the  Empire  to  make  peace  under  her  mediation — an  open  bid 
for  the  substitution  of  Hohenzollern  control  for  that  of  the  Habsburgs. 

As  a  retort  to  this  move,  the  Emperor  on  May  iQth,  1795,  invited 
the  Diet  to  take  the  first  steps  towards  assuring  a  general  pacification. 
On  July  3rd,  it  requested  him  to  summon  a  Congress  for  this  purpose1. 
His  position  had  been  strengthened  by  a  Treaty  with  Russia  of 
January  3rd,  1795,  which  favoured  his  claims  in  the  Third  Partition 
of  Poland  and  held  out  to  the  Habsburgs  tempting  prospects  of 
acquisitions  at  the  expense  of  France,  Turkey  or  Venice2.  Further, 
on  May  4th,  Thugut  signed  with  Morton  Eden  at  Vienna  a  compact 
whereby  Great  Britain  agreed  to  be  responsible  for  the  payment  of 
interest  on  a  loan  for  £4,600,000  raised  for  the  Emperor,  he  agreeing 
to  maintain  during  1795  an  army  of  200,000  men.  And,  on  May  2Oth, 
they  signed  another  Treaty,  whereby  the  two  Powers  mutually  agreed 
to  guarantee  their  possessions  and  to  invite  Catharine  to  form  a  Triple 
Alliance  for  the  maintenance  of  the  European  System.  It  was  con- 
cluded on  September  28th,  1795,  when  Catharine  engaged  to  furnish 
to  the  two  Powers  either  30,000  troops  or  an  equivalent  in  money. 
These  compacts  signified  the  retort  of  the  Allies  to  the  defection  of 
Prussia  and  of  two  other  States,  whom  Great  Britain  vainly  sought  to 
keep  true  to  the  Coalition,  viz.,  the  United  Provinces  and  Spain. 

Among  the  Allies  of  1793,  none  underwent  a  harder  fate  than  the 
United  Provinces.  In  the  winter  of  1794-5,  tnev  were  overrun  and 
pillaged  by  the  hungry  and  ragged  troops  of  France,  having  already 
suffered  from  the  disorderly  elements  in  the  British  army.  On  January 
1 9th,  1795,  the  tricolour  was  borne  in  triumph  into  Amsterdam.  The 
Prince  of  Orange  and  his  chief  partisans  fled  to  England;  and,  on 
February  24th,  the  Patriots,  now  dominant  in  the  States  General, 
declared  for  the  abolition  of  the  Stadholderate  and  for  alliance  with 
France.  Early  in  the  same  month,  the  Dutch  East  India  Company 
issued  orders  to  all  Dutch  vessels  to  leave  British  ports,  and  requested 
the  French  to  abstain  from  attacks  on  their  merchantmen.  The 
detention  of  British  vessels  in  Dutch  ports  led  the  British  Government 
to  adopt,  on  March  i9th,  a  similar  measure  and  to  order  the  capture, ' 

1  Garden,  Traites,  v.  284-290.  For  the  negotiations  at  Bale,  see  Hardenberg, 
op.  cit.  vol.  v.  chs.  xi-xvi;  Papiers  de  Barth£lemy...en  Suisse,  vol.  v.  pp.  1-168; 
H.  Stroehlin,  La  Mission  de  Barthelemy  en  Suisse  (Geneva,  1900). 

a  Sorel,  iv.  pp.  193-5- 


256    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOL\UTIONARY  FRANCE 

when  necessary,  of  Dutch  warships1.  The  e  isition  of  territory 
negotiations  with  France,  which  resulted  in  an  ^hat  Grenville's  tenacity 
and  offensive,  directed  especially  against  Grea  tQ  hold  QUt  such  hopes 
France  required  from  her  new  Ally  the  services^  arms  everywhere 
and  18  frigates,  also  of  half  of  the  troops  at  the  d,  tch  ig  highly  sig_ 
Government;  she  restored  the  conquered  districts  e  condition  of  the 
parts  and  the  Maestricht  territory,  and  secured  the.am  wkere  an  attack 
Flushing.  The  United  Provinces  further  agreed  to  ssion  of  more 
Dutch  florins  as  an  indemnity  —  a  crushing  fine,  which  :.  Of  the  French 
of  Public  Safety  deemed  essential  for  the  avoidance  oi^r 

*  jUaUl   Ill  a.  CUI1— 

In  return,  the  Dutch  received  a  recognition  of  their  Ii.  tjme  Ajcudia 
which  can  scarcely  have  deceived  even  the  most  creek,  .^  ^Q-  ^e 
Patriots.  The  rigorous  conditions  now  imposed  on  the  D.  'e  enoueh 
world-wide  importance  ;  for  they  extended  the  War  more  t^e  prench 
over  seas,  and  imparted  to  it,  more  and  more,  the  char^ogajs  ear| 
Colonial  struggle.  Foreseeing  that  the  French  would  use  thfterranean 
settlement  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  as  a  means  of  attacking  li\ess  were 
British  Government  prepared  to  strike  at  that  strategic  pointme^  gute 
was  occupied,  in  September  following,  by  Rear-  Admiral  Sir  an(j  t^at 
Elphinstone  and  General  Sir  James  Craig.  Colonies 

As  has  been  shown  in  this  Chapter,  the  War  between  Franc,,  com_ 
Great  Britain  was  not,  for  us  at  least,  mainly  a  war  of  principle.  '  £or  a 
material  issues  at  stake  always  outweighed  those  arising  from  a)a-n 
-of  political  ideals.  But  now,  the  defection  of  Prussia  and  the  Al^ut 
of  the  Dutch  with  France  transformed  the  struggle  increasingly^ 
one  for  Colonial  and  commercial  supremacy.  The  change  was  gpam 
rendered  more  complete  by  the  most  striking  events  of  the  year  \  tQ  t^e 
viz.,  the  Anglo-Spanish  rupture  and  the  rise  of  Bonaparte. 

The  friction  between  the  Courts  of  St  James's  and  of  Madnors 
never  ceased  during  the  period  of  uneasy  alliance,  (1793-5).  To  thajs^ 
old  sore,  Nootka  Sound,  there  were  now  added  the  irritants  ofter^ 
arising  from  seizures  at  sea,  disputes  during  the  joint  occupation  itore(j 
Toulon  and  afterwards  from  the  British  occupation  of  Corsica.  Desp>rt-on 
the  offer  of  Paoli  to  place  that  island  solely  under  the  protection  Of 
Great  Britain,  the  Spaniards  conceived  a  violent  jealousy,  when,  aieg  at 
the  reduction  of  the  French  garrisons  by  British  seamen  and 
the  assembly  of  chieftains  at  Corti  proclaimed  George  III  King 
Corsica.  Possibly,  jealousy  played  some  part  in  the  unceasing 

1  P.O.  Holland,  57  ;  Cape  Records,  i.  98  ;  Drop-more  Paper  ,  HI.  35. 

*  R.  Guyot,  Le  Directoire  et  la  Paix  d'  Europe,  p.  106.  ^5> 


or 
» 


WAR  WITH  SPAIN  259 

intervention  in  the  west  of  Hayti,  it  is  not  easy  to  account  for  the  joy 
manifested  at  Madrid  at  the  news  of  a  pacification  which  involved  the 
abandonment  of  the  whole  of  that  island.  The  humiliation  of  the 
King  was  completed  a  few  weeks  later,  when  he  conferred  on  his  chief 
Minister,  the  Queen's  paramour,  the  title  of  Prince  of  the  Peace. 

Grenville  at  once  pointed  out  that  the  cession  of  San  Domingo  to 
France  was  a  violation  of  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht,  wrhich  forbade  Spain 
to  cede  to  the  French  any  of  her  American  possessions ;  and  he  charged 
Bute  to  find  out  the  strength  of  her  forces  in  the  West  Indies.  That 
Envoy,  also,  saw  whither  the  recent  compact  tended,  and  foretold  that 
it  would  soon  be  followed  by  war  with  England.  He,  therefore,  warned 
Admiral  Hotham,  commanding  the  Mediterranean  fleet,  to  be  on  his 
guard,  and  even  hinted  at  a  dash  upon  Cadiz1.  Grenville Js  despatches 
to  Bute  at  Madrid  prove  that  the  British  Government  desired  to  keep  at 
peace  with  Spain.  The  attack  on  San  Domingo  was  postponed,  because 
Godoy  asserted  that  it  was  not  yet  a  French  possession ;  and  in  other 
ways  deference  was  shown  to  Spanish  susceptibilities.  But  all  was  in 
vain.  In  the  year  1796,  the  prospect  darkened,  and  Ministers  at  home, 
as  well  as  Bute,  expected  a  rupture  whenever  it  should  suit  Spain 
to  attack  us.  Godoy 's  private  appeal  in  July,  that  we  should  not 
consider  his  recent  Offensive  Treaty  with  the  French  as  a  casus  belli, 
was  clearly  a  ruse  to  postpone  hostilities  to  a  more  convenient  time2.  On 
October  5th,  Godoy  handed  to  Bute  the  Declaration  of  War,  the  chief 
complaints  of  which  referred  to  the  conduct  of  Lord  Hood  at  Toulon, 
the  British  conquest  of  Demerara,  the  occupation  of  Corsica  and  the 
west  of  Domingo,  various  naval  incidents,  and  the  establishment  of 
British  Commercial  Companies  along  the  river  Missouri  for  the 
evident  purpose  of  penetrating  to  the  "South  Sea."  The  rupture 
marked  yet  another  stage  in  the  transformation  of  the  War  into  a 
commercial  and  colonial  struggle.  Its  more  immediate  effect  was  the 
evacuation  of  Corsica,  Elba,  and  the  Mediterranean  by  the  British 
forces,  with  the  view  of  effecting  a  concentration  in  the  Atlantic  and 
in  home  waters.  Its  later  results  were  the  ruin  of  the  Spanish  navy, 
the  capture  of  Trinidad  and  other  Colonies,  and  the  increase  in  the 
number  of  securities  held  by  Great  Britain  as  a  set-off  to  the  losses  of 
her  Allies  on  the  Continent. 

We  have  looked  ahead,  in  order  to  survey  connectedly  Anglo- 

1  P.O.  Spain,  38.    Grenville  to  Bute,  August  7th;  Bute  to  Grenville,  August 
loth,  1795. 

2  See  Despatches  in  Appendix  C,  also  Dropmore  Papers,  HI.  148,  214,  233,  246. 

17—2 


260    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

Spanish  relations  to  the  date  of  their  rupture.  But  it  is  time  to  return 
to  the  autumn  of  1795,  which  witnessed  the  first  efforts  of  Great 
Britain  for  a  general  peace.  By  that  time,  the  Coalition  had  sustained 
successive  shocks  in  the  defection  of  Tuscany,  Prussia,  Holland,  and 
Spain ;  while  the  attitude  of  the  Imperial  Diet  was  doubtful  and  the 
prospects  of  Sardinia  were  gloomy.  On  the  other  hand,  Great  Britain 
had  concluded  Treaties  of  Alliance  with  Russia  and  Austria ;  her  fleets 
had  swept  from  the  seas  both  the  warships  and  the  merchantmen  of 
her  enemies;  she  had  captured,  or  was  about  to  capture,  their  chief 
Colonies ;  her  finances, though  strained,  were  vigorous ;  and  her  spirit, 
in  spite  of  sporadic  riots,  was  undaunted.  Accordingly,  Parliament, 
at  the  opening  of  the  autumn  session,  heard  with  some  surprise  the 
following  sentence  in  the  King's  Speech  (October  29th) :  "  Should  this 
crisis  at  Paris  terminate  in  any  order  of  things  compatible  with  the 
tranquillity  of  other  countries,  and  affording  a  reasonable  expectation 
of  security  and  permanence  in  any  treaty  which  might  be  concluded, 
the  appearance  of  a  disposition  to  negotiate  for  a  general  peace  on  just 
and  equitable  terms  will  not  fail  to  be  met,  on  my  part,  with  an  earnest 
desire  to  give  it  the  fullest  and  speediest  effect."  "  Mean  while"  (the 
speech  continued), "  we  must  carry  on  the  war  with  a  vigour  which 
would  conduce  to  this  desirable  end."  Ministers  seem  to  have  im- 
posed their  pacific  views  on  George  III ;  for,  two  days  previously,  he 
had  written  to  Grenville  that  no  attempt  at  negotiation  ought  to  be 
encouraged,  as  it  would  tell  against  an  active  prosecution  of  the  War1. 
Further,  it  appears  that  the  Duke  of  Portland,  Windham  and  their 
Whig  followers  who  had  coalesced  with  the  Pitt  Administration 
regarded  with  apprehension  or  active  dislike  a  policy  which  implied 
recognition  of  the  Republic  and  the  abandonment  of  the  monarchical 
cause2. 

It  may  be  well  here  to  recall  Pitt's  pronouncements  on  the  subject 
of  negotiation  with  France.  On  January  26th,  1795,  he  deprecated 
'them  as  tending  to  encourage  the  enemy  and  "  to  bury  the  remains  of 
opposition  in  France."  On  March  24th,  in  combating  a  motion  by 
Fox,  he  disclaimed  all  notion  of  fighting  in  order  to  impose  monarchy 
on  the  French  people;  but  he  added  that  "we  shall  gain  all  possible 
aid  from  the  French  Royalists":  and  he  defined  our  leading  object  as 
"security."  On  May  27th  he  resisted  Wilberforce's  motion  in  favour 
of  early  negotiations  for  peace  on  the  ground  that  "perseverance  in 
the  contest  is  more  wise  and  prudent,  and  more  likely  in  the  end  to 
1  Drbpmore  Papers,  in.  143.  z  Ibid.  ill.  135. 


BRITISH  HOPES  OF  FRANCE  261 

effect  a  safe,  lasting  and  honourable  peace  than  any  attempt  at  negotia- 
tion." Admitting  the  reverses  of  the  Allies,  he  yet  claimed  that  France 
was  nearly  exhausted,  her  assignats  being  worth  less  than  5  per  cent, 
of  their  face  value;  and,  viewing  her  Government  as  regicide,  he 
declared:  "I  will  not  acknowledge  such  a  Republic." 

How,  then,  are  we  to  explain  the  proffer  of  the  olive  branch  on 
October  2Qth  ?  Probably,  it  was  due  to  recent  events  in  France.  The 
new  French  Constitution  had  not  the  ultra- democratic  character  of 
its  predecessors;  and,  though  the  Royalist  or  malcontent  risings  at 
Paris  and  elsewhere  had  been  crushed,  the  prospect  had  arisen  of  a 
return  to  ordinary  methods  of  government.  In  Pitt's  words,  if  the  new 
deputies  could  "  speak  on  behalf  of  the  people  of  France,  I  then  have 
no  difficulty  in  saying,  from  that  time  all  objections  to  the  form  of 
that  Government,  and  to  the  principles  of  that  Government,  all 
objections  to  them  as  obstacles  to  negotiation  will  be  at  an  end."  He 
still  hoped  for  success  in  the  War,  bade  the  country  show  a  firm  front, 
and  reproved  the  Opposition  for  dwelling  on  the  reverses  of  the 
Coalition. 

The  present  suggestion,  then,  was  little  more  than  an  appeal  to 
the  French  people  for  reasonableness  in  their  foreign  relations.  It 
resembled  somewhat  that  suggested  by  the  Austrian  Chancellor  early 
in  April.  Thugut  had  then  proposed  the  issue  of  a  proclamation  to 
the  French  people,  declaring  that  they  had  been  the  aggressors  and 
urging  them  to  adopt  "a  Government  such  as  may  enable  foreign 
Powers  to  treat  with  them  with  security1."  British  Ministers  seem  at 
the  time  to  have  passed  by  the  suggestion,  perhaps  because  Grenville 
harboured  hopes  of  a  Royalist  reaction  in  France,  which  William 
Wickham  was  to  further  from  the  embassy  at  Berne.  If  we  may  judge 
by  the  number  and  length  of  his  letters  to  Wickham,  the  usually 
cautious  Grenville  continued  long  to  believe  in  this  chimera2.  Evidently, 
he  had  not  learnt  the  lesson,  writ  large  on  the  Toulon  episode,  that 
foreign  help  during  an  internal  dispute  tends  to  the  discredit  and 
undoing  of  the  party  thus  supported3.  The  lesson  was  once  more  to  be 
illustrated,  in  ghastly  guise,  in  the  British-Royalist  expedition  to 
Quiberon.  The  failure,  also,  of  all  Wickham 's  emissaries  to  Lyons  and 
other  centres  of  anti-Jacobin  activity  proved  that  the  Royalists  dis- 
trusted outside  assistance4,  and  that  the  French  people  wanted  peace, 

1  P.O.  Austria,  40.   Eden  to  Grenville,  April  8th,  1795. 

2  Corresp.  of  W.  Wickham,  i.  pp.  9-86. 

3  Ibid.  I.  93.  4  Sorel  iv.  350. 


N. 


262    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

order,  and  the  retention  of  the  chief  social  conquests  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. The  unpopularity  of  Lewis  XVIII,  his  decision  to  stand  by  the 
principles  of  Henry  IV,  above  all,  the  utter  failure  of  the  rising  of  the 
Royalists  of  Paris  on  October  5th,  seem  to  have  dispelled  the  hopes  of 
Grenville.  The  baffling  uncertainty  as  to  obtaining  military  help,  or 
even  any  definite  decision,  from  the  Court  of  Vienna,  further  disgusted 
him;  and,  though  hitherto  more  favourable  than  Pitt  to  the  Austrian 
connexion,  he  now  decided  to  send  Francis  Jackson  on  a  special  mission, 
to  press  urgently  for  a  decision,  seeing  that  "we  might  possibly  not 
find  it  very  difficult  to  make  either  war  or  peace  with  advantage,  if 
Austria  will  set  her  shoulders  to  the  work  in  earnest1."  Grenville, 
then,  though  of  late  less  pacific  in  tone  than  his  cousin,  was  apparently 
not  averse  from  a  negotiation  with  France. 

On  December  8th,  the  King  sent  a  message  to  Parliament,  stating 
that  the  crisis  in  France  had  led  to  an  order  of  things  which  would 
induce  him  to  meet  any  disposition  to  negotiation  on  the  part  of  the 
enemy.  Sheridan  and  Grey  challenged  Ministers  to  say  wherein  the 
order  of  things  in  France  differed  from  that  of  1793-4;  but  Pitt 
declared  that  her  Constitution  and  her  conduct  need  no  longer  prevent 
an  accommodation.  The  distinction  which  he  drew  was  overstrained  ; 
but  it  is  clear  that  he  objected  to  the  French  Republic  only  because 
it  had  been  a  mighty  agency  for  the  propagation  of  levelling  principles. 
This  it  had  now  ceased  to  be.  At  home  its  democratic  fervour  had  died 
down;  and,  on  all  sides,  the  liberated  peoples  were  crying  out  against 
their  Jacobin  liberators.  As  a  conquering  and  acquisitive  organism, 
the  Republic  aroused  none  of  the  enthusiasm  inspired  by  the  appeals 
of  Vergniaud  and  the  challenges  of  Danton.  Pitt,  therefore,  viewed 
with  no  grave  concern  the  recent  Declaration  at  Paris,  which  in  effect 
pronounced  "the  natural  boundaries,"  to  be  an  essential  part  of  the 
new  Constitution2.  Frenchmen  have  generally  applauded  that  resolve. 
They  forget  that  it  has  always  involved  a  war  with  Europe.  For  the 
present,  the  helplessness  of  the  Empire,  the  inertia  of  Austria,  the 
short-sighted  selfishness  of  Prussia,  and  the  calculated  aloofness  of 
Catharine,  postponed  the  struggle;  but  it  lay  in  the  nature  of  things; 
and  British  Ministers  were  not  afraid  of  the  prospect  of  a  negotiation 


1  Dropmore  Papers,  m.  137  ;  E.  D.  Adams,  p.  37. 

2  Decree  of  October  ist,  1795  (Sorel,  iv.  428-31,  v.  2:  Sybel,  iv.  444  Eng. 
edit.).    Soon  after  decreeing  the  natural  boundaries,  the  French  Government  sent 
proposals  to  Vienna,  offering  Bavaria  to  Austria,  if  she  would  acknowledge  the  French 
annexation  of  the  Belgic  Provinces  and  not  oppose  that  of  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine 
—  a  bribe  to  her  to  desert  England. 


BRITISH  OVERTURE  FOR  PEACE  263 

with  France,  which,  if  successful,  would  bring  temporary  relief, 
and,  if  unsuccessful,  would  exhibit  the  French  Directors  as  the 
political  heirs  of  Lewis  XIV. 

The  sincerity  of  Pitt  and  Grenville  in  this  overture  for  peace  has 
been  sharply  questioned  by  Sybel,  Sorel,  and  other  historians ;  but  the 
foregoing  considerations  both  explain  and  justify  the  conduct  of 
Ministers.  Pitt,  also — though  perhaps  not  Grenville — assigned  some 
weight  to  the  news  brought  from  Paris  by  Baron  de  Beaufort,  to  the 
effect  that  the  Directory  would  gladly  receive  a  pacific  proposal1. 
Doubtless,  the  French  Government  hoped  to  separate  England  from 
Austria.  If  so,  it  failed ;  for,  from  the  outset,  the  Foreign  Office  declared 
that  no  separate  negotiation  would  be  undertaken.  Further,  its  good 
faith  appears  in  the  elaborate  measures  at  once  adopted  to  assure  the 
collaboration  of  the  Allies.  On  December  22nd,  Grenville  wrote  a 
4 *  most  secret "  despatch  to  Eden  at  Vienna,  setting  forth  the  desirability 
of  the  two  Courts  at  once  exchanging  views  so  that  they  and,  if  possible, 
all  the  Allies  should  arrive  at  an  agreement  before  a  negotiation  began. 
A  recent  statement  by  the  Directory  set  forth  terms  of  peace  which 
Grenville  regarded  as  "extravagant  and  insulting";  but  the  internal 
difficulties  of  France  seemed  to  promise  a  more  reasonable  programme. 
On  her  side,  Great  Britain  now  abandoned  the  fantastic  notion  of 
annexing  the  north-eastern  fortresses  of  France  to  the  Belgic  Provinces. 
She  proposed  the  restitution  to  Austria  of  those  territories  (with  the 
addition  of  Liege  and  the  southern  parts  of  the  United  Provinces 
recently  acquired  by  France) ;  also,  the  recovery  of  Savoy  by  Sardinia 
(Nice  was  not  mentioned),  and  the  restoration  of  the  Stadholderate. 
From  the  outset,  the  British  Government  utterly  disclaimed  the  plan, 
which  busybodies  in  Vienna  had  fathered  on  it,  of  making  a  separate 
peace. 

Circumstances  appearing  to  favour  this  project,  Ministers,  on 
January  3oth,  1796,  approved  the  draft  of  a  despatch  to  Eden  inviting 
the  issue  of  a  joint  Declaration  by  the  two  Powers  as  to  their  readiness 
to  discuss  terms  of  peace.  George  III  disapproved  it,  but  informed 
Grenville  that  he  would  not  offer  "any  obstinate  resistance,"  and 
hoped  that  the  proposal  would  be  rejected  by  France2.  Grenville  was, 
also,  doubtful  as  to  its  success;  but  he  instructed  Wickham  to  open 
the  matter  to  Barthelemy  at  Berne,  with  a  view  to  the  assembling  of  a 
Congress.  The  overture  was  made  in  Switzerland,  mainly  in  order  to 

1  Guyot,  pp.  146-9. 

2  Dropmore  Papers,  in.  169,  170. 


264    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

allow  of  Austria  and  Sardinia  readily  cooperating  if  they  desired.  Pitt 
was  more  sanguine ;  and,  considering  the  hopefulness  of  his  nature,  there 
is  no  reason  to  doubt  his  sincerity  in  the  matter.  Grenville  wrote  to 
Eden  that  the  Declaration  should  be  issued  "  for  the  double  purpose 
either  of  securing  advantageous  terms  of  peace  or  of  laying  the  founda- 
tion of  a  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war1." 

Unfortunately,  the  British  Government  now  held  back  the  sub- 
sidies due  to  Vienna.  Apparently,  it  deemed  the  defensive  Austrian 
tactics,  lately  pursued  with  such  fatal  results,  not  worth  the  stipulated 
financial  support,  or  else  it  believed  in  the  speedy  advent  of  peace. 
Nothing  could  have  been  more  unfortunate.  Austria  was  left  without 
the  sinews  of  war,  just  before  the  opening  of  Bonaparte's  Italian 
campaign.  On  April  9th,  Eden  reported  the  utter  inability  of  Austria 
"  to  provide  even  for  the  common  expenses  of  the  war  " ;  and  discontent 
on  this  head  must  have  hindered  cordial  cooperation  with  regard  to 
the  peace  proposals.  Already,  Thugut  had  thrown  cold  water  on  them, 
declaring  that  the  Emperor,  while  declining  to  join  in  the  Declaration, 
would,  in  due  course,  issue  one  of  similar  import.  On  March  5th,  he 
harked  back  to  the  recently  discarded  notion  of  the  Belgic- Bavarian 
Exchange — a  proof  that  he  was  toying  with  that  scheme  which  France 
had  dangled  before  him.  Eden  expressed  deep  regret  at  the  revival 
of  this  proposal,  as  to  which  the  two  Governments  had  so  often  been 
at  variance2. 

Affairs  at  Turin  were  not  more  promising.  Since  the  disasters  of 
the  year  1794,  that  Court  had  been  a  prey  to  constant  fears,  which 
found  expression  in  tentative  overtures  for  peace.  Such  at  least  was 
the  first  belief  of  Thugut  and  Grenville,  the  latter  even  for  a  time  with- 
holding the  subsidy  due  to  Sardinia,  and  thereby  weakening  her  before 
the  blows  of  Bonaparte  fell  upon  her  discouraged  troops.  The  proposal 
of  a  joint  Declaration  of  the  Allies  completed  the  dismay  of  the 
King  and  his  advisers,  who  believed  that  the  French  Directory  was 
bent  on  a  ruthless  prosecution  of  the  War. 

They  were  right.  Aggressive  aims  were  now  uppermost  at  Paris, 
doubtless  because  the  Directory  detected  further  signs  of  collapse  in 
the  Coalition  and  felt  confident  of  victory.  In  the  month  of  January, 
1796,  when  the  British  Government  set  on  foot  its  scheme  for  a 
general  pacification,  Carnot  accepted  the  plan  of  Bonaparte  for  the 
conquest  of  Italy.  The  final  British  note  to  Barthelemy,  perhaps,  erred 

1  Wickham  Corresp.  I.  271-3.  See  too  my  article  in  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.  April,  1903. 

2  P.O.  Austria,  45.   Eden  to  Grenville,  March  2nd,  5th;  April  gth,  1796. 


PITT'S  PEACE  PROPOSALS  AND  WAR  POLICY   265 

on  the  side  of  firmness,  and  it  omitted  all  reference  to  the  French 
Republic1.  But  the  counterblast  from  Paris  ended  all  hope  of  peace. 
As  handed  in  at  Berne  on  March  26th,  it  implied  the  retention  by 
France  of  the  "  natural  frontiers  "  (Rhine,  Alps,  Pyrenees  and  Ocean). 
The  Belgic  Provinces  were  not  named  among  her  acquisitions,  because, 
by  the  Decree  of  October  ist,  1795,  she  had  incorporated  them2.  The 
French  answer,  moreover,  involved  the  restitution  of  all  the  Colonial 
conquests  of  Great  Britain  during  the  War.  These  conditions  put  an  end 
to  the  negotiation.  They  were  announced  in  the  days  when  Bonaparte 
was  preparing  to  drive  the  Allies  from  the  passes  leading  from  Savona 
into  the  plain  of  North  Italy.  His  conquest  of  that  land  was  destined 
to  postpone  for  eighteen  years  a  favourable  opportunity  of  effecting 
a  durable  peace. 

Ill 

Criticisms  on  Pitt's  proposals  for  peace  were  twofold.  The  most 
fundamental  were  those  of  Burke,  Windham  and  other  Old  Whigs  who 
rallied  to  his  side.  Their  devotion  to  the  Royal  cause  led  them  to  censure 
the  whole  conduct  of  the  War  as  having  been  waged  for  material 
securities,  when  in  reality  it  was — to  use  Burke 's  trenchant  phrase — 
a  war  against  "an  armed  opinion."  Stamp  out  that  pest,  or  it  will 
infect,  enfeeble  and  finally  destroy  you !  Wage  the  war  not  for  self- 
interest  but  for  a  principle!  Distrust  Prussia,  Austria  and  other 
acquisitive  States !  Ally  yourselves  with  the  French  Royalists  against 
the  murderous  despotism  now  enthroned  at  Paris !  Spurn  all  thought 
of  compromise  and  peace  as  a  cowardly  betrayal  of  a  sacred  trust! 
Such  is  the  burden  of  Burke's  Letters  on  a  Regicide  Peace  (1796-7). 
It  formed  the  fighting  creed  of  Windham,  and  ultimately  had  great 
influence  on  Grenville,  while  it  echoed,  in  philosophic  tones,  the 
primitive  predilections  of  George  III. 

Over  against  this  clear-cut  theory  stood  the  contentions  of  Pitt — 
that,  for  Great  Britain,  the  War  did  not  arise  out  of  a  Royalist  crusade 
(which  was  undeniably  true),  but  from  a  resolve  to  gain  " security" 
against  French  encroachments  on  a  land  fronting  our  exposed  east 
coast ;  that  treaty  obligations  and  expediency  alike  bade  us  expel  her 
from  that  land ;  that  we  had  entered  into  a  Coalition  already  virtually 
formed,  and,  from  the  weakness  of  our  army,  could  only  play  a  second- 
ary part  in  military  operations ;  that,  therefore,  we  were  inevitably  drawn 

1  Guyot,  pp.  153-5.  2  Wickham  (Corresp.  I.  321),  forgot  that  fact. 


266    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

into  the  orbit  of  the  Germanic  Powers  for  land  warfare  and  had  to 
rely  mainly  on  naval  pressure  to  compel  France  to  a  peace.  This 
implied  the  seizure  of  her  Colonies,  especially  when  the  best  of  them, 
Hayti,  was  offered  to  us  by  the  French  inhabitants.  Cooperation  with 
the  roving  bands  of  Chouans  or  the  Royalists  of  Provence,  had  been 
tried  without  success. 

In  the  main,  these  statements  were  undeniable.  Wholly  unprepared, 
Great  Britain  was  engaged  in  a  struggle  of  unexpected  magnitude  and 
duration.  Her  methods  were  therefore  empirical,  her  warfare  tentative, 
her  blunders  colossal.  Trusting  inevitably  to  her  Allies,  she  saw  them 
falter  or  fall  away,  a  prey  to  the  jealousies  necessarily  aroused  by  her 
policy  of  limited  largesse  on  land  and  unlimited  acquisitions  at  sea. 
Critics  from  among  his  own  supporters  could,  therefore,  claim  that  his 
war  policy  was  a  failure,  when  judged  by  his  own  standard. 

In  a  sense,  both  Burke  and  Pitt  were  right.  The  one  Ally  certain 

\  never  to  fail  us  was  French  Royalism.  But  how  utilise  it,  when  its 
^  champions  were  errant  bands  of  Breton  peasants  and  waspish  cliques 
of  intractable  Emigres'*  Burke's  theory  was  as  inspiring  as  its  practice 
was  impossible.  He  and  Windham  could  demonstrate  very  forcibly 
the  mistakes  in  Pitt's  war  policy.  But,  in  the  peculiar  circumstances 
of  1793-4,  now  could  they  have  conducted  the  War  on  purely  Royalist 
lines?  That  was  the  question  which  Pitt,  if  he  had  had  time  for  literary 
embroidering,  might  have  pressed  home  in  Letters  on  a  suggested 
Royalist  Crusade. 

The  all-important  fact,  however,  was  that  by  the  year  1796  both 
of  these  methods  of  warfare  had  utterly  failed.  Royalism,  after  being 
half  stifled  by  the  scheming  monarchs  of  Berlin  and  Petrograd,  was 
now  buried  under  the  Old  World  trappings  of  "  Lewis  XVI 1 1."  On  the 
other  hand,  Pitt's  policy  of  winning  security  had  ended  in  the  loss  of 
the  whole  of  the  Netherlands  and  the  all  but  complete  collapse  of  the 
First  Coalition.  Therefore,  Royalist  theorists  and  political  pragmatists 
should  have  joined  in  discovering  a  way  out  of  the  impasse.  Instead, 
the  theorists  held  aloof  and  added  to  the  difficulties  of  the  men  of  affairs 
in  seeking  to  retrace  their  steps. 

Despite  the  fact  that  Pitt's  peace  overtures  of  the  winter  of  1795-6 
had  played  into  the  hands  of  Bonaparte,  the  Prime-Minister  prepared 
to  renew  them.  His  second  proposal,  however,  was  prefaced  by 
schemes  almost  comparable  to  those  of  our  Allies.  As  French  victories 

\    in  Italy  and  Rhineland  portended  disaster  to  the  First  Coalition,  Gren- 
^  ville  (now  a  partisan  of  the  connexion  with  Prussia)  sought  to  ensure 


FAILURE  OF  BRITISH  OVERTURES  TO  PRUSSIA     267 

her  active  support  by  suggesting  her  acquisition  either  of  the  Belgic 
Provinces  or  of  extensive  domains  in  Germany.  George  III  returned 
the  proposal  with  the  cutting  comment:  "  Italian  politics  are  too  com- 
plicated for  my  understanding1."  Nevertheless,  in  its  desperation,  the 
British  Cabinet  prepared  to  act  on  the  degrading  principle  of  gaining 
the  help  of  a  powerful  State  by  conniving  at  its  annexation  of  a  weak 
neighbour ;  and,  at  the  close  of  July,  1796,  George  Hammond,  Under- 
secretary of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs,  received  instructions  to  pro- 
ceed to  Berlin  to  tempt  Frederick  William  by  the  offer  above  noted. 
George  III  again  demurred,  but  did  not  actively  oppose.  Grenville 
sought  to  gild  the  pill  for  Austria  by  pointing  out  the  urgent  necessity 
of  bringing  in  Prussia ;  and  he  even  held  out  the  prospect  of  the  acquisi- 
tion of  Bavaria  by  the  Habsburgs.  No  palliative  could  reconcile  Thugut. 
He  received  the  suggestion  very  coldly,  declaring  that  either  alternative 
would  break  up  the  Empire2.  Hammond's  mission  to  Berlin,  also,  failed 
owing  to  the  absence  of  Frederick  William,  during  which  no  important 
business  could  be  transacted ;  and  the  Envoy  seems  not  to  have  con- 
sidered it  worth  while  definitely  to  offer  the  bait3.  Useful  assistance 
was  offered  by  Gouverneur  Morris,  an  American  citizen  who,  after 
actual  experience  of  the  French  Revolution,  decided  to  support  Great 
Britain  by  all  the  means  in  his  power4.  But  neither  the  address  of 
Morris  nor  the  vaguely  alluring  suggestions  of  Hammond  could  elicit 
a  definite  reply  from  Haugwitz.  He  betrayed  unusual  embarrassment, 
which  was  not  unnatural,  seeing  that  he  had  just  signed  a  Secret  Treaty 
with  the  French  Ambassador  binding  Prussia  to  a  system  of  neutrality, 
and  accordingly  missed  the  advantages,  both  public  and  private,  which 
would  have  accrued  from  Anglo-French  competition  for  favours  at 
Berlin.  The  Franco-Prussian  Treaty  marked  out  the  line  of  neutrality 
for  northern  Germany  along  the  course  of  the  Fulda,  Ruhr  and  Lower 
Rhine,  and  promised  to  Prussia  the  eventual  acquisition  of  the 
Bishopric  of  Minister5.  Another  Treaty,  also  signed  on  August  5th, 
will  be  noticed  later. 

The  British  invitation  for  the  support  of  Prussia  having  merely 
caused  annoyance  at  Vienna,  and  the  War  in  Italy  going  from  bad  to 
worse,  Pitt  recurred  to  his  proposals  for  a  pacification.  In  August, 

1  Dropmore  Papers,  in.  172-4. 

2  P.O.  Austria,  45.   Eden  to  Grenville,  August  isth,  1796. 

3  Dropmore  Papers,  in.  225,  235. 

4  The  unsigned  letters  to  Grenville  in  Dropmore  Papers,  in.  222,  224,  230,  258 
are  almost  certainly  from  Morris.  See,  too,  111.563,  Sparks,  Life  of G.Morris,  111.93. 

5  Garden,  v.  359;  Guyot,  219,  265-^7. 


268   THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

1796,  he  saw  a  politician  named  M.  Nettement,  who  claimed  to 
know  that  the  Moderates  in  the  French  Directory  secretly  desired 
peace,  which  was  certainly  longed  for  by  the  great  mass  of  the 
nation.  If,  therefore,  so  he  assured  Pitt's  private  secretary,  Joseph 
Smith,  an  affable  and  tactful  envoy  were  sent  to  Paris,  who  would 
interview  the  Directors  privately  and  use  his  influence  with  the  chiefs 
of  parties,  a  reconciliation  might  well  be  reached  ;  otherwise,  the  peace 
would  be  one  of  exhaustion1.  So  dark  was  the  outlook,  especially  in 
regard  to  finance,  that  Pitt  resolved  to  seize  this  opportunity,  and 
for  a  time  induced  Grenville  to  make  the  effort.  By  September  2nd, 
Ministers  had  drawn  up  a  Minute  embodying  the  terms  to  be  offered 
to  France  through  the  medium  of  Denmark.  These  were  :  the  cession 
to  France  of  Savoy  and  Nice  (she  had  acquired  them  by  her  recent 
Treaty  with  Sardinia);  also,  of  "all  the  conquered  countries  on  the 
Rhine  not  belonging  to  Austria  "  ;  she  would  regain  her  Colonies  lost 
in  the  War,  while  Great  Britain  restored  to  Holland  the  conquered 
Dutch  Colonies,  except  the  Cape,  Ceylon  and  Cochin.  Austria  was  to 
recover  the  Belgic  Provinces  and  other  territories  conquered  by  the 
French  ;  but,  in  case  they  refused  to  give  back  the  Belgic  Provinces  to 
Austria,  and  the  latter  insisted  on  the  Belgic-Bavarian  Exchange,  we 
would  not  oppose  it,  provided  that  those  Provinces  were  placed'  "  in  a 
situation  of  as  little  dependence  as  possible  on  France2.' 

Here  were  the  outlines  of  a  possible  settlement.  The  chief  objec- 

Royalist  Crusade.     '->  considerable  renunciations  asked  from  France 

tions  to  them  were  trie  +,*--+  UT;—  r;;  wa,  losses  to  be  imposed  on  the 

in  the  heyday  of  triumph,  and  the  heavy  ^  ^  ^ 

Dutch,  in  order  that  L^n^  of  September  Htn, 


British  Government,  forthe^ecuringof  better 

sacrifice  any  of  i  *  colon*  _g  ^  ^ 

e   ore  to 


I794,  not  to  _ 

terms  to  Austria,  now  proposed  to  re  ^ore  o  ^ 

overseasatthei^  Lol^bard    and 

in  order  to  induce  the  French  t 


- 

.  . 


the  expenses  of  the  contest  displeased  George  III,  wL, 

The  proposals  of  September  »cr  a  p  j        f  their  almos.. 

deemed  them  undignified  and  untunely  ,  but  '*  ^ 

MSS.  (Hist  .  MS*  Co—on),  p£  3*£&  ^  offet  of  the  good 


COLD  RECEPTION  OF  PEACE  PROPOSALS         269 

certain  rejection  at  Paris,  he  did  not  withhold  his  consent.  Grenville 
also  expected  the  Directory  to  find  "  a  frivolous  pretext  for  refusing  a 
peace  contrary  to  its  interests  " — so  he  wrote  to  Eden  on  September  yth 
— and  he  hoped  the  affair  would  merely  serve  to  show  who  was  guilty 
of  the  continuation  of  the  War.  He  proceeded  with  the  negotiation, 
but  in  a  spirit  different  from  that  of  Pitt.  His  despatch  to  Eden 
diverged  somewhat  from  the  proposals  mentioned  above.  He  (lately  so 
insistent  on  an  alliance  with  Prussia)  now  laid  stress  on  maintaining 
the  power  of  Austria,  for  which  cause  Great  Britain  would  sacrifice 
many  of  her  maritime  gains,  and  he  also  insisted  on  the  entire  inde- 
pendence of  the  Belgic  lands.  Before  sending  Lord  Malmesbury 
to  Paris  for  the  purpose  of  opening  the  negotiation,  he  reminded  him 
that  "the  King  is  bound  not  to  make  peace  without  the  consent  of 
Austria,  except  on  the  terms  of  procuring  for  that  Power  the  restitution 
of  all  it  may  have  lost  in  the  war1."  Thus  Grenville  stiffened  the 
original  proposals,  which  bore  the  mark  of  Pitt's  more  pacific  nature. 

Even  so,  their  reception  at  Vienna  was  very  cool.  Fortune  then 
favoured  the  Imperialists.  In  October  they  threw  back  the  French 
to  the  Rhine  and  confidently  expected  to  drive  Bonaparte  from  Mantua. 
Further,  Catharine,  true  to  her  policy  of  prolonging  war  in  the  west, 
offered  60,000  Russians  for  the  next  campaign  on  consideration  of 
receiving  a  British  subsidy,  which  she  finally  fixed  at  nearly  £8,000,000. 
Thugut,  before  he  was  aware  of  this  exorbitant  demand,  had  conceived 
great  hopes  of  Russia's  help  and  disapproved  the  pacific  overtures 
as  likely  to  arouse  her  distrust2.  Thus  Habsburg  pride,  reliance  on 
Catharine,  and  the  gleams  of  success  in  Germany  disinclined  that 
Court  to  thoughts  of  peace,  even  on  the  liberal  terms  outlined  by 
Grenville.  So  stiff  was  Austria's  attitude  that,  as  will  soon  appear,  he 
warned  her  of  the  fatal  results  likely  to  ensue. 

The  general  situation  in  October,  1796,  also  offered  but  slight  hopes 
of  a  settlement.  True,  the  fortunes  of  France  were  for  a  time  overcast. 
Nevertheless  her  diplomatic  position  was  favourable,  owing  to  the 
conclusion  recently  of  Treaties  with  some  secondary  German  States 
and  Naples3.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Triple  Alliance  of  September, 

1  Drop-more  Papers,  ill.  260. 

2  P.O.  Austria,  46.    Grenville  to  Eden,  September  2oth;  October  7th:  Eden  to 
Grenville,  October  i6th,  i8th,  1796.  For  Thugut's  confidence  up  to  November  I2th 
of  military  success  see  Vivenot,  Thugut,  Clerfait  und  Wurmser,  pp.  511-518. 

8  Naples  gave  up  no  territory  and  was  not  compelled  to  exclude  British  ships.  The 
Directory  hoped  probably  to  facilitate  a  separate  peace  with  Austria,  since  the 
Empress  Maria  Theresa  was  a  daughter  of  Queen  Maria  Carolina,  of  the  Two 
Sicilies.  Guyot,  pp.  205-7. 


270    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

1795,  had  also  reconstructed  the  First  Coalition,  and  now  the  prospect 
of  the  active  participation  of  Catharine  in  the  War  seemed  no  longer 
a  chimera.  With  the  aim  of  averting  a  Franco- Spanish  domination  of 
the  Mediterranean,  which  appeared  imminent  after  the  Anglo- Spanish 
rupture,  the  British  Cabinet  decided  to  offer  to  the  Tsarina  Corsica,  the 
object  of  her  ardent  desire.  So  confident  were  Ministers  of  bringing  in 
the  Russian  fleet  as  a  makeweight,  that  on  October  igth  they  decided 
to  suspend  the  evacuation  of  that  sea  by  Jervis's  fleet,  a  change  of  plan 
heartily  approved  by  George  III1.  So  well  balanced  seemed  the  com- 
batants that  the  French  Foreign  Minister,  Delacroix,  at  his  first  con- 
ference with  Malmesbury  on  October  23rd,  adopted  a  tone  far  less 
truculent  than  that  of  his  earlier  despatches.  He  even  affirmed  the  desire 
of  France  for  peace — a  statement  confirmed  by  the  deep  weariness,  the 
almost  unbroken  silence,  which  hung  over  the  land.  The  issue,  how- 
ever, rested,  not  with  the  disillusioned  populace,  but  with  the  masterful 
faction  which  still  overawed  it.  Yet,  the  need  of  humouring  public 
opinion  being  urgent,  the  British  overtures  could  not  be  declined 
forthwith.  Indeed,  on  both  sides  of  the  Channel  they  were  regarded, 
at  least  by  those  who  disliked  them  or  doubted  their  success,  as  a  means 
of  influencing  public  opinion.  In  London  it  had  to  be  stimulated,  at 
Paris  calmed. 

These  considerations  explain  the  somewhat  artificial  character  of 
the  ensuing  negotiations.  The  Directory  tried  to  induce  Great  Britain 
to  treat  for  peace  separately,  alleging  the  greater  simplicity  and  speed 
of  this  procedure.  She,  of  course,  refused  to  separate  from  Austria. 
Thence  ensued  sharp  differences,  which  were  increased  by  the  harsh 
tone  of  the  French  reply  and  by  Grenville's  stiff  rejoinder  on  Nov- 
ember 7th.  It  has  been  claimed  that,  by  this  time,  Grenville  had 
resolved  on  a  rupture,  and  that  Pitt  resigned  himself  to  that  ending  of 
his  hopes2.  But  their  letters  of  that  date  and  Grenville's  Memorial 
to  the  Directory  do  not  warrant  so  extreme  a  statement.  The  French 
effort  to  separate  the  two  Allies  was  calculated  to  increase  the  distrust 
of  Grenville  and  overcloud  the  hopefulness  of  Pitt3.  There  is,  how- 
ever, nothing  to  show  that  even  Grenville  then  desired  a  rupture  of 
the  negotiation.  He  instructed  George  Canning,  now  Under- Secretary 
at  the  Foreign  Office,  to  commend  Malmesbury 's  tact  in  passing  over 
certain  annoyances  and  irregularities  at  Paris.  Further,  his  two  im- 

1  Dropmore  Papers,  ill.  261. 

2  Adams,  p.  49.   Guyot,  p.  293. 

3  Malmesbury,  Diaries,  in.  295-303. 


AUSTRIAN  DELAYS  271 

portant  despatches  of  November  yth  imply  a  desire  for  peace.  In  the 
former  of  them,  he  charged  Eden  to  inform  Thugut  that,  if  Austria 
declined  to  share  in  the  negotiation  for  peace,  Great  Britain  might  find 
herself  compelled  to  open  one  separately,  assuring  to  her  Ally  the  best 
terms  possible.  In  the  latter  despatch,  he  sent  a  warning  calculated 
to  dispel  the  last  hopes  of  the  Chancellor  for  the  Belgic-Bavarian  Ex- 
change. No  Power  but  Austria  or  Prussia  (he  said)  could  hold  the 
Belgian  Provinces  against  the  French.  If  the  Habsburgs  declined, 
then  Prussia  should  be  invited,  to  do  so.  In  either  case,  the  success  of 
any  general  settlement  depended  on  her  consent,  and  Austria  must 
formulate  her  policy  without  delay1. 

These  are  not  the  words  of  a  man  who  desires  a  rupture  at  Paris, 
but  rather  of  one  who  seeks  to  avoid  it  by  inducing  Austria  to  act 
promptly  and  reasonably.  By  all  the  claims  of  honour  he  was  bound 
not  to  make  peace  with  the  French  without  putting  forth  all  possible 
efforts  to  include  her  in  the  settlement;  and,  in  view  of  her  precarious 
financial  situation,  his  remonstrance  of  November  yth,  together  with 
his  constant  refusal  to  satisfy  her  exorbitant  pecuniary  demands,  ought 
to  have  induced  a  desire  to  treat  for  peace.  But  the  eyes  of  the  Emperor 
and  his  counsellors  were  holden.  Even  the  news  of  Bonaparte's  victory 
at  Arcola  on  November  i8th,  failed  to  open  them.  On  Eden  reporting 
Grenville's  warning  as  to  a  possible  reversion  of  the  Belgic  lands  to 
Prussia,  Thugut  hotly  exclaimed  that  his  master  would  oppose  it  by 
force  of  arms.  Not  until  December  I3th,  when  the  news  of  the 
sudden  decease  of  Catharine  reached  Vienna,  was  that  Court  able  to 
perceive  its  imminent  danger ;  and  then  it  was  too  late  for  participa- 
tion in  the  negotiation  at  Paris. 

There,  the  British  decision  to  act  along  with  Austria  had  aroused 
some  annoyance,  which  was  increased  by  our  Foreign  Office  instructing 
Malmesbury  not  to  disclose  the  essentials  of  his  Instructions.  This 
prudent  reserve  (fully  consonant  with  diplomatic  usage)  resulted  chiefly 
from  the  above-mentioned  decision,  which  involved  waiting  on  the  ever- 
deferred  declaration  from  Vienna.  Thus,  affairs  gyrated  in  a  vicious 
circle,  from  which  there  was  no  escape  until  the  course  of  events  de- 
clared decisively  for  one  of  the  disputants.  It  favoured  France  and  told 
against  the  Allies.  Arcola  confirmed  her  conquest  of  Italy.  The  death 
of  Catharine  shattered  the  new  Triple  Alliance ;  for  it  soon  appeared 
that  her  successor,  Paul  I,  would  reverse  her  policy.  Further,  the 
Directory  hoped  much  from  Hoche's  great  expedition  for  the  invasion 
1  See  Appendix  D  for  these  despatches. 


272    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

of  Ireland ;  and  it  is  significant  that  the  date  of  his  sailing  from  Brest 
(December  iyth)  coincided  with  the  drawing  up  of  a  warlike  note  by 
Delacroix,  in  which  he  advised  the  rejection  of  the  British  proposals. 
Those  proposals  drawn  up  by  Grenville  on  December  nth,  were 
delivered  to  Delacroix  after  the  news  of  the  death  of  the  Tsarina 
reached  Paris.  Since  they  included  the  retrocession  of  the  Belgic  Provinces 
to  Austria  and  the  evacuation  of  Italy  by  the  French  armies,  with 
comparatively  small  colonial  retrocessions  by  Great  Britain,  the 
Directory  naturally  termed  them  ces  conditions  deshonor  antes,  and,  on 
December  igth,  bade  Malmesbury  leave  Paris  within  48  hours.  He 
believed  this  haughty  conduct  to  result  largely  from  the  news  of  the 
death  of  the  Empress1. 

Grenville's  final  proposals  were,  probably,  designed  to  lead  to  a 
rupture.  If  so,  he  succeeded ;  for  it  came  about  in  a  manner  calculated 
to  throw  the  odium  upon  the  Directory.  But  that  Government  could 
now  afford  to  disregard  the  moderate  or  peace  party  in  France.  Its 
successes  bade  fair  to  overturn  old  Europe  and  extend  French  control 
to  the  Tiber  and  the  Upper  Danube.  Moreover,  the  British  Opposition 
hotly  denied  the  good  faith  of  Ministers  in  the  late  negotiation ;  but, 
in  spite  of  a  brilliant  attack  by  Fox,  Ministers  carried  the  day  against 
his  amendment  by  212  votes  to  37  (December  3Oth,  I796)2. 

Thus  ended  this  gloomy  year.  In  European  waters,  the  British 
Navy  had  achieved  little  of  note ;  for  the  failure  of  Hoche's  expedition 
to  Ireland  was  due  rather  to  a  faulty  start  and  bad  weather  than  to  the 
dispositions  of  Admirals  Bridport  and  Colpoys.  Nevertheless,  in  distant 
waters  British  seamen  won  several  triumphs,  securing  from  France 
St  Lucia,  Grenada  and  St  Vincent ;  from  the  United  Provinces  Am- 
boyna,  Demerara,  Berbice,  together  with  Colombo  and  other  Dutch 
settlements  in  Ceylon.  On  the  other  hand,  our  forces  serving  in  Hayti 
suffered  terrible  losses  from  disease,  which  almost  warranted  the  scathing 
censures  of  Windham  on  our  West  India  policy. 

In  view  of  the  growth  of  discouragement  at  home  and  of  anti- 
British  feelings  in  Austria,  it  is  surprising  that  Grenville  did  not 
publicly  explain  the  motives  underlying  British  policy.  Gouverneur 
Morris,  a  good  friend  to  England,  urged  this  course  of  action  in  a 

1  Malmesbury,  Diaries,  in.  339-65;  C.  Ballot,  Les  Negotiations  de  Lille  (1910), 
pp.  38-40. 

2  I  doubt  the  story  of  the  Prussian  Ambassador,  Sandoz-Rollin  (in  Bailleu, 
PreussenundFrankreich,  i.  106),  that  Malmesbury  went  to  him  on  December  aoth 
and  accused  Grenville  of  bad  faith — a  breach  of  confidence  of  which  (to  say  the  least) 
Malmesbury  would  surely  not  have  been  guilty — and  to  the  envoy  of  Prussia !  E.  D. 
Adams  (p.  50),  seems  to  accept  the  story. 


UNSATISFACTORY  COURSE  OF  THE  WAR        273 

letter  of  October  5th,  1796,  from  Vienna,  stating  that  Anglophobes 
were  accusing  her  of  protracting  the  miseries  of  Europe  in  order  to 
complete  the  conquest  of  the  two  Indies.  He  admitted  that  Grenville 
had  to  appease  home  opinion  by  dilating  on  the  value  of  our  Colonial 
acquisitions ;  but  such  statements  were  utilised  by  hostile  pressmen, 
until  they  embarrassed  even  the  autocrats  of  Vienna.  He,  therefore, 
suggested  that  Grenville  should  issue  a  reasoned  defence  of  his  policy, 
to  the  effect  that  the  security  of  the  British  possessions  required  the 
capture  of  the  French  and  Dutch  Colonies ;  but  that  this,  though  a 
legitimate  war  measure,  was  not  the  ultimate  object  of  the  War,  which 
was  to  protect  Germany  and  the  Netherlands1.  This  statesmanlike 
advice  Grenville  seems  to  have  disregarded  as  an  unheard-of  departure 
from  the  traditions  of  diplomatic  reserve  endemic  at  Downing  Street. 
The  ominous  tightening  of  the  financial  situation,  the  arrival  of 
serious  news  as  to  the  daring  outrages  of  the  United  Irishmen2,  and 
the  popularity  of  Erskine's  pamphlet,  A  View  of  the  Causes  and  Conse- 
quences of  the  present  War  with  France  (January,  1797),  concurred  to 
arouse  in  Pitt  once  more  the  resolve  to  seize  the  first  opportunity  for 
a  general  pacification.  His  desire  was  strengthened  by  the  course  of 
the  War.  Though  Jervis's  brilliant  victory  over  a  greatly  superior 
Spanish  fleet  (February  i4th)  had  dealt  a  heavy  blow  at  that  navy,  yet 
the  general  prospects  were  gloomy.  As  usual,  Austria  was  a  load  about 
our  neck.  The  surrender  of  Mantua  (February  2nd)  and  the  speedy 
collapse  of  her  defence  of  the  Carnic  Alps  portended  a  final  disaster. 
Naturally  enough,  the  attacks  in  Parliament  on  the  Government's  policy 
of  subsidising  Austria  became  more  bitter.  On  April  4th,  Sheridan's 
motion  for  an  enquiry  into  this  subject  gained  87  votes,  as  compared 
with37  for  the  anti- War  motion  of  December3Oth.  The  numberswould 
have  trebled,  if  members  could  have  read  the  reports  then  being  penned 
by  Eden  and  Colonel  Graham  at  Vienna  as  to  the  refusal  of  Austrian 
officers  and  soldiers  to  fight  and  the  utter  confusion  at  headquarters. 
The  Emperor,  it  is  true,  had  repelled  suggestions  for  a  peace  made  by 
General  Clarke  through  the  Grand-duke  of  Tuscany,  and  Thugut  was 
struggling  manfully  against  a  surrender.  But  they  both  complained 
that  we  were  compromising  the  campaign  by  withholding  adequate 
pecuniary  support  and  naval  assistance  in  the  Adriatic.  Thugut  de- 
manded a  large  subsidy  and  the  despatch  of  Jervis's  fleet  (then  observing 
Cadiz)  to  operate  on  the  Venetian  coast.  The  British  Government 

1  Drop-more  Papers,  in.  258;  Sparks,  Life  of  G.  Morris,  in.  93. 

2  Lecky,  vii.  ch.  xxvm. 

W.&G.I.  18 


274    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

declined  both  requests,  but  on  April  4th  decided  to  send  a  force  of 
frigates  and  light  craft  to  that  quarter1. 

On  the  same  day,  Grenville  signed  a  despatch  to  Eden,  affirming 
the  willingness  of  Great  Britain  to  treat  for  peace  conjointly  with 
Austria.  He  again  suggested  the  issue  of  a  joint  Declaration  stating 
their  wishes  for  a  combined  negotiation.  If  France  agrees,  then  Austria 
may  propose  the  locality,  provided  it  be  not  too  far  from  London.  Great 
Britain  will  sacrifice  certain  of  her  Colonial  conquests  in  order  to  assure 
the  welfare  and  security  of  her  Ally, "  on  which  His  Majesty  holds  that 
of  Europe  essentially  to  depend2."  These  proposals  were  prompted, 
not  only  by  Austria's  defeats,  but  also  by  news  which  reached  London 
on  March  3Oth  from  Lord  Elgin,  British  Ambassador  at  Berlin,  as  to 
the  Secret  Treaty  of  that  Court  with  France  on  August  5th,  1796 3. 
Grenville,  true  to  his  earlier  conviction  of  the  value  of  a  Prussian 
Alliance,  had  decided  to  make  one  more  bid  for  it.  Now,  it  seemed 
hopeless ;  and  the  need  of  peace  was  the  more  urgent.  On  April  9th 
the  Cabinet  decided  to  send  Hammond  to  Vienna  to  arrange  a  joint 
negotiation  to  that  end.  George  III  deemed  the  measure  big  with 
evils,  but  did  not  actively  oppose.  He  could  scarcely  do  so,  in  view  of 
Pitt's  statement  that  the  Cabinet  was  unanimous.  The  following  words 
in  his  letter  of  April  9th  to  the  King  are  noteworthy:  "  In  this  opinion 
he  knows  that  none  concur  more  decidedly  than  those  of  Your  Majesty's 
servants  who  have  been  most  anxious  to  resist,  while  they  thought  it 
possible,  the  sacrifices  now  proposed."  Grenville's  letter  to  the  King 
of  the  same  date  is  equally  decisive4. 

The  Instructions  of  April  nth,  1797,10  Eden,  taken  by  Hammond, 
were  drawn  up  with  the  special  purpose  of  safeguarding  Habsburg 
interests.  They  aimed  at  securing  a  general  armistice,  so  as  to  allow 
time  for  consultation  with  Vienna  and  Petrograd,  but  set  forth  alter- 
natives in  case  Austria  needed  to  act  at  once.  If  so,  Eden  and  Hammond 
might  advise  the  cession  of  the  Belgic  Provinces,  provided  that  she 
acquired  indemnities  in  either  Germany  or  Italy  sufficient  for  the  main- 
tenance of  her  position  as  a  Great  Power.  On  other  topics,  Grenville 

1  P.O.  Austria,  48.  Eden  to  Grenville,  March  8th,  22nd,  25th,  1797.  For 
Thugut's  opposition  to  the  French  offers  of  peace  sent  through  General  Clarke  and 
with  the  recommendation  of  the  Grand-duke  of  Tuscany  see  Appendix  £),  also  Hiiffer, 
Quellen,  Pt  II,  vol.  I.  pp.  112  et  seq.  Sorel,  in.  chap.  iv. 

z  Ibid.   Grenville  to  Eden,  April  4,  1797. 

3  Drop-more  Papers,  in.  304. 

4  Stanhope,  Pitt,  in.  App.  p.  v.  Dropmore  Papers,  in.  310.  But  see  Windham's 
account  (Diary,  p.  357)  of  George  Ill's  remark  to  him :  "  I  honour  you  for  your  firm- 
ness "  (probably  in  opposing  the  peace  proposals). 


GOOD  FAITH  OF  BRITISH  STATESMANSHIP     275 

proposed  as  a  general  basis  the  status  quo  ante,  the  French  recovering 
all  their  former  Colonies  except  Martinique :  or,  if  we  gave  up  that 
island,  we  claimed,  in  lieu  of  it,  Trinidad  and  either  Tobago  or  St 
Lucia.  Similarly,  we  would  restore  to  the  Dutch  their  Colonies  taken  in 
the  War,  except  the  Cape  and  Ceylon,  deemed  essential  to  the  pro- 
tection of  our  East  Indies.  No  British  possessions  having  been  lost, 
we  offered  these  restitutions,  in  order  to  assure  satisfactory  terms  to 
Austria  and  Portugal1.  The  arrival  of  news  of  further  defeats  of  Austria, 
probably  also  of  the  outbreak  of  the  mutiny  at  Spithead,  decided 
Grenville,  by  April  i8th,  to  name  conditionally  further  concessions, 
viz.  that,  if  it  were  necessary  to  save  her  from  complete  disaster,  His 
Majesty  would  forego  all  his  recent  conquests  in  the  West  Indies, 
except  Tobago,  where  British  commercial  interests  were  supreme. 

These  despatches  and  others  printed  in  the  Appendix  vindicate  the 
good  faith  of  the  Cabinet  in  regard  to  this  overture.  George  III  dis- 
approved of  it;  but  he  had  long  ago  regarded  persistence  (not  to 
say  obstinacy)  as  the  foremost  of  the  political  virtues.  Statesmen  who 
viewed  the  whole  situation  with  an  open  mind  must  have  deemed  peace 
essential.  Great  Britain,  though  severely  strained  by  recent  events, 
held  strong  ground.  She  could  fight  on  alone,  unencumbered  by  Allies ; 
but  at  present  she  was  bound  to  do  her  best  for  them.  On  their  behalf, 
she  now  prepared  to  rescind  her  earlier  decision  not  to  surrender  her 
colonial  acquisitions,  in  order  to  alleviate  their  peace  conditions.  Of 
what  use,  indeed,  was  it  to  continue  a  conflict  in  which  Austria's 
military  disasters  continually  cancelled  the  effects  of  British  naval 
triumphs  ?  The  statesmen  of  London  and  Paris  must  already  have  seen 
that  affairs  were  approaching  a  deadlock.  The  French  fought  desperately  to 
secure  the  "  natural  frontiers  "  as  a  safeguard  against  Austria  and  England ; 
while  those  Powers  struggled  on  from  a  conviction  that  the  new  frontiers 
would  place  France  in  a  position  of  dangerous  preponderance.  In  the 
process,  Austria  was  losing  Northern  Italy  and  her  possessions  in  Suabia 
and  the  Rhineland.  Great  Britain  was  pouring  forth  subsidies  and 
making  conquests  overseas,  whose  chief  use  was  to  serve  as  barter  at 
some  ever  receding  pacification.  The  result  would  be  either  the  destruc- 
tion, or  some  artificial  reconstruction,  of  the  old  Flemish  Barrier.  If 
so,  as  in  the  Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  (1748),  the  British  navy  would 
have  served  merely  to  redress  the  Balance  of  Power  on  the  Continent. 
As  Burke  truly  said  respecting  the  horrible  loss  of  life  in  our  West 
India  campaigns : "  If  we  look  for  matter  of  exchange  in  order  to  ransom 

1  See  Appendix  D. 

18— 2 


276    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

Europe,  it  is  easy  to  show  that  we  have  taken  a  terribly  roundabout 
road1." 

Grenville  feared  that  the  British  proposal  might  arrive  too  late; 
and  therefore  sent  after  Hammond  another,  to  the  effect  that,  if  Austria 
had  made  peace,  he  was  to  proceed  to  Berlin  and  accept  an  earlier,  and 
rather  suspicious,  offer  of  that  Court  to  mediate  for  peace2.  On  arriving 
at  Vienna  at  the  end  of  April  he  found  that  Bonaparte  had  imposed  on 
that  Court  the  Preliminaries  of  Leoben  (April  i8th).  Thugut  main- 
tained the  utmost  reserve  and  concealed  them  from  him.  Hammond, 
therefore,  said  nothing  about  the  projected  overture  at  Berlin3,  which 
was  certain  to  annoy  Thugut.  Proceeding  to  Berlin,  he  acted 
warily,  and  again  fulfilled  Grenville's  revised  intention,  which  was  that 
he  should  state  merely  Britain's  readiness  to  enter  into  pacific  negotia- 
tions, saying  nothing  meanwhile  as  to  our  actual  relations  to  Austria. 
By  this  cautious  reserve,  Grenville  and  Hammond  rendered  possible  a 
resumption  of  close  relations  with  Austria.  The  wonder  is  that,  after 
reiterated  proofs  of  the  bad  faith  of  Prussia,  Grenville  should,  even  in 
the  present  desperate  straits,  have  thought  of  seeking  her  mediation. 

Starhemberg,  who  believed  that  Hammond  had  unguardedly  dis- 
closed the  secrets  at  Vienna,  reproached  Grenville  and  expressed  the 
hope  that  Great  Britain  would  never  cease  to  trust  Austria  and  Russia, 
united  as  they  were  by  friendly  ties.  But  the  mischief  of  the  situation 
was  that  we  were  drifting  apart  from  Austria,  who  answered  our  in- 
vitation to  a  joint  negotiation  with  excuses  and  reserve,  or  by  complete 
silence.  Further,  it  was  clear  that  neither  did  she  wholly  trust  the  Tsar 
Paul,  nor  he  her.  Grenville  had  contemplated  an  application  even  to 
that  unaccountable  potentate  for  his  good  offices;  but  the  mere  in- 
tention illustrates  the  British  statesman's  desperation4.  It  would  be 
unfair  to  blame  Francis  II  and  Thugut  overmuch  for  the  collapse  of 
1797,  in  view  of  the  utter  demoralisation  of  the  Austrian  army,  the 
craven  spirit  of  nobles  and  burghers,  and  the  delays  in  our  financial' 
succour5.  But  it  soon  transpired  that  the  Habsburg  Court  was  con- 
templating an  alluring  alternative — an  entente  with  France  with  a  view 
to  the  partition  of  the  Venetian  Republic6.  Herein  lay  the  chief  reason 

1  Burke,  Letters  on  a  Regicide  Peace  (No.  II). 

2  Drop-more  Papers,  in.  298. 

8  So  he  declared  (Dropmore  Papers,  ill.  322)  Starhemberg  heard  the  contrary 
(Ibid.  p.  325);  he  thought  the  secrecy  of  his  Court  culpable. 

4  Ibid.  ill.  pp.  299,  312;  Ballot,  chap.  IV.  Vorontzoffat  London  was  working  for 
a  rapprochement  with  England ;  but  the  inconstancy  of  Paul  made  it  very  difficult. 

5  Huffer,  Quellen,  Pt  II,  vol.  I.  pp.  civ,  178-184. 

6  See  Appendix  D;  also,  Huffer,  Quellen,  Pt  II,  vol.  I.  p.  153. 


PITT'S  INTENSE  DESIRE  FOR  PEACE  277 

for  the  secretiveness  of  its  policy  during  the  spring  and  summer  of 
1797.  Frequently  did  Grenville  and  Eden  ask  for  the  communication 
of  the  Austro-French  terms  signed  at  Leoben.  Thugut  kept  them 
jealously  secret.  He,  also,  refused  to  ratify  a  convention  for  the  repay- 
ment of  sums  lent  by  Great  Britain  to  Austria ;  and,  in  spite  of  reiterated 
protests  from  the  British  Government  that  such  conduct  sapped  all 
confidence  in  Austria's  integrity,  he  took  no  steps  to  satisfy  these  just 
claims,  believing  probably  that  her  isolation  and  need  of  an  Ally  would 
lead  to  the  cancelling  of  the  debt.  Sharp  opposition  in  Parliament  com- 
pelled the  Pitt  Administration  to  hold  firm  in  this  matter,  the  result 
being  a  marked  divergence  between  British  and  Austrian  policy.  Thus, 
the  hope  of  setting  on  foot  joint  negotiations  for  peace  came  to  naught. 
In  fact,  the  Triple  Alliance  of  1795  was  defunct.  Paul  pirouetted 
apart;  Francis  II  was  drifting  towards  a  tame  but  not  unprofitable 
surrender;  and  Great  Britain,  hard  pressed  by  the  mutinies  in  the 
fleets  at  Spithead  and  the  Nore,  seemed  for  a  time  at  the  mercy  of  the 
French.  The  cheery  pessimism  of  George  Canning  found  expression 
in  the  following  lines  (May  i2th,  1797): 

Come,  Windham !  celebrate  with  me 
This  day  of  joy  and  jubilee, 

This  day  of  no  disaster. 
Our  Government  is  not  o'erturned — 
Huzza. !   Our  fleet  has  not  been  burned, 

Our  army's  not  the  master1. 

•*-The  intensity  of  Pitt's  desire  for  peace  is  at  no  time  more  evident 
than  his  venturing,  even  in  the  midst  of  these  civil  discords,  to  sound 
the  disposition  of  the  French  Directory  on  this  question.  On  June  4th 
he  privately  assured  Lord  Carlisle  that  overtures  were  being  made  at 
Paris2.  To  take  such  steps  while  the  Nore  mutineers  were  blockading 
the  Thames  and  Consols  were  down  to  48,  was  the  most  questionable 
proceeding  in  Pitt's  career;  and  it  was,  almost  certainly,  disapproved 
by  Grenville.  On  May  26th  he  ordered  Hammond  to  leave  Berlin, 
where  nothing  could  be  effected,  and  on  June  2nd  he  informed  Eden 
that  we  were  making  peace  overtures  at  Paris  in  consequence  of  Austria 
having  come  to  terms  with  the  French  and  observing  complete  silence 
on  those  terms ;  but  he  ordered  Eden  merely  to  state  these  facts  as  a 
proof  of  our  desire  still  to  remain  in  concert  with  her.  As  to  the  method 

1  Windham  Papers,  u.  53. 

2  See  Appendix  D,  also,  for  the  reasons  why  Grenville  refused  Austria's  futile, 
because  belated,  proposal  of  a  General  Congress. 


278    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

of  our  negotiations  with  the  Directory,  there  arose  a  sharp  division  in 
Downing  Street.  Grenville,  Portland,  Spencer  and  Windham  still 
desired  close  cooperation  with  our  Allies,  Austria  and  Portugal.  Pitt, 
Loughborough,  Dundas,  Chatham,  Cornwallis  and,  finally,  Liverpool, 
carried  the  day  in  favour  of  a  limited  negotiation1.  George  III,  very 
reluctantly,  concurred.  Grenville,  however,  in  his  note  of  June  iyth 
to  Delacroix,  declared  that  Great  Britain  must  look  after  the  interests 
of  her  Ally,  Portugal,  and  that  those  of  Spain  and  Holland  might  be 
considered  on  the  representation  of  France. 

We  can  here  consider  merely  the  causes  of  the  failure  of  the  ensuing 
negotiation  at  Lille.  Malmesbury,  our  Plenipotentiary,  well  summarised 
the  influences  at  work  in  the  concluding  sentence  of  his  letter  of 
July  25th  to  Grenville :  "  The  fate  of  the  negotiation  will  depend  much 
less  on  what  passes  in  our  conferences  here  than  on  what  may  shortly 
happen  at  Paris."  This  remarkable  forecast  was  prompted  by  the 
critical  state  of  affairs  at  Paris.  There,  the  violent  trio  that  controlled 
the  Directory  procured  the  dismissal  of  Delacroix  and  other  Ministers, 
the  Foreign  Minister's  place  being  taken  by  Talleyrand  as  Plenipo- 
tentiary at  Lille.  Not  that  this  diplomat  was,  either  by  nature  or 
conviction,  a  Jacobin ;  but,  since  at  this  juncture  his  diplomatic  talents 
would  be  invaluable,  he  became  their  man  for  a  time.  In  his  opinion, 
the  British  Government  was  secretly  encouraging  Austria  to  resist  the 
French  terms,  or  rather  the  terms  which  Bonaparte  was  thrusting  on 
her.  "  Force  the  Austrian  peace  by  hurrying  on  the  British  peace  " — 
such  was  his  motto.  If  left  to  himself,  the  young  conqueror  would 
probably  have  humoured  the  islanders  to  some  extent,  in  order  to 
crush  Austria.  That  Powerwas  playing  a  dangerous  game.  Obstinately, 
she  held  her  British  Ally  at  arm's  length,  until  Grenville  declared  that 
her  suspicious  reserve  and  belated  proposals  for  a  General  Congress  left 
the  Court  of  St  James's  free  to  go  its  own  way,  cooperation  with  her 
being  out  of  the  question,  unless  Gallic  haughtiness  compelled  both 
States  to  fight  on  to  the  death.  Malmesbury,  also,  affirmed  that  we 
had  done  more  than  our  duty  by  her,  while  she  forgot  what  she  owed 
to  us2.  As  for  Portugal,  her  Envoy  complicated  matters  on  August  roth 
by  hurriedly  signing  a  Separate  Peace,  which  his  own  Government 
promptly  disavowed. 

Thus,  in  the  month  of  September,  the  Directory  seemed  to  have 

1  Life  of  Sir  G.  Elliot,  n.  408.  Windham,  Diary,  pp.  365-8.   For  Burke's  last 
despairing  letter  on  public  affairs,  see  The  Windham  Papers  (1913),  vol.  n.  pp.  53-6. 
For  the  British  peace  proposals  of  July  8th,  1797,  see  Ballot,  App.  xiv. 

2  Malmesbury  Diaries,  m.  465. 


FAILURE  OF  THE  LILLE  NEGOTIATIONS        279 

the  ball  at  its  feet.  Recent  events  had  puffed  up  its  leading  members 
with  intolerable  pride.  They  hoped  to  arouse  a  great  revolt  in  Ireland, 
stir  up  panic  in  England  by  invasions  and  plots  of  malcontents,  and 
group  the  Baltic  States  in  a  new  Armed  Neutrality  against  her.  The 
Tsar  Paul  being  inclined  towards  peace,  they  hoped  to  refashion  the 
Armed  Neutrality  of  1780,  and  to  overwhelm  both  Great  Britain  and 
Austria.  Their  forceful  policy  having  succeeded  in  the  domestic  crisis, 
the  coup  cTtiat  of  i8th  Fructidor  (September  4th,  1797),  which  led  to 
the  triumph  of  the  violent  trio  and  the  exile  of  their  moderate  opponents, 
the  victorious  faction  was  about  to  apply  similar  methods  to  their  foes 
abroad.  Reubell,  the  most  energetic  of  the  three,  hated  England  viru- 
lently and  believed  that  she  could  be  revolutionised  and  ruined1.  A 


eek  later,  TulluynuK*  and  Maret  were  replaced  by  Treilhard  and 

T>  •         rr\  *tf  "f  if***  t  :ff    •f  TA£etf>*«''rf*    .  .     .  x-\       n  t  /:    t 

Bonnier,  Talleyrand  becoming  Foreiga-Mtmater.  On  September  i  oth  , 
they  sent  a  note,  asking  Malmesbury  whether  he  had  full  powers  to 
agree  to  a  complete  restitution  of  all  British  conquests  made  from 
France  or  her  Allies;  failing  which,  he  should  leave  Lille  within 
twenty-four  hours.  This  brusque  demand  involved  the  restitution  to 
the  Dutch,  not  only  of  their  settlements  in  Ceylon  (as  to  which  Pitt 
and  Maret  were  ready  for  a  compromise),  but  also  of  the  Cape,  as  to 
which  no  British  statesman  would  give  way2.  On  other  questions,  an 
agreement  had  been  virtually  reached  during  informal  discussions 
between  Malmesbury  and  Maret;  but  this  sudden  demand  was  equi- 
valent to  a  rupture.  In  vain  did  the  French  Plenipotentiaries  declare 
that  it  was  designed  pour  activer  la  negotiation,  and  that,  if  Malmesbury 
chose  to  depart,  they  would  await  his  return.  That  device  was  a  sop 
to  public  opinion  in  France,  which  had  longed  for  peace.  With  more 
reason,  the  British  Government  could  urge  that  France  had  broken  off 
the  negotiation  by  a  sudden  and  imperious  demand.  Accordingly, 
the  whole  affair  tended  to  accentuate  the  war  spirit  on  both  sides  of 
the  Channel. 

It  is,  however,  doubtful  whether  a  compromise  was  practicable. 
The  French  Plenipotentiaries  might,  in  private,  deride  the  lofty  claims 
of  their  Spanish  Allies  for  the  recovery  of  Gibraltar  and  Nootka  Sound, 
the  demand  of  territory  in  Newfoundland  for  their  fisheries  and  of  a 
virtually  exclusive  possession  of  the  Pacific  coasts  of  America.  But, 
after  the  revival  of  Spanish  pride  consequent  on  Nelson's  repulse  at 

1  Ballot,  chap.  xvm. 

2  Malmesbury  Diaries,  HI.  385,  400,  456,  471,  557.   Pitt  and  Grenville  differed 
respecting  Ceylon. 


\ 


28o    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

Teneriffe,  the  Directory  could  not  entirely  overlook  the  claims  of  its 
chief  Ally,  nor  indeed  those  of  the  Dutch,  who,  while  less  pretentious, 
were  far  more  persistent.  Maret  believed  that  if  Great  Britain  would 
forego  Ceylon,  she  might  retain  the  Cape  by  bribing  each  Director 
to  the  extent  of  £5o,ooo1.  On  the  score  of  character  the  suggestion 
is  quite  credible ;  but  on  that  of  expediency  it  is  more  than  questionable. 
For  such  a  proceeding  could  not  remain  secret ;  and  its  disclosure  would 
damn  for  ever  the  men  who  resorted  to  it  at  the  expense  of  a  faithful 
Ally.  There  was,  apparently,  some  chance  of  the  Dutch  accepting  a 
substantial  sum  from  England  for  the  Cape,  in  order  to  discharge  their 
pecuniary  obligations  to  France,  that  Colony  being  then  regarded  as 
financially  burdensome  and  useful  only  as  the  outpost  guarding  the 
East  Indies2.  But  the  spirit  prevalent  at  Paris  after  Fructidor  forbade 
any  chaffering  on  this  head.  Probably,  Bonaparte's  influence  prevented 
the  cession  of  the  Cape  to  "  the  intriguing  and  enterprising  islanders  " 
who  alone  stood  between  him  and  the  conquest  of  the  East.  Ostensibly, 
the  question  of  the  Cape  was  the  chief  crux  at  Lille,  Ceylon  and 
Trinidad  presenting  fewer  difficulties.  But,  in  reality,  it  was  the 
domineering  spirit  of  the  Directors  which  occasioned  the  rupture3. 
Could  they  have  foreseen  the  events  of  the  next  nine  months — the 
Dutch  navy  crushed  by  Duncan  at  Camperdown  (October  tath),  the 
revival  of  British  finance  and  prestige,  the  miserable  failure  of  French 
plans  for  Ireland,  the  hatred  aroused  by  the  French  invaders  of  Switzer- 
land and  Rome,  and  the  rapid  rise  of  Bonaparte  at  the  expense  of  "  the 
lawyers  of  the  Directory,"  they  would  have  made  peace  and  have 
figured  as  the  benefactors  of  Europe,  not  as  the  dupes  of  the  Great 
Corsican. 

In  view  of  the  evidence  now  in  our  possession,  the  charge  that 
Grenville  always  desired  the  breakdown  of  the  negotiation  at  Lille 
must  be  revised.  He  felt  the  need  of  peace,  if  it  could  be  obtained  on 
terms  neither  dishonourable  nor  too  disadvantageous4.  But,  clearly, 
Pitt  was  more  eager  than  he  for  a  settlement.  His  desire  to  end  the 
War  appeared  in  his  entertaining  some  vaguely  alluring  offer  to  restore 
peace  on  not  unfavourable  terms,  if  £2,000,000  were  secretly  paid  to 
the  five  Directors.  The  offer  was  either  a  hoax  or  an  attempt  to 
manipulate  the  Stock  Exchange ;  and  Pitt's  dallying  with  so  suspicious 

1  Ballot,  p.  237. 

2  Malmesbury  Diaries,  in.  439,  454,  464,  470. 
*  Ballot,  pp.  474-6,  298-309. 

4  See  Appendix  D;  also  Drop-more  Papers,  in.  372,  378;  Hiiffer,  Quellen,  Pt  II, 
vol.  I.  p.  cxx  note. 


TREATY  OF  CAMPO  FORMIO  281 

a  proposal  seems  to  have  induced  Windham  to  write  the  sarcastic 
letter  of  October  loth,  referring  to  the  constant  lowering  of  our  terms, 
in  the  hope  of  some  day  finding  at  Paris  a  Government  that  would  grant 
conditions  of  peace  "  not  utterly  destructive  " ;  for  to  that  course  Pitt's 
system  of  "tiding  over"  was  rapidly  reducing  us1.  The  prestige  and 
credit  of  Great  Britain  never  sank  lower  than  in  the  summer  of  1797. 
Thenceforth,  under  the  pressure  of  French  pretensions  she  began  to 
recover  spirit  and  energy. 

In  every  respect,  the  coup  d'etat  of  Fructidor  marks  the  beginning 
of  a  new  period.  In  France,  it  brought  about  a  recrudescence  of 
Jacobinical  violence.  The  rupture  at  Lille  also  opened  the  period  of 
definitely  offensive  war.  Both  events  were  decided  largely  by  the 
forceful  will  of  Bonaparte,  which,  with  military  help,  overbore  the 
Moderates  and  launched  France  on  a  career  of  conquest  and  plunder. 
An  attempt  has  been  made  by  Sorel  to  prove  the  essential  unity  of  all 
the  Revolutionary  and  Napoleonic  Wars ;  but  that  theory  is  at  variance 
with  certain  plain  facts.  Before  Fructidor  and  Lille,  the  military  efforts 
of  Frenchmen  had  been  to  a  large  extent  directed  to  the  acquisition 
of  what  they  deemed  secure  boundaries.  Afterwards,  they  aimed  at 
foreign  conquests.  There  is  a  wide  difference  between  the  campaigns 
of  Carnot  and  those  of  Bonaparte.  The  former  was  now  an  exile,  the 
latter  was  now  the  uncrowned  king  of  the  French.  Up  to  September, 
1797,  the  hopes  of  democrats  everywhere  centred  in  France.  Thence- 
forth, they  turned  against  her.  That  month  marks  the  turning  point 
both  in  the  French  Revolution  and  in  European  History.  Brumaire 
and  the  Empire  were  but  the  natural  sequel  of  Fructidor. 

That  event  also  led  the  Directory  and  Bonaparte  to  conclude  peace 
promptly  with  Austria.  "We  have  war  with  England  (wrote  Bona- 
parte on  October  i8th),  that  enemy  is  formidable  enough."  Fearing 
that  she  was  about  to  frame  a  new  Coalition,  he  bullied  Cobenzl  into 
a  surrender  of  the  chief  outstanding  Austrian  demand,  the  Ionian  Isles, 
then  forming  part  of  the  Venetian  Republic,  which  the  two  disputants 
had  resolved  to  partition.  By  the  resulting  Treaty,  signed  at  Campo 
Formio  near  Udine  on  October  i7th,  1797,  France  acquired  the 
Venetian  fleet,  and  for  her  subordinate  Cisalpine  Republic  the  western 
districts  of  the  Venetian  mainland,  while  Austria  obtained  the  city  of 
Venice,  Eastern  Venetia,  Istria  and  Dalmatia.  She  also  ceded  to  the 
French  the  Belgic  Provinces,  recognised  the  (nominal)  independence 
of  the  lands  now  forming  the  Cisalpine  Republic,  promised  to  transfer 

1  Windham  Papers,  n.  61. 


282    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

her  Breisgau  to  the  dispossessed  Duke  of  Modena  and  agreed  to  the 
assembly  of  a  Congress  for  the  settlement  of  German  affairs.  The  main 
outlines  were  marked  out  in  secret  articles  whereby  the  Emperor 
pledged  himself  to  use  his  good  offices  to  procure  from  the  Empire 
the  cession  to  France  of  all  German  lands  west  of  the  Rhine,  she  in 
return  using  her  endeavours  to  secure  for  him  the  Archbishopric  of 
Salzburg  and  part  of  South-East  Bavaria.  The  signatory  Powers  further 
agreed  that,  if  one  of  them  made  more  acquisitions  than  these  in 
Germany,  the  other  should  gain  an  equivalent  indemnity1. 

Such  was  this  disgraceful  compact.  The  two  Powers  now  extin- 
guished the  unoffending  Venetian  Republic  and  agreed  on  a  policy 
of  spoliation  at  the  expense  of  the  lesser  States  of  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire.  The  Emperor  consented  to  schemes  which  involved  the  breach 
of  his  coronation  oath ;  and  the  French  Republic  placed  itself  on  the 
level  of  the  despoilers  of  Poland.  The  success  which,  also,  attended 
the  French  negotiations  at  the  Congress  of  Rastatt  hastened  the  dis- 
solution of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  and  assured  the  predominance 
of  France  in  German  affairs.  Bonaparte,  after  participating  for  a  few 
days  in  the  early  sessions  at  Rastatt,  repaired  to  Paris,  where  he  received 
a  rapturous  welcome,  and  was  bidden  by  Barras  to  proceed  to  the 
northern  coast  and  overthrow  "  the  giant  corsair  that  infests  the  seas." 
Duncan's  victory  at  Camperdown  deprived  this  verbiage  of  all  sig- 
nificance; but  unrest  in  England  and  unceasing  outrages  in  Ireland 
darkened  the  outlook  in  the  autumn  of  I7972.  If  the  French  Republic 
had  not  soon  belied  its  reputation  of  liberator  of  oppressed  peoples, 
the  democratic  ferment  in  our  large  towns  would  have  been  formidable. 
For  a  time  British  malcontents  looked  with  hope  to  Bonaparte's  forces 
mustering  on  the  coasts  of  Picardy  and  Flanders.  It  soon  appeared 
that  those  preparations  were,  on  his  part,  a  blind  to  hide  his  real  aims 
which  pointed  towards  Egypt.  When  his  ambitions  became  manifest 
and  the  plunder  of  the  Swiss  Cantonal  treasuries  was  known,  the 
sympathy  of  British  democrats  with  France  rapidly  cooled ;  and  the 
War  received  whole-hearted  support.  The  rise  of  Bonaparte  syn- 
chronises closely  with  the  decline  of  British  Republicanism,  fear  of 
which  had  in  a  measure  influenced  Grenville's  foreign  policy. 

The  truth  that  the  excess  of  an  evil  works  its  own  cure  likewise  be- 
came manifest,  though  slowly, in  the  international  situation.  The  domi- 

1  Garden,  v.  415-425.  Austria  lost  3,604,300  inhabitants,  but  gained  3,050,000 
in  Italy,  etc. 

2  Dropmore  Papers,  ill.  378,  385-9. 


ACCESSION  OF  FREDERICK  WILLIAM  III        283 

neering  behaviour  of  the  French  Envoys  at  Rastatt,  the  rapacity  of 
French  officials  in  theRhineland,andthe  spoliation  of  Rome  and  central 
Switzerland  alarmed  and  disgusted  all  neighbouring  Powers.  Thugut, 
while  secretly  satisfied  with  the  terms  signed  at  Leoben,  resented  the 
far  more  onerous  conditions  of  the  Treaty  of  Campo  Formio,  and 
regarded  it  as  a  truce,  to  last  until  the  Triple  Alliance  could  be  renewed 
under  more  favourable  auspices.  The  conduct  of  the  French  convinced 
the  statesmen  of  Vienna,  Petrograd  and  London  that  the  time  was 
fast  approaching1. 

For  a  brief  period,  some  hope  was  entertained  that  Prussia  would 
enter  on  a  different  course.  In  November,  1797,  the  death  of  Frederick 
William  II  brought  to  the  throne  his  son  of  the  same  name.  The  new 
monarch  was  virtuous;  and  his  accession  and  that  of  his  beautiful 
consort  Louisa,  ended  the  scandals  which  had  disgraced  the  Court  of 
Berlin.  His  national  patriotism  revolted  at  the  terms  of  the  Treaty  of 
Campo  Formio  and  the  intrusion  at  Rastatt  of  French  influence  into 
Germanic  affairs.  He,  therefore,  sought  to  come  to  an  understanding 
with  the  Emperor  Francis  II.  The  attempt  produced  little  result,  owing 
to  the  incurable  distrust  between  the  two  Courts.  Further,  there 
appeared  in  Frederick  William  III  signs  of  that  narrowness  of  outlook 
and  paralysing  indecision  which  were  destined  often  to  warp  or  thwart 
Prussian  policy;  and  the  hopes  of  a  change  of  policy  harboured  by 
Lord  Elgin,  British  Ambassador  at  Berlin,  soon  faded  away.  The  Duke 
of  Brunswick,  who  went  thither  with  the  purpose  of  influencing  the  new 
monarch  in  favour  of  Great  Britain  and  Austria,  soon  had  to  lament 
his  timidity  and  reliance  on  the  old  clique,  especially  on  Haugwitz, 
a  man  (said  Brunswick)  "whom  no  honest  man  could  trust." 

Very  different  was  the  character  of  George  III.  As  he  once  wrote 
to  Pitt,  "  I  never  assent  till  I  am  convinced  what  is  proposed  is  right, 
and  then  I  keep."  This  excellent  quality,  together  with  the  quenchless 
optimism  of  Pitt,  the  stern  tenacity  of  Grenville,  the  valour  of  her 
fighting  men  and  the  marvellous  buoyancy  of  her  finances,  made 
Great  Britain  the  sole  hope  of  European  independence.  Mallet  du 
Pan,  on  reaching  our  shores  in  the  spring  of  1798,  was  astounded  at 
the  confidence  which  prevailed.  "The  nation  (he  wrote)  had  not 
yet  learnt  to  know  its  own  strength  or  its  resources.  The  Government 
has  taught  it  the  secret,  and  inspired  it  with  an  unbounded  confidence 
almost  amounting  to  presumption."  This  dogged  determination  was 
certain  to  reinvigorate  our  former  Allies,  so  soon  as  they  had  full 

1  Drop-more  Papers,  ill.  384,  395-7. 


284    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

experience  of  the  dealings  of  France  with  her  neighbours.  On 
January  nth,  1798,  George  III  wrote  to  Pitt,  urging  the  need  of  an 
alliance  with  Austria,  Russia  and  Prussia,  and  the  despatch  of  Lord 
Minto  to  Vienna  for  the  initial  negotiations,  England  acting  as  a 
guarantor  for  an  eventual  Austro-Prussian  settlement.  No  such  steps, 
however,  were  taken  for  the  present,  but  de  Luc,  George  Ill's  agent 
in  Germany,  worked  hard  to  safeguard  the  Princes  of  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire  and  remove  the  obstacles  to  a  union  of  the  Powers.  For  the 
present,  the  scramble  for  "indemnities  "  at  Rastatt  left  Central  Europe 
a  prey  to  French  intrigues ;  and,  by  a  vote  of  the  Congress  on  March 
9th,  1798,  France  secured  the  Rhine  boundary,  the  ecclesiastical 
domains  further  east  being  earmarked  for  the  dispossessed  German 
Princes  from  beyond  that  river1. 

These  and  other  high-handed  actions  on  the  part  of  the  French 
induced  Thugut  to  angle  warily  for  support  from  London ;  but,  on 
the  score  of  Austria's  poverty,  he  declined  to  repay  her  loan  of 
£1,600,000,  now  overdue  at  London.  Pitt  and  Grenville  insisting  on 
the  discharge  of  this  obligation,  a  diplomatic  deadlock  ensued,  des- 
tined to  produce  serious  consequences.  True,  on  April  ist  Starhemberg 
proffered  to  Grenville  proposals,  drawn  up  by  Thugut  on  March  i8th, 
probably  owing  to  the  French  diplomatic  success  of  March  9th  at 
Rastatt.  They  aimed  at  the  formation  of  a  league  between  the  four 
great  monarchies  in  order  to  oppose  France,  now  "  decidedly  bent  on 
the  subversion  of  every  part  of  Europe  and  totally  regardless  of  the 
faith  of  treaties."  Austria,  also,  asked  for  pecuniary  aid,  the  despatch 
of  a  British  fleet  into  the  Mediterranean,  and  enquired  whether,  if 
necessary, action  could  be  taken  in  theyear  1799.  Starhemberg, further, 
hopefully  suggested  that  the  one  thing  necessary  to  make  the  Tsar  act 
was  to  convince  him  that  peace  with  anarchic  France  was  impossible, 
and  that,  if  Prussia  were  unfriendly,  he  should  at  least  neutralise  her. 
At  best,  however,  a  Quadruple  Alliance  could  be  formed  with  which 
the  Scandinavian  and  Italian  States  would  probably  coalesce.  He,  also, 
opposed  the  notion  of  the  Belgic  Provinces  ever  falling  to  Prussia,  but 
in  any  case  begged  for  British  financial  support2.  Here  he  encountered 
the  fixed  resolve  of  Pitt  and  Grenville,  which  barred  further  progress. 
For  a  brief  space,  the  question  of  reparation  for  an  insult  to  the  French 
flag  at  Vienna  on  April  i3th  promised  to  lead  to  a  rupture;  but  the 

1  Rose,  Pitt  and  Napoleon:  Essays  and  Letters,  pp.  240,  243;  Dropmore  Papers, 
in.  400-7,  iv.  43-60;  Guyot,  pp.  673-684;  Le  Congres  de  Rastatt,  I.  pp.  1-256; 
H.  Hiiffer,  Der  Rastatter  Kongress,  vol.  n.  passim. 

2  Dropmore  Papers,  iv.  153-9. 


FRENCH  SEIZURE  OF  MALTA  AND  ALEXANDRIA    285 

incident  ended  in  a  tame  compromise  which  for  a  time  seemed  likely 
to  lead  even  to  an  Austro-French  entente.  The  Directory  sought  to 
entice  both  Austria  and  Russia  to  a  partition  of  the  Turkish  Empire, 
but  met  with  little  response.  Prussia,  likewise,  rejected  its  overtures 
for  an  alliance. 

In  the  early  summer  of  1798,  the  impasse  in  European  affairs 
seemed  hopeless.  Great  Britain  was  for  a  time  distracted  by  the  for- 
midable revolt  in  Ireland,  which  the  fleets  of  Brest  and  Rochefort 
promised,  but  failed,  to  foster.  Italy  and  Switzerland  lay  at  the  feet 
of  the  French ;  and  the  helplessness  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  stands 
revealed  in  the  remark  of  Bonaparte,  that,  if  that  institution  did  not 
exist,  France  would  have  to  create  it.  But  now,  as  was  so  often  to 
happen,  his  masterful  ambition  launched  France  into  an  ocean  of 
adventure,  overburdening  her  with  new  responsibilities  and  exaspera- 
ting all  the  Powers.  Instead  of  striking  at  Ireland,  where  the  blow 
would  have  been  mortal,  he  purposed  to  ruin  Great  Britain  by  the 
seizure  of  Malta  and  Egypt,  as  a  preliminary  to  the  acquisition  of  her 
Indian  Empire.  Setting  sail  from  Toulon  on  May  igth,  his  great 
armada  easily  captured  Malta  (June  i2th).  The  news  aroused  a  pro- 
found sensation  at  Rastatt.  "It  caused,  first  stupor"  (wrote  Debry, 
the  French  plenipotentiary  on  August  6th),  "then  rage.  Not  for  a 
week  has  a  single  friend  of  Austria  come  to  my  house1.'*  Bonaparte's 
capture  of  Alexandria  produced  an  equal  sensation.  It  threw  light  on 
the  French  projects  for  a  partition  of  Turkey,  and  spurred  on  that 
Power  to  a  declaration  of  war.  On  August  i5th,  the  Sultan  appealed 
to  the  Emperor  of  Morocco  and  other  Moslem  Princes  for  a  joint 
effort  against  the  French,  who  had  without "  any  declaration  of  war,  as 
practised  by  all  regular  governments,  sent  a  wretch  named  Bonaparte 
against  Egypt  with  a  view  to  an  attack  on  the  whole  Mohammedan 
world."  Though  the  Sultan  failed  to  stir  up  a  Jehad  against  France, 
he  found  an  unexpected  Ally  in  Russia.  The  seizure  of  Malta,  for 
whose  Knights  the  Tsar  Paul  had  long  cherished  a  romantic  admira- 
tion, threw  him  into  transports  of  rage  and  ended  his  hesitations  as 
to  a  war  with  France.  His  zeal  for  the  expulsion  of  the  French  from 
Malta  increased,  when  many  of  the  exiled  Knights  repaired  to  Russia 
and,  in  October,  1798,  elected  him  Grand-master  of  their  Order.  At 
once,  he  prepared  to  help  Turkey  with  a  fleet,  and  Austria  with  troops 
subsidised  by  Great  Britain.  The  news  of  Nelson's  victory  at  the  Nile 
(which  did  not  reach  Paris  until  September  I4th>  and  London  on 

1  Le  Congres  de  Rastatt ,  i.  270. 


286    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

October  2nd  and  3rd)  aroused  intense  satisfaction  in  Austria  and  Russia 
and  ecstasies  of  joy  throughout  southern  Italy,  where  a  French  in- 
vasion had  seemed  imminent.  Bonaparte's  Eastern  expedition  was,  im- 
mediately, seen  to  be  a  gigantic  blunder.  Besides  shutting  up  in  Egypt 
the  best  Generals  and  troops  of  France,  it  incited  Paul  to  hostility, 
encouraged  Austria,  and  brought  on  immediate  war  with  the  Turks,  on 
whom  France  had  always  counted  to  immobilise  half  the  armies 
of  the  Imperial  Courts.  Soon,  the  subjects  of  the  Sultan  witnessed  the 
strange  spectacle  of  a  Russian  fleet  sailing  down  the  Bosphorus  to  help 
the  Porte  in  the  Mediterranean.  What  British  diplomacy  had  failed  to 
effect,  British  seamanship  accomplished  by  one  mighty  blow.  Nelson's 
exploit  brought  to  life  all  the  latent  elements  of  opposition  to  the 
domination  of  France,  and  threw  back  that  Power  on  the  defensive. 

IV 

Nevertheless,  so  discordant  were  the  Gallophobe  States  that  neither 
the  zeal  of  the  Tsar  nor  the  persistence  of  Grenville  could  fuse  them 
into  lasting  union.  Now,  as  ever,  the  hostility  of  Austria  and  Prussia 
was  incurable,  and  Talleyrand  counted  on  it  for  paralysing  the  nascent 
league.  Of  late,  he  had  declared  that  he  did  not  fear  Coalitions,  and 
had  sent  Sieyes  to  Berlin  to  keep  Prussia  quiet.  The  Envoy  so  far 
succeeded  in  working  on  the  fears  or  covetousness  of  the  Berlin  Court, 
that  neither  the  efforts  of  Russia  nor  those  of  Great  Britain  could  effect 
a  reconciliation  with  Austria1.  Frederick  William  III  professed  a 
strong  desire  to  expel  the  French  from  the  Netherlands,  but  would  not 
move  until  Great  Britain  paid  him  a  subsidy  and  the  Habsburgs  opened 
the  game.  They,  again,  would  not  stir  without  money  from  London. 

Similar  requests  had  also  arrived  from  Petrograd.  On  July  24th, 
1798,  the  Chancellor,  Prince  Besborodko,  officially  declared  to  Whit- 
worth  the  desire  of  Paul  to  become  a  principal,  instead  of  an  auxiliary, 
in  the  war,  for  the  purpose  of  re-establishing  peace  on  safe  and  honour- 
able terms,  not  for  the  restoration  of  the  Bourbons  to  the  throne  of 
France.  Russia's  cooperation,  however,  was  conditional  on  the  receipt 
of  a  British  subsidy.  Grenville,  in  his  reply  of  August  27th,  pointed 
out  the  straightened  condition  of  the  finances  of  Great  Britain,  her 
extraordinary  exertions  in  all  spheres  of  the  war,  and  stated  that, 
having  been  disgracefully  abandoned  by  the  Habsburgs,  she  could  not 
frame  a  concert  with  them.  She  would,  however,  accept  the  Tsar's 

1  Dropmore  Papers,  iv.  272,  306-313,  350,  358,  363. 


BRITISH  COALITION  PROGRAMME  287 

mediation  for  the  re-establishment  of  such  a  concert,  especially  with 
a  view  to  restoring  the  cantonal  system  in  Switzerland ;  and  Whitworth 
was  empowered  to  sign  a  Subsidy  Convention  for  the  support  of  "a 
powerful  Russian  army  "  to  cooperate  with  Austrian  forces  in  the  west. 
If  such  action  were  impossible,  Grenville  suggested  an  Anglo-Russian 
expedition  to  free  the  Dutch  Republic,  "exasperated  as  it  is  by  the 
insulting  tyranny  of  the  French."  If,  however,  Austria  would  help 
the  Swiss,  equally  irritated  against  the  French,  we  would  assist  Russia 
in  acting  conjointly  with  Austria  for  their  liberation1. 

In  these  suggestions  appear  the  first  outlines  of  the  campaigns  of 
1799.  They  proceeded  largely  on  the  lines  sketched  at  Downing  Street 
— a  fact  which  differentiates  the  Second  from  the  First  Coalition.  The 
British  programme  matured  very  slowly,  owing  to  distrust  of  Austria 
and  to  the  impossibility  of  satisfying  the  pecuniary  demands  of  merely 
potential  Allies.  Pitt  and  Grenville  agreed  that,  despite  the  excellent 
revenue  returns,  we  could  not  possibly  spare  more  than  £2,000,000 
for  the  three  exigent  States ;  and  Pitt  sagaciously  concluded  that  the 
best  course  for  the  present  was  to  continue  "to  fight  well  our  own 
battle ;  and  Europe  must  probably  be  left  some  time  longer  to  its  fate2." 
The  formation  of  the  new  league  was,  also,  hindered  by  the  skill  of  the 
French  Plenipotentiaries  at  Rastatt  in  fomenting  German  jealousies, 
and  by  Austro-Russian  disputes  concerning  Suvoroff's  army  destined 
for  service  under  the  Habsburgs. 

While  diplomats  bargained  at  Rastatt  and  the  Tsar  showered  angry 
notes  on  Vienna,  Ferdinand  IV,  King  of  the  Two  Sicilies,  rushed  into 
the  fray.  He  had  reasons  for  prompt  action.  By  the  Defensive  Treaty 
of  May  20th,  1798,  with  Austria,  he  would,  in  case  of  attack  by  the 
French,  receive  help  from  60,000  whitecoats,  or  send  40,000  Neapoli- 
tans to  succour  the  Habsburgs  if  they  were  assailed.  On  July  i6th, 
the  Court  of  Vienna  ratified  this  compact,  together  with  two  supple- 
mentary articles  whereby  the  Emperor  promised  to  defend  Naples,  if 
attacked  in  consequence  of  opening  the  ports  of  the  Kingdom  to  the 
British  fleet.  That  case  soon  occurred,  Nelson  with  some  initial 
difficulty  procuring  at  Syracuse  the  provisions  and  water  which  his 
Instructions  from  Earl  St  Vincent  entitled  him  to  demand.  These 
resulted  finally  from  the  understanding  with  Austria,  which  involved 
the  right  of  procuring  provisions  from  Austrian  and  Neapolitan 
ports.  As  it  was  Austria  which  first  pressed  for  the  despatch  of  a 

1  P.O.  Russia,  40.    Grenville  to  Whitworth,  August  27th,  1798. 

2  Dropmore  Papers,  iv.  p.  355. 


288    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

British  fleet  to  that  sea,  within  which  there  was  no  British  station, 
she  was  bound  to  succour  the  Neapolitans  in  case  of  a  French  attack, 
consequent  on  their  supplying  the  needed  provisions  and  water ;  and 
the  aggressiveness  of  the  French  (witness  their  forcible  occupation  of 
Turin  on  July  3rd)  warranted  the  belief  that  they  would  attack  Naples 
on  the  first  plausible  pretext.  In  this  respect,  then,  the  despatch  of 
Nelson's  squadron  to  the  Mediterranean,  primarily  for  the  protection 
of  Naples,  was  almost  certain  to  lead  to  a  new  war;  and  Thugut's 
assurances  to  Eden,  especially  on  June  23rd,  pointed  to  the  proffer  of 
prompt  assistance  to  that  State,  if  it  were  assailed  in  pursuance  of 
actions  necessarily  resulting  from  Austria's  demand. 

Nevertheless,  so  dependent  was  she  on  the  Tsar  (himself  a  waving 
reed)  that,  on  October  3rd,  Grenville  warned  Hamilton  as  to  the  danger 
of  Naples  breaking  with  the  French  Republic,  unless  it  had  "the 
fullest  assurances  of  support  from  the  Court  of  Vienna."  By  some 
mischance,  this  despatch  did  not  reach  Hamilton  until  November  igth ; 
and,  two  days  earlier,  King  Ferdinand  had  rushed  into  war.  Whether  he 
counted  on  armed  help  from  Austria  is  doubtful.  On  September  28th 
General  Acton  assured  Nelson  and  Hamilton  that "  Naples  was  deter- 
mined to  declare  war,  not  wait  for  the  Emperor ;  that  they  well  knew  the 
plan  of  the  French  against  them."  His  rival,  the  Marchese  di  Gallo,  in- 
culcated caution  and  therefore  incurred  the  hot  displeasure  of  Nelson. 
Succumbing  to  the  fascination  of  Lady  Hamilton  (herself  the  favourite 
of  Queen  Maria  Carolina)  the  Admiral  urged  instant  war.  When 
admitted  to  their  councils  he  roundly  scolded  Gallo  and  strengthened 
the  party  of  action.  The  arrival  of  the  Austrian  General  Mack,  and 
his  belief  in  the  soldierly  qualities  of  the  30,000  Neapolitan  troops  who 
made  a  fine  show  at  Caserta,  clinched  the  matter.  On  November  i2th, 
Nelson  assisted  at  a  council  at  which  it  was  decided  that  he  should 
carry  4600  men  to  Leghorn,  to  menace  the  French  rear,  and,  on  the 
1 7th  Mack  advanced  to  attack  them  at  Rome, "  trusting  to  the  support 
of  the  Emperor."  The  latter  plan  must,  however,  have  been  formed 
during  the  absence  of  Nelson  off  Valetta  (October  24^1-3  ist);  for,  so 
early  as  November  icth,  news  from  Naples  reached  Thugut  to  the 
effect  that  the  kingdom  was  about  to  make  war;  and,  on  behalf 
of  the  Emperor,  he  angrily  declared  to  Eden  that  if  it  acted  thus, 
it  would  receive  no  help  from  Austria.  He  had  sent  a  similar  warning 
to  Naples,  which  arrived  late  on  the  i2th,  five  days  before  the  Nea- 
politans were  to  advance ;  but  the  King  and  Queen,  stimulated  thereto 
by  Nelson,  nevertheless  resolved  to  attack.  Evidently,  the  Admiral 


THE  BREAKDOWN  AT  NAPLES  289 

had  jumped  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Emperor  would  act,  or  must 
be  forced  to  act1. 

The  result  was  disastrous.  The  Neapolitans  broke  at  every  en- 
counter, rushed  back  in  rout  to  the  capital;  and,  on  December  23rd, 
Nelson  in  H.M.S.  Vanguard  carried  the  royal  family  and  the  Hamiltons 
for  safety  to  Palermo.  This  ignominious  collapse  exasperated  the 
Emperor ;  and  on  December  22nd  he  hotly  asserted  to  Eden  that  the 
precipitate  action  of  his  father-in-law,  King  Ferdinand,  in  attacking 
France  was  due  to  the  British  Government,  which  had  sought  to  drag 
Austria  into  war,  though  it  knew  her  to  be  unprepared.  The  charge 
against  the  Government  is  demonstrably  false ;  if  it  had  been  levelled 
at  Nelson,  it  would  have  contained  some  measure  of  truth.  In  any  case, 
the  precipitate  action  of  Ferdinand  marred  the  opening  of  the  War  of 
the  Second  Coalition  and  deprived  that  struggle  both  of  the  momentum 
and  the  general  goodwill  which  might  have  assured  the  overthrow 
of  France.  Never  was  she  weaker  and  more  hated;  never  were  her 
opponents  stronger  than  after  the  Battle  of  the  Nile ;  and  it  is  a  matter  of 
enduring  regret  that  the  rashness  of  Nelson  at  Naples  compromised 
the  political  results  of  that  glorious  triumph. 

Meanwhile,  the  whims  of  Paul,  the  narrow  suspicions  of  Francis, 
and  the  conscientious  objections  of  Frederick  William  to  any  forward 
move,  let  slip  the  opportunity.  While  France  was  arming  systematically 
in  pursuance  of  her  new  Law  of  Conscription  (September  23rd,  1798), 
the  three  Powers  were  engaged  in  futile  chaffering.  In  order  to  bring 
the  Tsar  to  a  point,  Grenville  on  November  i6th  despatched  to  Whit- 
worth  proposals  for  an  Anglo-Russian  Alliance  which  should  form  the 
basis  of  a  European  League.  Taking  warning  from  the  fate  of  the  First 
Coalition,  he  sought  to  effect  a  just  and  stable  settlement  of  Con- 
tinental problems  by  means  of  a  firm  compact  between  the  two  Great 
Powers  that  were  but  slightly  concerned  in  the  central  tangles.  Great 
Britain  and  Russia  were  to  lay  the  foundations  of  a  Quadruple  Alliance 
with  Austria  and  Prussia  for  the  master-aim  of  reducing  France  within 
her  ancient  limits,  the  Allies  contracting  not  to  lay  down  their  arms 
until  this  purpose  should  be  attained.  Since,  however,  its  attainment 
might  be  hindered  by  the  territorial  ambitions  and  mutual  jealousies 
of  the  Central  Powers,  Grenville  sought  to  exorcise  them  by  a  pre- 
liminary understanding,  the  Habsburgs  being  invited  to  look  towards 
Italy,  in  order  not  to  exasperate  Prussia.  Her  monarch  was  to  be 

1  Sir  H.  Nicolas,  Despatches  of  Nelson,  n.  144,  148,  170,  171.  See  also 
Appendix  E. 

w.  &G.[I.  19 


2QO    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

invited  to  indicate  his  desires  for  territory — a  request  not  calculated 
to  placate  Vienna.  For  the  rest,  Grenville  assumed  that  neither  of  the 
Central  Powers  would  desire  the  Belgic  lands,  and  that  the  best  plan  was, 
therefore,  to  add  them  to  the  United  Netherlands  under  the  restored 
Stadholder,  the  Prince  of  Orange.  The  freedom  of  Switzerland  and  the 
restitution  by  the  French  of  Savoy  (Nice  was  not  named)  and  of  the 
Rhenish  lands  to  their  former  owners  were,  also,  stipulated1. 

Viewed  at  large,  the  document  may  be  called  a  rough  draft  of  the 
Treaties  of  Vienna  and  Paris  of  1814-15;  while  the  almost  nervous 
bid  for  Prussia's  aid  for  the  deliverance  of  the  Netherlands  associates 
this  programme  with  the  Anglo-Dutch-Prussian  Alliance  of  1788,  At 
several  points,  the  outlines  are  shadowy,  notably  as  relating  to  the  ex- 
pansion of  Prussia  and  the  future  of  the  kingdom  of  Sardinia.  The 
latter  State  is  not  named,  doubtless  because  it  had  on  April  4th,  1797, 
framed  a  close  Alliance  with  the  French2,  and  was  now  under  their 
control.  Nevertheless,  the  future  of  Sardinia  should  have  been  as  much 
a  matter  of  concern  as  that  of  the  Dutch  Republic,  which  was  equally 
in  the  hands  of  the  enemy. 

Grenville's  Instructions  of  November  i6th  led  to  the  formation  of 
the  provisional  Anglo-Russian  Treaty  of  December  29th,  1798,  which 
stipulated  pecuniary  support  by  Great  Britain  for  a  subsidised  Russian 
army  of  45,000  men,  to  act  in  the  west  together  with  a  Prussian  force. 
At  this  time,  Grenville  cherished  high  hopes  of  inducing  Prussia  to 
take  up  arms  for  the  liberation  of  the  United  Provinces.  Cooperation 
with  her  almost  necessarily  involved  alienation  from  Austria.  Accord- 
ingly, as  the  Court  of  Vienna  maintained  its  suspicious  reserve,  he 
sharply  rebuked  Whitworth  for  allowing  himself,  at  the  instance  of  Paul 
and  in  contradiction  to  Instructions  from  home,  to  be  drawn  into  futile 
pourparlers  with  that  inveterate  schemer,  Count  Lewis  Cobenzl3.  These 
were  cut  short,  and  Grenville  despatched  his  brother  Thomas  on  a 
special  mission  to  Berlin,  for  the  purpose  of  arranging  an  Anglo- 
Prusso-Russian  invasion  of  Dutch  territory,  if  possible  with  the  help 
of  Denmark  or  Sweden.  The  family  connexion  of  Frederick  William 
with  the  House  of  Orange,  and  his  known  desire  for  the  liberation  of 
that  land,  told  in  favour  of  the  scheme;  but,  finally,  Francophil  in- 
fluences, added  to  his  innate  indecision  of  character,  prevailed.  He 
decided  to  stand  aloof,  but  considered  that  his  profession  of  benevolent 

1  Dropmore  Papers,  iv.  377-380. 

2  Sorel,  v.  154.  On  December  Qth,  1798,  Charles  Emmanuel  IV  abdicated  and 
retired  to  the  island  of  Sardinia. 

3  P.O.  Russia,  42,  Grenville  to  Whitworth,  January  25th,  1799. 


IMPERFECT  BEGINNINGS  OF  SECOND  COALITION  291 

intentions  warranted  the  payment  of  a  British  subsidy.  Haugwitz,  then 
posing  as  Anglophil,  early  in  May  started  a  scheme  for  putting  60,000 
Prussians  at  our  disposal  on  good  financial  terms ;  but  this  proposal, 
whether  sincere  or  not,  was  shelved  by  Frederick  William  near  the 
end  of  July,  when  the  adoption  of  any  other  extensive  plan  of  opera- 
tions was  almost  impracticable1.  Accordingly,  the  British  programme 
of  a  great  Coalition  with  Russia  and  Prussia  (Austria,  Naples  and  the 
Scandinavian  States  being  accessories)  fell  through.  Nothing,  there- 
fore, remained  but  hastily  to  adopt  more  limited  schemes  for  the 
remainder  of  1799 — a  ^act  which  goes  far  to  explain  the  very  unsatis- 
factory operations  of  that  year2.  To  these,  so  far  as  they  resulted  from 
British  initiative,  we  must  now  turn. 

For  reasons  already  stated,  no  compact  was  possible  with  Austria. 
But  the  provisional  Anglo-Russian  Treaty  of  December  29th,  1798, 
was  prolonged  by  a  Convention  of  six  months  later.  Compacts  of  the 
two  Powers  with  Naples  and  Turkey  added  to  the  scope,,  though  not 
to  the  strength,  of  the  Second  Coalition.  Meanwhile,  an  Austro- 
Russian  Alliance  had  led  to  the  despatch  of  Suvoroff  s  army  (finally 
about  60,000  strong)  with  a  view  to  assistance  against  the  French  in 
northern  Italy;  but  disputes  between  the  two  Courts  delayed,  first  its 
departure,  then  its  progress,  and  not  until  the  end  of  March,  1799,  did 
that  doughty  warrior  and  his  vanguard  enter  Vienna.  At  once,  disputes 
broke  out  with  the  Hofkriegsrath,  which  regarded  him  as  an  Austrian 
Marshal  entirely  under  its  control.  That  any  success  was  ever  gained 
under  this  insensate  arrangement  is  a  supreme  tribute  to  his  genius. 
Scarcely  more  promising  were  the  Anglo-Russian  plans  for  the  cam- 
paign. Not  until  the  end  of  April,  1799,  on  receipt  of  the  British 
ratification  of  the  December  Treaty,  did  the  Tsar  issue  orders  for  the 
westward  march  of  the  subsidised  Russian  army  under  Korsakoff — 
a  delay  which  hindered  the  successful  opening  of  the  campaign  on  the 
Upper  Rhine.  It  soon  transpired  that  the  effective  strength  of  this 
force  was  far  below  what  Great  Britain  was  paying  for.  Disputes  also 
arose  with  Austria  as  to  the  objective  of  this  army,  she  pointing  to  the 
Palatinate,  while  we  desired  the  liberation  of  Switzerland  as  a  pre- 
liminary to  an  Austro-Russian  invasion  of  Franche-Comte.  Finally, 
the  British  alternative  prevailed. 

1  Dropmore  Papers,  iv.  464,  479,  492,  514,  519-527;  v.  3-8,  14,  46,  68,  195-9. 
Wickham  Corresp.  n.  86. 

2  H.  Hiiffer,  Der  Krieg  des  Jahres  1799  und  die  zweite  Koalition  (2  vols.  Gotha, 
1904),  has  missed  this  important  consideration. 

19—2 


292    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

With  the  Court  of  Vienna  a  close  understanding  was  impossible, 
owing  to  the  mystery  in  which  Francis  II  and  Thugut  shrouded  all 
their  proceedings.  Eden  surmised  that  they  were  considering  attractive 
offers  from  France ;  and  his  suspicion  was  correct.  This  obscure  situa- 
tion was  cleared  up  by  the  action  of  the  Directory,  which,  in  March, 
1799,  issued  what  amounted  to  a  declaration  of  war  against  Austria. 
Seeing  that  France  then  had  only  235,000  troops  ready  for  action,  her 
aggressiveness  can  be  explained  only  by  the  conviction  of  her  Envoys 
as  to  the  weakness  of  the  new  Coalition.  The  long-drawn-out  farce  of 
the  Rastatt  Congress  now  ended  in  tragedy,  when  Szekler  Hussars 
assassinated  two  of  the  French  Plenipotentiaries.  Such  was  the 
opening,  chaotic  and  barbaric,  of  the  War  of  the  Second  Coalition. 

Thenceforth,  British  policy  was  directed  chiefly  towards  the  fol- 
lowing objects — the  healing  of  Austro-Russian  discords,  with  a  view 
to  a  joint  invasion  of  Franche-Comte,  the  expulsion  of  the  French 
from  Dutch  territory,  the  strengthening  of  our  position  in  the  Medi- 
terranean and  the  East  as  a  retort  to  Bonaparte's  oriental  efforts,  and 
the  breaking-up  of  the  Armed  Neutrality  League.  It  will  be  well  to 
treat  these  topics  in  the  order  here  indicated. 

The  triumphs  of  the  Russian  and  Austrian  armies  in  Italy,  under 
Suvoroff  and  Melas  respectively,  soon  brought  to  a  head  the  discords 
of  those  Governments.  Apart  from  military  disputes,  a  question  of 
high  policy  soon  sundered  the  two  Courts.  On  the  recapture  of  Turin 
from  the  French  (May  2Oth,  1799),  Paul,  the  self-styled  champion  of 
divine  right  and  legitimacy,  ordered  the  reinstatement  of  the  King  of 
Sardinia  at  his  capital.  This  behest  Francis  II  countermanded1 ;  and 
the  diplomatic  efforts  of  Great  Britain  and  Russia  at  Vienna  elicited 
proofs  that  he  looked  to  the  kingdom  of  Sardinia  as  one  of  his  in- 
demnities. Anxious,  now  that  northern  Italy  was  conquered,  to  be 
rid  of  Suvoroff,  the  Emperor  concurred  in  a  British  proposal  for  the 
transfer  of  that  army  to  Switzerland,  and  a  joint  invasion  of  Franche- 
Comte.  To  humour  the  Tsar,  Grenville  first  made  the  proposal  at 
Petrograd ;  when  Paul  agreed,  Francis  II  expressed  his  assent,  and  for- 
warded corresponding  instructions  to  Suvoroff.  The  veteran,  who  was 
planning  an  incursion  into  Nice,  received  the  news  with  astonishment 
and  indignation.  To  force  the  St  Gothard  in  face  of  the  French  defence, 
to  find  subsistence  in  the  Central  Cantons,  already  impoverished  by 
strife,  and  to  join  Korsakoff  near  Zurich  signified  a  succession  of 
problems  never  contemplated  by  the  civilians  who  drew  up  the  scheme. 
1  R.  Gachot,  Suvoroff  en  Italie,  p.  192;  Hiiffer,  pp.  55  et  seq. 


AUSTRIAN  SECRETIVENESS  293 

In  fact,  the  whole  story  forms  an  instructive  commentary  on  paper 
strategy  and  Coalition  campaigns. 

In  order  to  pave  the  way  for  the  liberation  of  Switzerland,  Gren- 
ville  had  despatched  Wickham  (latterly  in  close  relations  with  General 
Pichegru  and  other  French  Royalists)  to  stir  up  the  Swiss,  to  concert 
a  rising  of  the  malcontents  of  eastern  France,  and  so  far  as  possible 
to  cooperate  with  the  Russian  and  Austrian  commanders  in  Switzer- 
land. Arriving  at  Schaffhausen  late  in  June,  Wickham  found  that  the 
Austrian  Government  discountenanced  the  diversion  of  the  Arch- 
duke Charles's  army  into  Switzerland,  and  that  he  felt  unable  either 
to  attack  the  French  or  to  restore  the  Cantonal  system  which  the 
majority  of  the  inhabitants  desired.  It  soon  appeared  that  nothing 
would  induce  Thugut  to  act  promptly  in  that  quarter1 ;  and  he  alone 
had  influence  with  the  Emperor.  In  truth,  the  early  successes  in 
Germany  and  Italy,  and  the  absence  of  Bonaparte  and  his  army  in  the 
East,  had  conduced  at  Vienna  to  a  mood  of  boundless  confidence ;  and, 
since  Great  Britain  supplied  no  money  and  much  advice,  she  counted 
for  nothing. 

Yet  the  importance  of  her  influence  ought  not  to  have  been  ignored. 
It  alone  had  imparted  some  consistence  to  the  First  Coalition,  and 
was  now  needed  as  much  as  ever.  Her  squadrons  in  the  Mediterranean 
not  only  cut  off  Bonaparte,  but  prevented  a  large  Franco- Spanish  fleet 
under  Bruix  (which  entered  that  sea  in  May,  1799)  from  achieving 
more  than  the  revictualling  of  the  French  garrison  besieged  in  Genoa. 
That  single  incident  should  have  opened  the  eyes  of  Francis  II.  But 
they  were  blind,  save  to  the  near  and  the  obvious.  Concentrating  his 
efforts  on  Italy  and  the  Rhineland,  he  refused  to  push  on  with  the 
British  plan,  which,  if  properly  backed,  might  have  produced  great 
results.  The  secretiveness  of  Austrian  policy  exasperated  Grenville. 
Deeming  Eden  somewhat  slack  in  his  duties  and  too  subservient  to 
the  masterful  Minister,  he  recalled  him  in  June,  substituting  for 
him  Lord  Minto  (formerly  Sir  Gilbert  Elliot)2.  But  the  change  was 
of  little  avail.  On  July  i6th,  Grenville  wrote  that  Thugut,  regarding 
the  conquest  of  Italy  as  complete,  seemed  bent  on  thwarting  his  friends 
or  Allies,  and  did  so  as  thoroughly  as  if  he  were  paid  by  France3.  This 
was  no  exaggeration.  The  uncertainty  as  to  the  schemes  of  Francis 
and  the  intentions  of  Paul  and  Frederick  William  hampered  the 

1  Wickham  Corresp.  n.  194  et  seq. 

2  Dropmore  Papers,  iv.  515,  523 ;  v.  85.   Minto  did  not  arrive  until  August  2nd. 

3  Ibid.  V.  147.    Cf.  199,  400-6;  vi.  254. 


294    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

British  naval  and  military  plans  to  an  unparalleled  extent ;  and  the  key 
to  the  mistakes  committed  in  both  services  in  that  War  is  to  be  found 
in  the  halting  or  perverse  diplomacy  of  Petrograd,  Vienna  and  Berlin. 

The  transference  of  SuvorofFs  army  to  Switzerland,  far  from 
ending  Austro-Russian  disputes,  exacerbated  them.  Jealous  of  the 
Marshal's  fame,  the  Austrian  authorities  did  nothing  to  further,  and 
much  to  clog,  his  difficult  task1 ;  and  before  his  heroic  Russians  could 
struggle  across  the  St  Gothard  and  hew  their  way  down  the  defile 
of  the  Reuss,  Massena  had  crushed  Korsakoff  at  Zurich  (September 
25th-26th).  The  Court  of  Vienna,  having  ordered  the  Arch-duke  to 
leave  Switzerland,  only  a  small  Austrian  force  was  left  to  help  that 
Russian  army,  and  it  was  overpowered.  Suvoroff  thereupon  turned 
aside,  and,  brushing  away  the  French,  forced  a  passage  into  the  Grisons, 
arriving  at  Chur  on  October  8th  with  an  exhausted,  but  still  undaunted, 
army.  He  swore  never  again  to  work  for  Austria,  and  all  cooperation 
between  her  and  Russia  was  thenceforth  impossible.  As  for  Paul,  he 
was  beside  himself  with  rage,  forthwith  declared  his  Alliance  with 
Austria  at  an  end,  and  sought  spasmodically  to  frame  a  fantastic  union 
with  Great  Britain,  Prussia,  Turkey,  Sweden  and  Denmark,  for  setting 
limits  to  Habsburg  aggrandisement  in  Italy2. 

Thus  ended  the  British  plan  for  the  liberation  of  Switzerland  and 
the  invasion  of  Franche-Comte.  As  a  political  conception  it  possessed 
certain  merits ;  for  the  occupation  of  Switzerland  by  the  French  had 
given  them  control  over  northern  Italy,  Tyrol  and  Suabia.  To  eject  them 
thence  was  the  alpha  and  omega  of  Europe's  liberation.  But  to  attempt 
that  task,  especially  from  Italy,  without  making  sure  of  wholehearted 
support  from  the  valley  of  the  Upper  Rhine,  bordered  on  the  fantastic. 
Even  apart  from  the  tenacious  French  defence,  the  achievement 
demanded  the  most  exact  cooperation  between  the  armies  of  KorsakofF, 
Suvoroff  and  the  Archduke  Charles.  Austrian  schemings  and  jealousies 
disarranged  a  programme  which  called  for  the  most  energetic  and 
punctual  performance.  But  the  underlying  conception,  when  carried 
out  faithfully  and  intelligently  in  1814,  contributed  materially  to  the 
overthrow  of  Napoleon. 

The  liberation  of  the  Dutch  Netherlands  bulked  large  in  the  Anglo- 
Russian  schemes  for  1799  5  and,as  has  been  seen,  the  help  of  Prussia  long 
seemed  a  possibility.  Had  it  come  to  pass,  a  great  Russo-Prussian  army, 

1  Gachot,  chaps,  vi,  xvn ;  Hiiffer,  n.  chap.  n.  Minto  thought  Thugut's  aim  was 
to  spare  the  Austrian  army  (Wickham  Corresp.  n.  215). 

2  Drop-more  Papers,  vi.  19,  32;  Wickham  Corresp.  n.  329;  Huffer,  n.  chap,  n.; 
Waliszewski,  Paul  /,  chap.  xn. 


COLLAPSE  OF  THE  SECOND  COALITION         295 

with  British  and  possibly  Danish  or  Swedish  contingents,  would  prob- 
ably have  swept  the  French  out  of  that  land,  as  a  composite  Allied 
force  did  in  1814.  In  May,  1799,  the  prospects  were  highly  favourable ; 
for  the  French,  owing  to  their  defeats  by  the  Austrian  arms,  had  with- 
drawn most  of  their  troops  from  the  United  Provinces1.  Nevertheless, 
on  July  2ist,  1799,  Frederick  William  decided  that  he  would  try  to 
arrange  by  negotiation  for  a  French  evacuation  of  that  country.  It  was 
now  full  late  for  Great  Britain  and  Russia  to  prepare  adequately  for 
the  alternative  course,  a  joint  landing  on  the  Dutch  coast.  The  prepa- 
rations were,  however,  hurried  on,  the  most  ardent  advocate  of  the 
scheme  being  the  usually  cautious  Grenville.  Indeed,  his  optimism 
called  forth  a  mild  rebuke  from  Dundas  (since  held  up  to  scorn  as  the 
embodiment  of  ignorant  presumption!),  who  warned  him  against 
endorsing  the  hopeful  estimate  of  George  III,  that  the  Allies  ought  to 
occupy  the  whole  of  the  Netherlands  before  the  advent  of  winter2. 
Dundas  promised  to  do  his  best  to  send  enough  British  regiments ;  but 
the  calls  for  them  in  Ireland  (now  menaced  by  French  raids)  and  else- 
where were  so  exacting  as  to  leave  only  a  sprinkling  of  good  troops 
among  a  number  of  raw  battalions.  Admiral  Duncan's  force,  indeed, 
captured  13  Dutch  warships  at  the  Helder,  thereby  completing  his 
previous  two  years'  work  and  putting  an  end  to  all  fears  of  invasion 
from  that  quarter.  The  land  operations,  however,  miscarried.  The 
Batavian  troops  did  not  rally  to  the  proclamations  of  the  Prince  of 
Orange,  as  his  supporters  had  led  us  to  expect.  First,  the  late  arrival 
of  the  17,000  Russian  troops,  and  then  their  precipitate  action  in 
the  attack  at  Bergen,  marred  the  whole  enterprise,  and  the  Duke  of 
York,  by  the  capitulation  of  October  i8th,  withdrew  the  Allied  forces. 
This  failure,  coming  soon  after  the  miscarriage  of  Suvoroff's  enter- 
prise, exasperated  the  Tsar,  who  in  December  wrote  to  VorontzofT  at 
London,  that  he  intended  to  abandon  the  Coalition  and  recall  his 
troops  to  Russia.  He  would,  however,  during  the  winter  of  1799- 
1 800,  leave  them  in  their  present  quarters,  hoping  that  those  in  England 
(really  in  the  Channel  Islands)  might  in  the  spring  be  used  against  the 
Biscay  coast  of  France.  If  he  remained  in  the  Coalition,  it  would  be 
on  condition  of  the  dismissal  of  Thugut  and  the  renunciation  by  Austria 
of  her  system  of  unjust  and  excessive  acquisitions.  His  effort  would 
be  the  last  chance  of  saving  Europe3.  With  this  characteristic  explosion 

1  P.O.  Russia,  42.    Grenville  to  Whitworth,  May  3rd,  1799. 

2  Drop-more  Papers,  v.  198,  206-210;  Spencer  Papers,  n.  352;  Fortescue,  iv. 
Pt  II,  passim. 

3  Drop-more  Papers,  vi.  109,  286. 


296    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

the  Second  Coalition  collapsed.  It  is  a  tribute  to  the  forceful  personality 
of  Thugut  that  the  fury  of  the  Tsar,  the  representations  of  Minto,  and 
the  fixed  hostility  of  Arch-duke  Charles  alike  failed  during  six  months 
of  bewildering  change  to  shake  his  authority.  Hectoring,  yet  at  times 
insinuating,  passionate  but  adroit,  the  veteran  in  his  "infernal  cavern  " 
now  wore  himself  out  for  the  aggrandisement  of  the  Habsburgs  in 
Italy;  and,  as  Fortune  favoured  the  Habsburgs  in  1799  and  frowned 
on  their  Allies,  he  could  defy  all  the  protests  that  came  from  London 
and  Petrograd. 

But  now  there  befell  an  event  which  placed  everything  at  hazard. 
On  October  9th,  1799  (the  day  after  SuvorofFs  veterans  had  struggled 
into  Chur)  Bonaparte  landed  in  Provence.  Nelson  and  Sidney  Smith 
considered  that  his  escape  from  Egypt  was  due  to  the  strange  in- 
activity of  the  Turkish  and  Russian  squadrons,  which  ought  to  have 
helped  in  patrolling  the  Eastern  Mediterranean1.  His  arrival  in  France 
and  overthrow  of  the  Directory  brought  about  a  bewildering  change. 
France,  latterly  divided  and  dispirited,  rallied  to  his  call  for  unity;  and 
Habsburg  haughtiness  so  far  abated  as  to  consent  to  a  settlement  of 
the  wearisome  loan  dispute  with  Great  Britain,  thus  opening  a  prospect 
of  an  Anglo- Austrian  Alliance2.  The  old  suspicions,  however,  hindered 
joint  action  far  into  the  year  1800,  probably  because  Francis  II  and 
Thugut  were  wavering  between  alluring  arrangements  held  out  by 
Bonaparte  and  a  treaty  with  Great  Britain, offered  by  the  long-suffering 
Grenville.  In  the  month  of  May,  Thugut  begged  for  three  days  to 
consider  some  of  its  provisions ;  but  the  three  days  lengthened  out  to 
six  weeks.  This  exasperating  delay  hindered,  inter  alia,  the  despatch 
to  the  Genoese  coast  of  Sir  Ralph  Abercrombie's  force  (finally  sent  to 
Egypt),  which  otherwise  might  have  doubled  the  effectiveness  of  the 
help  tendered  by  the  fleet  of  Lord  Keith  to  the  Austrians  engaged  in 
besieging  Massena  in  Genoa3.  As  it  was,  that  General's  defence  was 
so  prolonged  as  materially  to  assist  Bonaparte  in  the  re-conquest  of 
Italy.  The  lightning  stroke  of  Marengo  (June  i4th)  blasted  the  wide- 
spreading  designs  of  Vienna,  and  reduced  that  Court  to  the  position 
of  a  suppliant. 

Shortly  before  the  arrival  at  Vienna  of  news  of  that  disaster,  Minto 
signed  with  Thugut  a  Subsidy  Convention  for  £2,000,000  (June  2Oth, 

1  Nicolas,  iv.  44,  76,  89,  131,  140,  145,  171. 

2  P.O.  Austria.   Minto  to  Grenville,  December  loth,  1799. 

3  Drop-more  Papers,  vi.  163-7,  J74>  J86,  243,  250,  256,  262,  300.  Plans  of  Anglo- 
Russian  operations  on  the  Biscay  coast  also  came  to  naught.  See  ibid.  v.  407-9,  434; 
vi.  53,  60,  85,  89,  146,  151. 


MALTA  297 

1800).  As  usual,  that  compact  came  too  late  to  retrieve  the  situation, 
and  served  merely  to  pay  part  of  the  debts  heaped  up  by  Habsburg 
ambition.  Wickham  had  signed  similar  compacts  with  Bavaria,  Wiir- 
temberg  and  Mainz,  in  the  hope  of  rilling  up  the  void  caused  by  the 
departure  of  the  Russians.  But  these  scrambling  efforts  merely  dissi- 
pated British  treasure,  and  scarcely  even  delayed  the  collapse  of  this 
ill-knit  confederacy.  In  September,  1800,  Francis  on  the  advice  of  the 
Minister  Count  Lehrbach,  accepted  an  armistice  with  the  French; 
whereupon  Thugut  indignantly  resigned,  and  a  time  of  confusion  en- 
sued, ending  with  the  Treaty  of  Luneville  (February  Qth,  i8oi),a  replica 
of  the  compact  of  Campo  Formio.  The  dependence  of  Naples  on  the 
Habsburgs  was  illustrated  by  her  surrender  to  the  French  in  the  Treaty 
of  Florence  (March  28th,  1801),  whereby  she  ceded  to  them  her  part 
of  Elba,  excluded  British  vessels,  and  admitted  French  troops  to  her 
south-eastern  ports.  The  chief  Land  Power  now  controlled  all  Italy, 
and  seemed  once  more  about  to  dominate  the  Mediterranean. 

While  the  grandiose  schemes  of  Austria  on  the  shores  of  the  Medi- 
terranean made  shipwreck,  those  of  Great  Britain  gained  in  strength. 
In  1800  the  siege  of  the  French  garrison  in  Valetta  went  steadily  for- 
ward. The  native  Maltese  made  no  impression  whatever  on  its  ramparts ; 
but  the  blockade  by  sea  became  increasingly  close,  until  on  September 
4th,  1800,  the  gallant  Vaubois,  hard  pressed  by  famine,  surrendered 
to  the  British  commander,  General  Pigot.  The  Russians  and  Neapo- 
litans did  next  to  nothing  in  assuring  this  surrender.  Hitherto,  the 
British  Government  had  entertained  no  thought  of  retaining  the  island. 
The  restoration  of  the  Knights  of  St  John  was  more  than  once  stated 
by  Grenville  to  be  the  aim  of  his  policy1.  Indeed,  the  touchiness  of 
the  Tsar  on  that  subject  and  his  insistence  that  Russian  troops  must 
form  part  of  the  future  garrison  of  Valetta  were  alike  notorious ;  and 
both  British  Ministers  and  Nelson  were  puzzled  that  he  had  not  sent 
his  Mediterranean  fleet,  with  troops  on  board,  to  assist  in  the  re- 
capture of  the  island.  Nevertheless,  in  the  hope  of  humouring  Paul, 
Grenville  maintained  that  the  island  should  either  revert  to  the  Knights 
or  be  assigned  to  him.  On  the  other  hand,  Sir  Augustus  Paget,  who 
had  succeeded  Hamilton  at  Naples,  insisted  on  due  satisfaction  being 
accorded  to  that  Court,  which  possessed  ancient  rights  of  suzerainty 
over  the  island ;  and  he  protested  against  Pigot's  conduct  in  not  hoisting 
the  colours  of  Naples  and  the  Knights  by  the  side  of  the  Union  Jack. 

1  E.g.  Grenville  to  Whitworth,  October  5th;  November  isth,  1798 ;  Grenville  to 
Hamilton,  October  3rd,  1798.  (P.O.  Russia,  40,  41.) 


298    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

The  Home  Government,  finally,  justified  Pigot's  conduct.  These 
incidents  revealed  the  extraordinary  difficulty  of  finding  any  durable 
settlement  of  the  Maltese  problem;  but  there  is  no  sign,  before  mid- 
October,  1800,  that  the  British  Government  desired  the  retention  of 
the  island.  Dundas,  Wickham,  Windham  and  other  correspondents 
had  long  sought  to  bend  Grenville  to  this  decision,  but  without  success1. 
It  is  also  noteworthy  that  the  Maltese  strongly  opposed  the  rule  either 
of  Russia,  Naples  or  of  the  Knights,  and  more  than  once  solicited 
British  sovereignty  over  the  island.  By  October  iyth,  1800,  Grenville 
had  decided  on  the  retention  of  Malta,  on  the  ground  of  the  com- 
mencement of  hostilities  against  us  by  Russia2. 

The  expulsion  of  the  French  from  Malta  facilitated  the  despatch 
of  a  British  expeditionary  force  against  their  army  still  holding  Egypt. 
This  measure  had  long  been  urged  by  Dundas,  ever  preoccupied  con- 
cerning the  security  of  India ;  and  it  is  worth  noting  that  on  September 
7th,  1798,  when  news  reached  the  East  India  House  in  Leadenhall 
Street  of  the  landing  of  the  French  in  Egypt,  the  Directors  begged 
Pitt  to  regard  India  as  the  French  objective,  so  that  the  crisis  concerned 
the  nation,  and  not  merely  the  Company.  Nevertheless,  it  was  ready 
to  advance  the  sum  of  £500,000  for  the  defence  of  India,  trusting, 
however,  to  be  reimbursed  by  Government3.  The  news  of  the  battle 
of  the  Nile  allayed  these  fears,  and,  at  the  close  of  1798,  the  resourceful 
Dundas  advised  the  despatch  of  a  force  from  India  to  aid  in  the  ex- 
pulsion of  the  French  from  Egypt4.  Nothing,  however,  was  done  for 
the  present.  Sidney  Smith's  brilliant  success  in  beating  off  the  French 
attack  on  Acre,  and  his  generally  successful  blockade  of  their  force  left 
in  Egypt,  induced  him  to  conclude  with  Kleber,  Bonaparte's  successor, 
the  Convention  of  El  Arisen  (January  24th,  1800),  for  the  peaceable 
evacuation  of  Egypt,  the  condition  being  exacted  that  they  should  not 
serve  again  during  the  War.  The  British  Government  having  previously 
instructed  Admiral  Keith  to  insist  on  unconditional  surrender,  he  dis- 
avowed the  action  of  his  subordinate;  and,  though  the  Government 
finally  decided  to  honour  the  Convention,  the  French,  after  defeating 
a  Turkish  army  at  Heliopolis,  resolved  on  holding  Egypt.  Bonaparte, 
as  First  Consul,  made  repeated,  but  fruitless,  efforts  to  succour  the 
French  troops,  his  persistence  serving  to  convince  Dundas  of  the  im- 

1  Dropmore  Papers,  vi.  75,  187,  199,  207,  385,  400,  421,  430,  449,  452. 

2  See  other  evidence  in  Hardman,  History  of  Malta  (1798-1815),  ed.  by  J.  H. 
Rose,  Introd.  and  chaps,  xi,  xn;  Paget  Papers,  I.  274. 

3  Pitt  MSS.  (in  Pub.  Record  Office)  353. 

4  Dropmore  Papers,  V.  413. 


EGYPT  AND  THE  NORTH  299 

portance  of  expelling  them  from  that  land.  The  other  Ministers  saw 
grave  difficulties  in  the  way;  and  undoubtedly,  the  imminence  of 
hostilities  in  the  Baltic,  and  the  presence  of  French  and  Spanish 
squadrons  in  the  Mediterranean,  rendered  an  expedition  to  Egypt 
highly  perilous.  The  British  Government  has  been  sharply  censured 
for  plunging  blindly  into  the  Egyptian  enterprise1.  The  Addington  Ad- 
ministration actually  sent  a  message  to  recall  the  expeditionary  force2. 
Fortunately,  the  message  arrived  too  late.  Thanks  to  the  skill  and 
devotion  of  Admiral  Keith  and  General  Sir  Ralph  Abercrombie,  the 
landing  was  successfully  accomplished.  After  the  death  of  the  latter, 
the  enterprise  was  successfully  carried  through  by  General  Hutchinson, 
who  received  the  surrender  of  the  French  force  at  Cairo  on  June 
iyth,  1 80 1,  their  last  garrison,  that  at  Alexandria,  surrendering  on 
August  3Oth.  In  both  cases,  conveyance  to  France  on  British  and 
Turkish  vessels  was  stipulated,  no  restriction  on  the  use  of  those  troops 
in  the  War  being  imposed3.  Considering  the  uncertainty  as  to  the 
advent  of  peace,  the  removal  of  25,000  veterans  from  Egypt,  where 
they  were  almost  harmless,  to  France,  where  they  might  take  part  in 
one  of  Bonaparte's  invasion  schemes,  must  be  pronounced  a  singularly 
lame  ending  to  a  brilliant  exploit. 

Meanwhile,  Great  Britain  had  confronted  a  formidable  confederacy 
in  the  North.  Its  soul  was  the  Tsar  Paul.  His  unaccountable  whims, 
unbridled  wilfulness  and  frequent  convulsions  of  rage  had  long  been 
the  despair  of  his  advisers,  who  from  the  first  noted  the  dominion  of 
mere  trifles  and  baubles  over  him.  The  Order  of  the  Knights  of  St  John 
shared  with  a  new  mistress  and  an  intriguing  valet  the  chief  place  in 
his  fancies. "  The  rock  of  Malta  "  (wrote  Whitworth) "  is  that  on  which 
all  the  sufferers  split4."  As  his  wrath  at  Bonaparte's  seizure  of  Malta 
largely  accounts  for  Russia's  participation  in  the  Second  Coalition,  so, 
too, his  childish  joy  at  receiving  the  island  as  a  present  from  Bonaparte 
when  it  was  certain  to  surrender  to  the  British  goes  far  to  explain  Paul's 
swing  round  from  friendship  to  hostility  in  the  summer  of  1800.  Bona- 
parte further  incited  him  by  tales  of  English  maritime  tyranny  and  hopes 
of  the  conquest  of  India.  The  Swedes  and  the  Danes,  noting  his  change 
of  front,  plied  him  with  complaints  of  the  rigours  of  British  maritime 
law;  and,  when  his  hope  of  controlling  the  Mediterranean  from  Corfu 

1  J.  W.  Fortescue,  iv.  Pt  II,  chaps,  xxvni,  xxix. 

2  Parl.  Debate  of  December  8th,  1802. 

3  H.  Bunbury,  The  Great  War  with  France,  pp.  139-168 ;  Diary  of  Sir  J.  Moore, 
n.  chaps,  xvm,  xix;  R.  T.  Wilson,  British  Expedition  to  Egypt,  pp.  157  et  seq. 

4  P.O.  Russia,  41 ;  Waliszewski,  Paul  I,  chap,  xn ;  Dropmore  Papers,  vi.  279-287. 


300    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

and  Malta  vanished,  he  resolved  to  be  at  least  the  guardian  of  the 
Baltic  and  liberator  of  the  seas.  This  new  mood  chimed  in  perfectly 
with  the  fixed  policy  of  Bonaparte ;  and  the  two  potentates  began  to 
plan  a  Northern  League  which  should  complete  the  isolation  and  ruin 
of  the  islanders. 

Circumstances  favoured  the  renewal  of  the  first  Armed  Neutrality 
League  of  1780.  The  Danes,  the  chief  carriers  of  the  North,  now  again 
had  cause  of  complaint  against  us,  especially  concerning  the  capture 
of  their  frigate  Freya  and  her  convoy  in  July,  1800.  The  British 
Government  instructed  Whitworth  (now  Lord  Whitworth)  to  proceed 
to  Copenhagen,  with  a  view  to  a  friendly  settlement  of  this  affair.  The 
desire  of  Grenville  for  such  a  settlement  appears  in  his  note  of  July 
3Oth,  1800,  to  the  Danish  Government;  and  Earl  Spencer  instructed 
our  cruisers  to  refrain  from  looking  for  neutral  convoys,  so  that  we 
might  tide  over  that  critical  period  without  further  disputes1.  In  order, 
however,  to  back  up  Whitworth's  negotiations,  the  Admiralty  des- 
patched a  squadron  to  the  Sound.  Thereupon,  on  August  27th,  Paul 
invited  Sweden,  Prussia  and  Denmark  to  reestablish  the  Armed 
Neutrality  of  1780 ;  and,  two  days  later,  he  proclaimed  an  embargo  on 
British  ships  in  his  ports,  placing  the  crews  under  restraint.  This 
hostile  action  led  to  no  countermeasure  by  Great  Britain,  probably 
from  a  hope  that  a  change  of  the  moon  would  alter  his  mood. 
The  news  of  a  friendly  settlement  between  England  and  Denmark 
mollified  him  for  a  time ;  but,  early  in  October,  the  tidings  of  the 
surrender  of  Valetta  to  the  British  threw  him  into  a  paroxysm  of  rage ; 
he  reimposed  the  embargo,  rigorously  imprisoned  the  crews  and 
expelled  the  British  Embassy.  Again,  Grenville  did  not  retaliate,  and 
he  counselled  a  conciliatory  demeanour  towards  the  other  Baltic 
States,  which  had  manifested  no  desire  to  join  the  new  League.  The 
only  threatening  sign  was  the  occupation  of  Cuxhaven  (a  possession 
of  Hamburg  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  Elbe)  by  Prussian  troops. 
Against  this  act  Lord  Carysfort,  British  Ambassador  at  Berlin,  was 
ordered  to  make  a  firm  protest. 

On  December  i6th  Russia  concluded  Conventions  with  Denmark 
and  Sweden,  defining  the  claims  of  the  Armed  Neutrals.  They  were 
in  substance  the  following:  (i)  All  vessels  may  sail  on  the  coasts  of 
belligerents.  (2)  Goods  of  belligerents,  except  contraband,  are  free 

1  F.  Piggott  and  G.  W.  T.  Omond,  Documentary  History  of  the  Armed  Neutralities, 
*•  379-384,  398-439;  J-  B.  Scott,  Armed  Neutralities  of  1780-1800,  pp.  478-480; 
Dropmore  Papers,  vi.  287. 


THE  ' ARMED  NEUTRALITY*  OF  1800  301 

on  board  neutral  shipping.  (3)  No  port  is  reckoned  as  blockaded, 
unless  the  blockade  be  effective.  (4)  Neutral  ships  may  be  stopped  only 
on  adequate  cause ;  and  procedure  as  to  prizes  shall  be  judicial  and 
uniform.  (5)  The  declaration  of  a  naval  officer  escorting  a  convoy,  that 
it  carries  no  contraband,  shall  guard  it  against  search.  In  addition  to 
these  general  principles,  severe  penalties  are  imposed  on  officers 
allowing  contraband  on  board  their  ships,  and  other  neutrals  are  in- 
vited to  join  the  League1.  This  programme,  but  for  the  addition  of 
the  fifth  item,  follows  in  general  terms  that  of  the  First  Armed  Neu- 
trality. But  Catharine  then  assured  Sir  James  Harris  of  her  friendship 
for  Great  Britain  and  twice  termed  her  league  la  Nullite  Armee.  The 
present  procedure  of  Paul  was  avowedly  hostile.  Further,  in  view  of  the 
readiness  with  which,  in  1793,  Russia  and  Prussia  had  accepted  the 
British  policy  of  excluding  all  neutral  commerce  from  France,  those  two 
Powers  could  not  consistently  complain  of  the  maintenance  of  milder 
measures  at  the  end  of  the  same  War.  The  fact  that  in  1793  they  were 
Allies,  and  in  1800  were  neutrals,  could  not  justify  their  change  of 
front  if  the  question  at  issue  were  solely  one  of  principle.  It  proved 
the  question  to  be  one,  not  of  principle,  but  of  expediency. 

Here,  indeed,  was  the  weak  part  of  the  schemes  of  1780  and  1800. 
Excellent  in  theory,  in  practice  they  were  always  infringed  by  States 
that  held,  or  hoped  to  hold,  command  of  the  neighbouring  seas.  From 
the  time  of  Philip  II  of  Spain  to  that  of  Catharine,  such  had  been  the 
case.  Besides,  experience  proved  that  the  carriage  of  goods  by  neutrals 
to  belligerents  brought  profits  so  enormous  as  to  tempt  to  the  breach 
of  well  recognised  rules,  and  that,  in  the  last  resort,  these  could  be 
upheld  only  by  the  maintenance  of  the  right  of  search.  In  practice, 
therefore,  the  whole  problem  centred  essentially  in  two  questions: 
(i)  Is  due  consideration  shown  to  neutrals  in  the  method  of 
search?  (2)  Is  the  tribunal  which  adjudicates  on  doubtful  cases  a 
fair  one? 

British  Ministers  were  resolved  to  uphold  our  claims,  the  stern 
and  unbending  nature  of  Grenville  asserting  itself  the  more  markedly 
as  the  national  danger  increased.  The  sudden  rally  of  half  Europe  to 
the  side  of  France  could  not  daunt  him.  He  knew  the  fallaciousness  of 
a  mushroom  Coalition  well  enough  to  expect  that  she  would  fare  no 
better,  and  England  would  fight  far  better,  for  this  transference  of 
numbers.  Nelson  had  always  deemed  the  Allies  a  burden.  The  British 
navy  and  army  were  now  highly  efficient;  and,  while  our  seamen  kept 
1  Piggott  and  Omond,  i.  385  et  seq.;  Camb.  Mod.  Hist.,  ix.  pp.  45-9. 


302    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

watch  over  Brest,  Cadiz  and  Toulon,  and  were  reducing  the  hostile 
Colonies,  it  would  have  been  alike  weak  and  foolish  to  allow  neutrals 
to  convey  unhindered  the  timber,  hemp  and  tar  of  the  Baltic  lands 
to  our  enemies.  "If  we  give  way  to  them"  (so  wrote  Grenville  on 
December  2nd),  "we  may  as  well  disarm  our  navy  at  once  and  deter- 
mine to  cede  without  further  contest  all  that  we  have  taken  as  a 
counterbalance  to  the  continental  acquisitions  of  France1."  The  argu- 
ment was  sound.  Moreover,  we  had  to  do  with  a  semi-lunatic  whose 
sudden  access  of  Anglophobia  was  deplored  by  most  of  his  subjects. 
A  sharp  blow  would  probably  bring  his  '  system,'  if  not  himself,  to  the 
ground.  The  preparations,  therefore,  went  on  apace  for  a  great  ex- 
pedition to  the  Baltic;  and  on  January  i4th,  1801,  an  order  was  issued 
for  laying  an  embargo  on  all  Russian,  Danish  and  Swedish  vessels  in 
British  ports. 

But  at  this  moment,  when  Pitt  and  his  colleagues  were  defying  half 
the  world  in  arms,  they  were  overtaken  by  a  crisis  which  revealed  the 
frail  hold  on  life  even  of  the  strongest  Cabinet.  That  Administration 
had  weathered  eighteen  years  of  storm.  In  its  infancy  it  had  triumphed 
over  a  parliamentary  majority.  The  nation  beheld  with  wonder  and 
delight  a  mere  youth  steadily  restoring  the  finances  and  prestige  of 
an  apparently  bankrupt  and  discredited  State.  His  Ministry,  fre- 
quently changing  in  personnel,  yet  ever  informed  by  his  master  spirit, 
confronted  with  success  both  domestic  crises  and  the  convulsions  of 
the  French  Revolution.  When  dragged  reluctantly  into  war,  he  and 
his  cousin  framed  two  Coalitions  to  limit  the  overgrown  power  of 
France.  They  saw  those  Coalitions  fall  asunder,  yet  they  themselves 
stood  firm;  and  their  Government  aroused  the  admiration  of  friends, 
the  malicious  despair  of  enemies,  and  the  wonder  of  all. 

Nevertheless,  as  is  well  known,  that  Administration  fell — a  victim 
to  one  of  its  own  measures  and  to  the  excessive  conscientiousness  of 
the  King.  Early  in  February,  1801,  Pitt  and  most  of  his  colleagues 
tendered  their  resignations,  assuring  the  King  of  their  desire  to  facilitate, 
so  far  as  possible,  the  task  of  their  successors.  Thereupon  George  in- 
vited a  dull,  safe  man,  the  Speaker,  Dr  Addington,  to  form  a  Cabinet 
which,  when  completed  in  March,  comprised  Lord  Hawkesbury  at 
the  Foreign  Office,  Earl  of  St  Vincent  at  the  Admiralty,  Lord  Hobart 
at  the  War  Office.  The  agitation  excited  by  these  events  produced  a 
return  of  the  King's  besetting  ailment,  lunacy,  which  induced  all 
patriots  to  seek  by  all  possible  means  to  end  the  internal  crisis,  in  order 

1  Dropmore  Papers,  vi.  400. 


NELSON  IN  THE  BALTIC:  DEATH  OF  PAUL  I    303 

unitedly  to  confront  the  foreign  crisis1.  It  is  significant  that  the  secret 
orders  issued  to  Vice-Admiral  Sir  Hyde  Parker,  in  command  of  the 
Baltic  fleet,  were  signed  on  March  I5th,  1801,  in  pursuance  of  In- 
structions issued  the  previous  day  by  Henry  Dundas.  Thus,  the  policy 
which  led  to  that  brief  campaign  was  that  of  the  Pitt  Cabinet,  though 
its  successors  reaped  the  credit  of  the  success  achieved  both  there 
and  in  Egypt. 

Parker,  with  Nelson  as  nominally  the  second  in  command,  was 
ordered  to  proceed  to  the  Baltic,  guiding  his  proceedings,  while  off  the 
Danish  coast,  by  the  negotiations  then  pending  with  that  Power. 
Whether  peace  or  war  resulted,  he  was  as  soon  as  possible  to  attack 
Reval  and  then  Cronstadt.  If  Sweden  proved  to  be  hostile,  he  must 
attack  her,  or,  in  the  contrary  case,  protect  her  from  the  resentment  of 
Paul.  Prussia  was  not  named  in  these  Instructions,  which  further 
evinced  a  desire  to  avoid  a  rupture  with  Denmark  and  Sweden.  Not 
until  late  in  March  did  Prussia  declare  her  intention  of  occupying 
Hanover  and  closing  the  mouths  of  the  Elbe,  Weser  and  Ems  to 
British  commerce.  As  the  Russian  and  Swedish  fleets  were  still  ice- 
bound, the  brunt  of  responsibility  fell  upon  Denmark.  With  her,  efforts 
at  conciliation  were  made  by  Parker,  but  without  effect.  Nelson's 
conduct  at  this  crisis  was  marked  by  political  insight  no  less  than  naval 
daring.  Knowing  that  Russia  was  the  real  enemy  and  the  Danes  little 
more  than  her  catspaw,  he  was  far  more  eager  to  strike  at  her  than  at 
them,  and  he  used  the  first  moments  of  decided  triumph  at  Copen- 
hagen for  pacific  overtures,  couched  in  the  friendliest  words.  They 
produced  a  speedy  effect,  all  the  more  so  because  the  Danish  Govern- 
ment had  just  received  news  of  the  assassination  of  the  Tsar  Paul. 

In  the  light  of  modern  evidence,  it  would  be  superfluous  to  refute 
the  stupid  slander,  inserted  in  the  Moniteur,  which  ascribed  that 
tragedy  to  England.  Whitworth,  who  had  long  left  Russia,  was, 
of  course,  guiltless.  The  chief  conspirators  were  Pahlen  and  Platon 
Zuboff,  Panin  and  others  having  suggested  the  plot,  of  which  the 
Grand -duke  Alexander  had  but  a  limited  knowledge.  But  nearly 
everyone  welcomed  the  event.  The  mot  of  the  occasion  was  uttered  by 
Talleyrand :  "Assassination  is  the  usualmethodof  dismissal  in  Russia." 

1  Evidently,  this  motive  prompted  the  assurance  of  Pitt  to  the  king,  during  his 
recovery,  that  he  would  not  bring  forward  again  in  his  reign  the  question  of  Catholic 
Emancipation.  See  Dropmore  Papers,  VI.  443,  445-7,  458,  474 ;  G.  Rose,  Diaries,  I 
305-8;  Castlereagh  Corresp.  iv.  10-12,  32,  39-48;  Cornwallis  Corresp.  m.  350;  Sir 
G.  Cornewall  Lewis,  Administrations  of  Great  Britain,  pp.  151-3  ;  J.  H.  Rose,  Pitt, 
II.  chap.  xx. 


3o4    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

Nelson  proceeded  to  Reval,  and  had  a  friendly  reception,  the  new  Tsar, 
Alexander,  expressing  a  desire  for  peace  with  Great  Britain1.  By  the 
subsequent  compromise  of  June  iyth,  1801  (accepted  by  the  other 
Baltic  States)  Great  Britain  and  Russia  agreed  that  in  wartime  the 
neutral  flag  should  exempt  from  capture  all  cargoes  except  contraband 
of  war  and  enemy  property;  and  that  blockade,  to  be  legal,  must  be 
effective;  contraband  was  defined,  the  right  of  search  limited,  and  the 
rules  of  prize-courts  were  declared  subject  to  the  principles  of  equity2. 
Finality  in  such  a  matter  was  not  to  be  expected,  and  the  usual  dis- 
putes soon  supervened;  but,  for  the  time,  this  Convention  went  far 
towards  reconciling  Continental  peoples  to  the  British  maritime  code 
and  put  an  end  to  Bonaparte's  plans  of  rousing  all  nations  against 
"the  tyrant  of  the  seas." 

Indeed,  he  had  no  chance  now  of  overcoming  Great  Britain,  who, 
when  rid  of  embarrassing  Allies,  displayed  her  full  striking  power  in 
the  two  brilliantly  successful  expeditions  of  the  year  1801 .  Apart  from 
these  major  operations,  her  arms  had  prospered.  Saumarez  retrieved 
his  failure  at  Algeciras  by  a  signal  triumph  over  a  Franco- Spanish 
squadron  in  the  Gut  of  Gibraltar  (July  I2th-i3th,  1801);  and  the 
capture  of  several  West  India  Isles  crowned  the  naval  triumphs  of  the 
year.  Other  signs  were  propitious.  The  national  finances  had  acquired 
stability  since  1798,  the  temper  of  the  nation  was  firm,  and  Ireland 
under  the  Union  was  becoming  less  unsettled.  The  supremacy  of 
France  on  land  being  as  incontestable  as  that  of  Great  Britain  at  sea, 
peace  seemed  to  be  the  natural  outcome  of  the  equipoise  reached  by 
eight  years  of  warfare. 

But,  while  some  Britons  pointed  out  the  hopelessness  of  reducing 
the  power  of  Bonaparte,  others,  noting  his  high-handed  interference 
with  the  Dutch  Republic  whose  independence  he  was  pledged  to 
respect,  deprecated  a  surrender  that  must  be  the  prelude  to  endless 
humiliations.  Such  were  the  objections  of  Grenville  to  any  accommo- 
dation with  Bonaparte.  His  implacable  spirit  (the  epithet  is  Corn- 
wallis's)  had  been  shown  in  the  reply  to  Bonaparte's  pacific  overture 
of  Christmas,  1799 — to  tne  effect  that  peace  would  best  be  assured  by 
the  restoration  of  the  French  royal  House.  That  reply  was  evidently 
designed  primarily  to  satisfy  the  two  Imperial  Courts  and  the  French 
Royalists,  with  whom  we  were  then  concerting  extensive  plans ;  but 

1  Czartoryski,  Memoirs,  i.  chap.  xi. ;  Waliszewski,  Paul  I,  chaps,  xv,  xvi ;  General 
Lowenstern,  Memoirs,  I.  p.  75;  Nicolas,  iv.  370-9. 

2  Scott,  pp.  595-606.  For  Grenville's  criticisms  see  Dropmore  Papers,  VH.  3°-3- 


PRELIMINARY  PEACE  NEGOTIATIONS  305 

it,  undoubtedly,  tended  to  rally  all  Frenchmen  around  the  First  Consul. 
Pitt,  at  that  time,  probably  shared  Grenville's  animosity;  for  passion 
pervaded  his  speech  of  February  3rd,  1800,  in  which  he  recounted  the 
aggressions  and  perfidies  of  Bonaparte.  The  great  work  of  reconstruc- 
tion accomplished  by  the  First  Consul  had  now  altered  the  whole 
situation;  and  Pitt  did  not  oppose  the  proposals  for  peace,  which  took 
form  in  September,  1801.  His  conduct  was  not  consistent;  for  the 
Netherlands,  which,  alike  in  1793,  1796  and  1797,  he  had  declared  to 
be  essential  to  Britain's  security,  were  now  virtually  at  the  disposal  of 
France.  But  his  change  of  front  was  probably  due  to  war- weariness 
or  hopelessness.  He  was  in  honour  bound  to  support  the  Addington 
Ministry ;  yet  he  knew  it  to  be  unequal  to  the  struggle  with  Bonaparte. 
Better,  then,  to  end  the  War  while  we  could  do  so  without  discredit. 
Such  seem  to  have  been  his  views.  They  clashed  with  those  of  Gren- 
ville ;  and  the  two  kinsmen  were  destined  never  again  to  act  together. 
The  Addington  Ministry  lent  a  friendly  ear  to  pacific  overtures 
from  Paris.  They  were  begun,  in  March,  1801 ,  by  Otto,  deputed  to  this 
country  for  the  exchange  of  prisoners ;  and  they  continued  in  London 
intermittently  until  the  early  autumn .  Then ,  negotiations  were  resumed 
in  earnest.  On  September  i7th,  Bonaparte  issued  Instructions  to  hurry 
them  on,  because  he  conjectured  that  Menou  and  the  French  garrison 
could  not  hold  out  at  Alexandria  beyond  September  23rd  (in  point  of 
fact,  they  had  surrendered  on  August  3Oth),  and,  therefore,  he  desired 
to  finish  with  England  before  the  arrival  of  those  tidings.  The  Addington 
Cabinet,  weak  in  procedure,  unlucky  in  regard  to  news,  and  eager  for 
the  French  evacuation  of  Egypt,  was  conceding  point  after  point,  in 
order  to  secure  this  illusory  advantage.  It  held  out  for  the  retention 
of  that  mainly  British  island,  Tobago ;  but  Bonaparte  opposed  a  stiff 
refusal  to  this  and  other  contentions,  and  ordered  Otto  to  present  the 
alternative  of  signature  before  October  2nd  or  war1.  Hawkesbury 
signed,  on  October  ist,  the  very  day  before  the  arrival  of  news  of  the 
French  surrender  at  Alexandria  and  the  forthcoming  evacuation  of 
Egypt.  In  no  important  British  Treaty  of  modern  times  have  haste 
and  secrecy  played  so  prominent  a  part;  and  there  is  little  definite 
evidence  as  to  the  motives  which  led  to  so  singular  a  compact.  It  may 
be  thus  summarised.  All  the  British  conquests  overseas  were  restored 
to  France,  Spain  and  the  United  Provinces,  except  Trinidad  (Spanish) 
and  the  Dutch  settlements  in  Ceylon.  The  restitution  of  the  Cape  to 
the  Dutch  was  conditional  on  its  being  opened  to  British  and  French 

1  Nap.  Corresp.  vn.  255. 
W.&G.I.  20 


306    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

commerce.  Malta  was  restored  to  the  Knights  of  St  John,  subject  to 
various  conditions.  The  French  agreed  to  evacuate  the  kingdom  of 
Naples  and  the  Roman  States,  also  Egypt,  which  reverted  to  Turkey, 
the  British  retiring  from  Elba.  The  integrity  of  the  Turkish  and  Por- 
tuguese dominions  was  reaffirmed.  The  Signatories  further  recognised 
the  independence  of  the  Republic  of  the  Seven  Islands  (the  "Ionian 
Islands"),  and  reasserted  the  former  rules  as  to  the  Newfoundland 
fisheries,  leaving  room,  however,  for  new  arrangements  by  mutual 
agreement. 

The  complacency  of  Hawkesbury  appears  in  the  fact  that  he  at 
once  sent  news  of  this  compact  to  Grenville,  who  received  it  with  the 
utmost  concern  and  indignation.  "At  no  period  of  the  greatest  diffi- 
culty" (so  he  wrote  to  Dundas),  "did  I  ever  entertain  an  idea  of 
agreeing  to  concessions  that  can  be  named  with  these."  And  he  declared 
that  he  could  not  remain  silent  respecting  sacrifices  which  would  bring 
only  a  short  interval  of  repose.  Thomas  Grenville  thought  the  main- 
tenance of  a  strong  navy  to  be  far  more  important  than  the  details  of 
the  compact.  Pitt,  also,  regarded  peace  as  very  precarious ;  but,  while 
regretting  the  surrender  of  the  Cape  and  the  vagueness  of  the  Maltese 
settlement,  he  pronounced  the  Treaty  honourable1.  This  verdict  he 
amplified  during  the  debate  of  November  3rd.  Grenville  and  several 
other  Pittites  having  bitterly  attacked  the  Peace,  the  ex-Prime- 
Minister  declared  that  the  retrocessions  of  the  Cape  and  Malta  were 
matter  for  regret;  but  certain  authorities  held  them  to  be  of  secondary 
value  (a  statement  backed  by  the  vigorous  assertions  of  Nelson  in  the 
Upper  House),  and  he  believed  Ceylon  to  be  far  more  important  than 
the  Cape  for  the  defence  of  India.  As  to  the  Mediterranean,  that  was 
a  sphere  of  secondary  import,  when  compared  with  the  East  and  West 
Indies.  In  these  last,  we  had  secured  Trinidad,  more  valuable  for  its 
wealth  and  its  strategic  position  than  Martinique,  Guadaloupe  or 
St  Lucia.  With  respect  to  our  former  Allies,  Naples,  Sardinia  and 
Portugal  had  made  peace  with  the  enemy,  and  we  were  not  bound  to 
do  more  for  them;  also,  the  claims  of  the  House  of  Orange  were  still 
under  consideration.  As  regards  the  French  Royal  House,  we  had  never 
insisted  on  its  restoration,  but  merely  declared  such  a  settlement  to  be 
the  best  safeguard  for  peace  and  security.  In  conclusion,  he  predicted 
that,  if  Bonaparte  wished  to  establish  a  military  despotism,  this  nation 
had  proved  itself  so  redoubtable  that  it  would  not  be  the  first  object  of 
his  attack.  If  the  wishes  of  France  corresponded  to  our  own,  we  might 

1  Dropmore  Papers,  vn.  47-50. 


THE  TREATY  OF  AMIENS          307 

hope  for  a  long  term  of  peace.  The  motion  in  favour  of  the  Treaty, 
in  spite  of  sharp  attacks,  was  carried  without  a  division.  Pitt's  pro- 
nouncement, while  unsatisfactory  even  on  the  score  of  consistency, 
evinced  small  strategic  insight  and  a  lamentable  lack  of  political  fore- 
sight. At  nearly  every  point,  Grenville's  sagacious  pessimism  was 
destined  to  be  justified,  at  the  expense  of  Pitt's  kindly  optimism. 
Public  opinion  was  sharply  divided  as  to  the  terms  of  peace.  The  Times, 
Sun,  Herald  and  True  Briton  defended  them,  while  sharp  criticisms 
came  from  the  Morning  Post,  Morning  Chronicle,  Courier,  Star, 
St  James's  Chronicle,  and,  most  of  all,  from  Cobbett's  Porcupine. 
Canning  declared  that  the  unreflecting  multitude  welcomed  peace, 
while,  after  conversation  with  "many  persons,  merchants,  planters 
and  gentlemen,"  he  found  a  universal  condemnation  of  its  conditions1. 
But  worse  was  to  follow.  The  Addington  Cabinet  now  added  to 
its  mistakes  by  sending  to  Amiens,  for  the  redaction  of  the  definitive 
Treaty,  the  Marquis  Cornwallis,  who  had  lately  described  himself  to 
a  friend  as  out-of-sorts,  low-spirited,  and  tired  of  everything2.  Though 
well  supported  by  Merry,  this  weary  negotiator  utterly  failed  to 
hold  his  own  against  Joseph  Bonaparte  and  Talleyrand ;  and  the  serious 
rebuffs  sustained  at  Amiens  were  with  reason  ascribed  to  the  "  drowsi- 
ness" and  utter  want  of  experience  of  Cornwallis3.  It  is  impossible 
within  our  limits  even  to  refer  to  the  negotiations.  After  numerous 
surrenders  by  Cornwallis,  the  terms  of  the  Treaty  of  Amiens  (March 
25th,  1802)  repeated  those  of  the  Preliminaries  of  London,  except  that 

(1)  Portugal  now  surrendered  part  of  her  Guiana  territory  to  France ; 

(2)  the  Maltese  compromise  was  defined  in  Article  X,  consisting  of 
13  clauses,  the  purport  of  which  will  appear  later;  (3)  the  Cape  was 
ceded  to  the  Dutch  "  in  full  sovereignty" ;  (4)  the  House  of  Orange  was 
promised  an  indemnity,  not  at  the  expense  of  the  Dutch  Republic.   It 
soon  transpired  that  the  indemnity  would  be  found  in  the  Germanic 
body,  then  in  a  state  of  flux  owing  to  the  Secularisations. 

The  omissions  from  the  Treaty  were  also  remarkable.  It  did  not 
require  that  Bonaparte  should  evacuate  Dutch  territory  or  recognise 
the  independence  either  of  that  Republic  or  of  the  Helvetic  and 
Ligurian  (Genoese)  Republics.  In  his  Treaty  of  Luneville  with 
Austria,  he  had  undertaken  to  respect  their  independence ;  but  events 
were  to  prove  that  the  Addington  Government  erred  in  not  insisting 

1  The  Windham  Papers,  n.  174. 

2  Cornwallis  Corresp.  HI.  382. 

3  Malmesbury,  Diaries,  iv.  71,  261 ;  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.  April,  1900. 


20 — 2 


308    THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

on  a  similar  contract.  Neither  did  the  Treaty  of  Amiens  stipulate  the 
renewal  of  a  treaty  of  commerce  with  France,  Addington  declaring  on 
May  3rd  that  he  opposed  such  a  measure.  Therefore  British  merchants 
soon  saw  their  products  virtually  shut  out  not  only  from  France,  but 
from  the  French  Colonies  which  Great  Britain  now  restored.  The 
Treaty,  also,  effected  little  for  the  House  of  Orange,  and  nothing  for 
that  of  Savoy,  both  of  which,  in  1793,  we  had  undertaken  to  uphold. 
Above  all,  in  face  of  the  well-marked  trend  of  Bonaparte's  oriental 
policy,  the  Peace  of  Amiens  surrendered  the  keys  of  India,  viz.,  the 
Cape  and  Malta,  to  weak  authorities  over  whom  he  could  readily 
acquire  complete  control.  It  reestablished  at  Valetta  the  Order  of 
the  Knights  of  St  John  (much  enfeebled  by  recent  events),  required 
the  speedy  withdrawal  of  the  British  garrison  and  the  temporary 
admission  of  2000  Neapolitan  troops,  and  placed  the  island  under 
the  guarantee  of  the  Great  Powers.  Obviously,  these  arrangements 
were  precarious ;  and  the  events  of  the  next  few  months  proved  that, 
while  extending  his  power  in  Europe,  Bonaparte  was  resolved  to  make 
the  Mediterranean  a  French  lake  and  to  recommence  the  plans  which 
had  been  shorn  asunder  by  the  genius  of  Nelson. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 
1802-1812 

I 

A  TREATY  of  peace  has  small  chance  of  surviving,  unless  it  corres- 
jT\  ponds  to  the  vital  needs  of  the  signatories.  If  it  cramps  the 
expansive  energies  of  great  nations,  it  will  prove  to  be  but  an  uneasy 
truce.  In  these  fundamentals,  as  also  in  lesser  details,  the  Peace  of 
Amiens  was  radically  defective.  It  concluded  a  War  in  which  Great 
Britain  and  France  parted  on  even  terms.  The  British,  triumphant  at 
sea,  had  taken  all  the  Colonies  of  France,  besides  expelling  her  troops 
from  Egypt.  The  French  had  conquered  the  Belgic  Provinces  and 
large  parts  of  Germany  and  Italy,  but  had  failed  to  acquire  any  British 
territory.  Their  primacy  in  western  and  southern  Europe  was  more 
than  balanced  by  the  world-supremacy  achieved  by  the  British  Navy. 
Their  commerce  and  industries  had  been  held  as  in  a  vice,  while, 
thanks  to  the  Industrial  Revolution  and  Sea  Power,  those  of  the  United 
Kingdom  continued  steadily  to  advance.  Strategically,  the  combatants 
had  come  to  a  stalemate.  Economically,  the  advantage  lay  with  the 
Island  Power. 

Nevertheless,  the  Addington  Administration  had  concluded  the 
Peace  "  in  such  an  unskilful,  hasty  and  conceding  way  "  (the  words  are 
those  of  Pitt1),  as  to  lead  to  the  restitution  of  all  the  French  Colonies, 
leave  Bonaparte  almost  a  free  hand  in  Continental  affairs,  and  fetter 
British  industries  and  commerce.  The  Treaty  of  Amiens  repeated  and 
even  exaggerated  the  characteristic  defects  of  that  diplomatic  dead- 
lock, the  Treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  of  1748 ;  for,  while  sacrificing  the 
conquests  achieved  by  the  British  Navy  overseas,  it  failed  to  assure  the 
Balance  of  Power  on  the  Continent.  Consequently,  the  military  and 
political  energies  of  France,  now  directed  by  the  untiring  brain  of 
Bonaparte,  were  to  have  free  play  on  the  weak  and  crumbling  States 
on  her  borders ;  whereas  the  industrial  energies  of  the  British  people, 
far  from  gaining  the  full  advantages  expected  from  a  peace,  in  certain 
quarters  experienced  a  check;  for,  owing  to  the  strange  dislike  of 

1  Malmesbury,  Diaries,  iv.  76 


3io  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

commercial  treaties  entertained  by  Addington  and  Hawkesbury,  no 
condition  as  to  the  renewal  of  commercial  relations  was  stipulated  at 
Amiens.  Accordingly,  Bonaparte  was  free  to  exclude  British  products, 
not  only  from  France  and  the  States  subject  to  her,  but  also  from  the 
French  Colonies,  which  Great  Britain  restored  at  the  Peace.  On  June 
3oth,  1802,  he  instructed  General  Andreossi,  about  to  proceed  to 
London  as  his  Ambassador,  that  he  would  accord  "if  not  a  Treaty  of 
Commerce,  at  least  a  series  of  private  arrangements  and  compensa- 
tions"; and  to  this  end  he  sent  over  commercial  agents,  who  were  to 
visit  the  chief  British  centres.  But  the  Addington  Government, 
regarding  them  with  suspicion,  refused  to  let  them  proceed  in  their 
official  capacity,  because  there  was  no  Treaty  of  Commerce  between 
the  two  nations;  while  Bonaparte  declared  their  investigations  a 
necessary  preliminary  to  any  such  compact.  Accordingly,  a  deadlock 
ensued  on  this  important  question. 

Equally  serious  was  the  failure  of  Addington  and  his  colleagues  to 
require  in  the  Treaty  the  recognition  by  Bonaparte  of  the  indepen- 
dence of  the  Batavian,  Helvetic,  Cisalpine  and  Ligurian  Republics. 
They  regarded  those  questions  as  settled  by  Article  13  of  the  recent 
Austro-French  Treaty  of  Luneville,  which  stipulated  the  independence 
of  those  States.  He,  on  the  contrary,  maintained  that  those  stipula- 
tions concerned  France  and  Austria,  not  Great  Britain;  and  he 
instructed  Andreossi  that  his  "first  care"  must  be  "to  prevent  on 
every  occasion  any  intervention  of  the  British  Government  in  Con- 
tinental affairs."  In  fact,  before  the  signature  of  the  Treaty  of  Amiens, 
he  had  intervened  in  the  affairs  of  the  Batavian  and  Cisalpine  States, 
retaining  his  troops  in  the  former,  securing  his  nomination  as 
President  of  the  latter  (now  entitled  the  Italian  Republic),  and  largely 
deciding  the  character  of  their  Constitutions.  The  weakness  of 
Addington,  in  not  formally  protesting  against  these  actions  before 
the  signature  of  the  Peace,  deprived  him  of  the  technical  right  of 
protest  against  further  proceedings  consequent  upon  them.  But  the 
affairs  of  nations  are  not  decided  by  technicalities ;  and  Bonaparte's 
claim  to  exclude  Great  Britain  from  all  participation  in  Continental 
affairs  was  certain,  if  persisted  in,  to  lead  to  war;  for  such  a  claim, 
when  emphasised  by  the  continuance  of  French  troops  in  Dutch 
territory,  implied  French  control  of  the  ports  facing  our  eastern  coast 
and  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  The  Preliminaries  of  London  had 
stipulated  that  Cape  Town  should  become  a  free  port  belonging  to  the 
independent  Batavian  Republic ;  but  by  the  Treaty  of  Amiens  it  was 


APPARENT  COMPLETENESS  OF  NAPOLEON'S  SUCCESS  311 

ceded  to  the  Dutch  "in  full  sovereignty";  and  they  were,  therefore, 
free  to  dispose  of  it  as  they  thought  fit.  Great  concern  was  expressed 
on  this  head  by  Windham,  Grenville  and  others  in  the  debates  of 
May  3rd-i3th,  1802;  and  the  bland  optimism  of  Addington  and 
Hawkesbury  failed  to  restore  confidence.  Much  concern  was  also 
felt  at  the  cession  by  Spain  of  the  vast  territory  of  Louisiana  to 
France. 

Passivity  or  timidity  also  characterised  the  policy  of  the  Continental 
monarchies ;  and  Napoleon  (his  Christian  name  was  officially  used  after 
the  assumption  of  the  Consulate  for  Life  in  August,  1802)  pushed  on 
his  designs  without  hindrance.  Supreme  in  the  Ligurian  and  Italian 
Republics,  he  assured  his  control  over  that  Peninsula  by  annexing 
Piedmont,  Parma  and  Elba,  in  September  and  October  respectively. 
Against  these  encroachments  the  British,  Austrian  and  Neapolitan 
Governments  alike  failed  to  proffer  any  effective  protests.  The  Tsar 
Alexander,  preoccupied  in  domestic  affairs  and  annoyed  at  the  Maltese 
settlement  effected  at  Amiens,  treated  Great  Britain  with  marked  cold- 
ness; and  Napoleon,  for  a  time,  successfully  flattered  his  vanity  by 
arranging  with  him  many  of  the  details  respecting  the  Secularisations 
of  the  German  Ecclesiastical  States.  Francis  II,  cowed  by  the  defeats 
of  1793-1800,  acquiesced  in  the  tame  counsels  of  dull  but  acquisitive 
bureaucrats  of  his  own  stamp.  At  Berlin,  Frederick  William  III  fol- 
lowed suit.  "  The  King's  chief  happiness"  (wrote  the  British  Charge 
d'affaires,  Sir  George  Jackson), "  consists  in  the  absence  of  all  trouble. 
...He  is  guided  by  his  fears  and  distrusts  his  own  powers."  Further- 
more, in  view  of  the  Francophil  tendencies  of  President  Jefferson,  the 
precarious  mental  condition  of  George  III,  and  the  subservience  of 
Charles  IV  of  Spain  to  his  consort's  paramour,  the  world  seemed  to 
lie  prostrate  at  the  feet  of  Napoleon. 

The  first  sign  of  a  revival  of  spirit  occurred  early  in  October,  1802, 
when  Napoleon  intervened  in  the  civil  strifes  of  the  Swiss,  marched 
a  French  column  into  their  land  and  bade  them  send  delegates  to  Paris 
to  accept  his  mediation.  On  this  question,  the  Addington  Cabinet 
acted  with  a  show  of  firmness.  On  October  Qth,  Hawkesbury  drew  up 
a  note  expressing  regret  at  this  infraction  of  the  Treaty  of  Luneville, 
and  a  hope  that  France  would  not  "further  attempt  to  control  that 
independent  nation  in  the  exercise  of  their  undoubted  rights."  He 
also  instructed  Paget  (now  at  Vienna)  to  enquire  whether  that  Court 
would  aid  the  Swiss  to  resist ;  and  he  despatched  an  agent,  Moore,  to 
concert  plans  with  the  leaders  of  the  Federals.  Both  overtures  failed. 


3i2  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

Vienna,  expectant  of  further  favours  from  Paris,  declined  to  move  on 
behalf  of  Helvetic  Independence ;  the  Tsar  was  equally  inert ;  and  the 
Swiss  Federals,  overawed  by  a  large  French  force,  acceded  to  the 
demands  of  Napoleon1. 

That  these  events  caused  a  marked  change  in  Anglo-French  rela- 
tions, appears  in  the  difference  of  tone  between  the  Instructions  of 
September  loth  and  those  of  November  i4th,  issued  to  Lord  Whit- 
worth  when  proceeding  as  Ambassador  to  Paris.  The  former  emphasise 
4 'our  desire  to  give  proof  on  all  occasions  of  our  sincere  disposition 
to  cultivate  a  good  understanding  between  the  two  countries."  The 
latter  authorise  Whitworth  to  "  state  most  distinctly  His  Majesty's 
determination  never  to  forego  his  right  of  interfering  in  the  affairs  of 
the  Continent  on  every  occasion  in  which  the  interests  of  his  own 
dominions  or  those  of  Europe  in  general  appear  to  him  to  require  it." 
Further,  Hawkesbury  pointed  out  that,  as  Talleyrand  had  recognised 
the  reasonableness  of  Great  Britain  acquiring  compensations  for  the 
recent  extensions  of  French  territory  and  influence,  she  might  now 
justly  claim  the  retention  of  certain  of  her  conquests.  In  particular, 
Whitworth  was  charged  to  protest  against  the  continued  occupation 
of  Dutch  territory  by  French  troops,  seeing  that  we  had  restored 
important  Colonies  to  that  Republic,  on  consideration  of  its  remaining 
entirely  independent.  He  was  to  keep  silence  respecting  the  aims  of 
British  policy,  especially  respecting  Malta ;  for,  though  we  should  be 
justified  in  holding  that  island  as  some  counterpoise  to  the  immense 
increase  of  French  power,  no  decision  had  yet  been  reached  on  that 
subject.  Instructions  of  this  character  proved  that  the  Peace  of  Amiens 
was  hanging  by  a  thread.  In  part,  the  dispute  resembled  that  which 
had  brought  the  two  nations  to  war  ten  years  before :  had  the  French 
the  right  to  interfere  with  the  independence  of  the  Dutch  Republic? 
On  the  present  occasion,  however,  the  menace  to  this  independence 
was  far  more  serious  than  in  1792-3.  Then,  Pitt  and  Grenville  had 
resisted  the  French  attempt  to  abrogate  the  treaty  rights  of  the  Dutch 
to  control  the  Scheldt  estuary.  Now  Addington  and  Hawkesbury 
were  protesting  against  Napoleon's  endeavour  to  control  by  armed 
force  the  policy  of  that  people. 

Moreover,  the  extension  of  his  power  over  Italy,  his  keen  interest 

in  the  recovery  of  Egypt  and  the  partition  of  the  Turkish  empire 

brought  Mediterranean  questions  to  a  prominence  undreamt  of  in 

1793,  and  made  Malta  a  storm-centre  no  less  threatening  than  that  of 

1  Cobbett's  Arm.  Reg.  (1803),  pp.  1018-20;  Dropmore  Papers,  vn.  128. 


PROGRESS  OF  NAPOLEONIC  POLICY  313 

the  Dutch  Netherlands.  Malta  was  an  outpost  of  Egypt,  as  Egypt  was 
of  India.  If  the  island  were  held  only  by  the  moribund  Order  of  the 
Knights  of  St  John,  then  the  overland  route  to  India  would  speedily 
pass  into  the  hands  of  Napoleon.  If  he  continued  to  control  the  Dutch 
Republic,  then  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and  with  it  the  sea  route  to 
the  East  Indies,  would  be  at  his  disposal.  Thus,  the  increase  of  French 
power  in  the  Netherlands  and  on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  in 
time  of  nominal  peace  was  bringing  within  his  grasp  the  two  alter- 
native schemes  for  the  ruin  of  Great  Britain  which  the  events  of  1798 
seemed  to  have  wrecked,  viz.  an  invasion  from  the  coast  whence  it 
can  bes^  be  attempted,  and  a  resumption  of  the  oriental  adventures 
cut  short  by  the  exploit  of  Nelson. 

By  the  autumn  of  1802,  so  clear  were  the  danger  signals  that 
Addington  assumed  a  firm  tone ;  but,  by  this  time,  so  accustomed  was 
Napoleon  to  submission  or  complaisance  that  he  abated  not  one  of  his 
demands.  The  protests  of  the  Dutch  Ambassador  against  the  retention 
of  French  troops  in  his  country  were  disregarded.  Delegates  from  the 
Swiss  Cantons  were  summoned  to  Paris  to  receive  eventually  at  the 
hands  of  Napoleon  the  Act  of  Mediation,  sagaciously  designed  by  him, 
as  Mediator,  for  healing  their  schisms  and  assuring  his  control.  Spain 
was  sinking  under  his  control.  The  Turks  were  alarmed  by.  French 
intrigues  in  Corfu,  the  Morea  and  the  Levant,  which  portended  a 
partition  of  their  empire.  Early  in  the  year  1802,  Lord  Elgin,  our 
Ambassador  at  Constantinople,  wrote  as  follows:  "The  Porte  con- 
siders her  interests  and  tranquillity  secure  while  England  possesses 
Malta,  but  not  so  after  our  abandoning  it."  Whitworth,  also,  reported, 
in  December,  1802,  that  Egypt  was  the  great  object  of  Napoleon's 
ambition  and  that  he  might  acquire  it  by  coercing  or  bargaining  with 
the  Turks1. 

So  threatening  was  the  outlook  that  public  opinion  in  these 
Islands  began  to  harden.  Protests  against  the  overbearing  conduct  of 
Napoleon  multiplied  in  the  Press  and  called  forth  angry  retorts  in  the 
Moniteur,  often  from  the  First  Consul  himself.  He,  also,  complained 
of  the  deference  shown  to  the  Comte  d'Artois  at  Holy  rood  and  the 
harbouring  of  French  Emigres.  Nevertheless,  Ministers,  while  refusing 
to  fetter  the  Press  or  expel  refugees,  endeavoured  to  humour  the  First 
Consul.  Even  after  the  Swiss  embroglio,  Otto,  the  French  agent  at 
London,  could  write  as  follows : 

1  P.O.  Turkey,  35.   Elgin  to  Hawkesbury,  January  5th,  1802;  Paget  Papers,  II. 
61,  72;  O.  Browning,  England  and  Napoleon,  pp.  6-10,  16,  25-9. 


3H  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

I  have  received  the  most  peaceful  assurances  from  the  Cabinet,  who  mark 
with  the  greatest  satisfaction  anything  which  is  likely  to  strengthen  the 
control  of  the  First  Consul  in  home  affairs,  and  would  even  wish  to  see  his 
family  secure  the  hereditary  tenure  of  his  office,  a  wish  that  is  very  generally 
felt  in  this  country ;  but  anything  that  tends  to  the  external  aggrandisement 
of  this  power  must  necessarily  claim  the  attention  of  the  British  Minister1. 

Andreossi,  who  arrived  early  in  November,  had  a  friendly  reception 
from  the  King  and  the  Prince  of  Wales,  who  manifested  a  keen  desire 
for  peace,  even  while  expressing  some  apprehensions,  because  Bona- 
parte was  "still  greater  as  a  politician  than  as  a  warrior."  Andreossi 
reported  that  the  fimigrh  in  England  were  losing  all  hope.  Another 
reassuring  fact  was  that,  on  November  2Oth,  the  British  Government 
despatched  orders  to  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  for  the  withdrawal  of 
British  troops. 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  the  Court  and  Cabinet  were  not  opposed  to 
Napoleon  on  personal  grounds,  and  during  some  time  hoped  for  the 
resumption  of  friendly  relations  with  him.  The  King's  Speech,  read 
on  November  23rd  to  the  newly-elected  Parliament,  dwelt  on  the 
national  prosperity  (increased  by  a  bounteous  harvest),  and  the  need 
of  watchfulness  in  European  affairs  and  of  measures  to  guarantee  our 
security.  Thereupon,  Fox,  while  deploring  the  immense  aggrandise- 
ment of  French  power,  deprecated  any  increase  of  armaments ;  but  he, 
Wilberforce,  Whitbread  and  Burdett  stood  alone  in  offering  deter- 
mined opposition  to  an  increase  of  the  army.  In  the  ensuing  debates, 
Lord  Hobart,  Secretary  at  War,  stated  that  it  had  been  reduced  from 
250,000  men  at  the  end  of  hostilities  to  127,000,  whereas  that  of  France 
numbered  427,000  men,  and  that,  in  face  of  her  hostile  proceedings, 
it  was  desirable  to  raise  our  total  to  200,000  exclusive  of  the  forces  in 
India.  The  discussion  was  rendered  remarkable  by  a  speech  of  Sheridan, 
in  which  he  declaimed  vehemently  against  Bonaparte's  encroachments, 
as  aimed  at  the  enslavement  of  Europe  and  the  destruction  of  British 
commerce.  Earl  Temple  and  Windham  complained  of  the  apathy  of 
Ministers  and  their  belated  and  clumsy  intervention  on  behalf  of  the 
Swiss.  Grenville,  also,  adverted  to  the  increase  of  the  French  and 
Dutch  navies  and  to  our  exclusion  from  every  port  in  the  Mediterranean 
except  Valetta,  which  therefore  it  was  an  urgent  necessity  for  us  to 
retain.  In  reply,  Addington  admitted  the  gravity  of  the  situation,  but 
stated  that,  as  France,  Spain  and  Holland  together  could  muster  only 
131  sail  of  the  line,  while  we  possessed  196,  there  was  no  serious  danger 

1  Coquelle,  Napoleon  and  England  (Eng.  edit.  p.  5) ;  Lettres  inedites  de  Talleyrand, 
p.  24. 


NAPOLEON'S  ORIENTAL  SCHEMES  315 

of  invasion.  Hawkesbury  advised  the  country  to  "  try  the  experiment 
of  continuing  the  Peace,"  because  the  maintenance  even  of  the  pro- 
posed large  forces  would  cost  £25,000,000  a  year  less  than  war.  In 
the  main,  the  debates  showed  the  rising  indignation  of  the  people  at 
the  overbearing  conduct  of  Napoleon — a  feeling  that  pervades  the 
Sonnets  of  Wordsworth  of  the  autumn  of  1802.  It  is,  indeed,  un- 
questionable that  Napoleon's  interference  in  Swiss  affairs,  now  as  in 
1798,  contributed,  even  more  than  issues  of  greatest  practical  import, 
such  as  the  subjugation  of  the  Dutch,  to  inflame  popular  resentment1. 
It  found  expression  in  newspaper  articles  couched  in  terms  so  dis- 
respectful as  to  elicit  formal  and  bitter  complaints.  Despite  the  reply, 
that  the  Press  of  this  country  was  free,  and  that  its  alleged  insults  were 
no  more  objectionable  than  those  against  England  which  appeared  in 
Napoleon  'sown  official  Moniteur,  he  raised  the  affair  to  the  level  of  high 
policy,  until,  as  will  duly  appear,  the  Addington  Ministry,  in  its  desire 
of  placating  him,  prosecuted  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  offenders. 
The  year  1803  opened  gloomily.  As  Windham  phrased  it,  France 
was  roaming  at  will  all  over  the  world,  and  the  Addington  Cabinet 
said  in  effect:  "  Go  where  you  please,  so  that  you  keep  your  hands  off 
us."  Our  troops  were  about  to  evacuate  Egypt  and  the  Cape,  and 
arrangements  were  proceeding  for  their  withdrawal  from  Malta,  when 
an  alarming  incident  occurred.  On  January  3Oth,  the  Moniteur  pub- 
lished a  menacing  Report  of  Colonel  Sebastiani  on  his  mission  to  the 
East.  Though  ostensibly  he  was  merely  one  of  Napoleon's  Commercial 
Commissioners, his  Report  contained  next  to  nothing  about  commerce 
and  much  that  portended  a  resumption  of  hostilities.  It  set  forth  the 
utter  weakness  of  Turkey,  her  deadly  feud  with  the  Mamelukes,  her 
discord  with  General  Stuart,  commanding  the  British  force  still  in 
Egypt,  the  conclusion  being  that  6000  French  would  easily  reconquer 
that  land.  The  official  publication  of  so  warlike  a  document  caused  a 
great  sensation.  It  was  probably  due  to  Napoleon's  desire  of  glozing 
over  the  lamentable  failure  of  his  attempt  to  reconquer  Hayti.  The 
ravages  wrought  by  fever  in  that  expeditionary  force  rendered  further 
efforts  in  the  West  Indies  impossible;  and,  in  face  of  the  determined 
opposition  of  the  United  States  to  the  French  acquisition  of  Louisiana, 
he  now  determined  to  sell  that  vast  domain  to  them  (as  he  did  soon 
after)  and  to  concentrate  on  Oriental  schemes  that  were  nearer  his 
heart.  The  Turco-Mameluke  feuds  provided  an  opportunity.  He  now 
turned  the  energies  of  France  Eastwards  by  publishing  Sebastiani's 
Report.  That  it  would  provoke  Great  Britain,  he  must  have  surmised. 

1  Life  of  Sir  S.  Romilly,  I.  425. 


3i6  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

All  his  proceedings  were  governed  by  calculation;  and  one  of  his 
Councillors  deemed  this  provocation  intentional1. 

Another  of  his  actions  serves  to  strengthen  this  inference.  In  the 
same  month,  January,  1803,  he  issued  secret  instructions  to  General 
Decaen,  now  appointed  Governor  of  the  French  East  India  Colonies, 
to  proceed  with  a  small  expeditionary  force  to  Pondicherry,  there  care- 
fully to  investigate  Indian  affairs  and  prepare  for  the  future,  which  (so 
he  informed  him)  might  be  such  as  to  invest  his  name  with  lasting 
renown.  He,  also,  referred  to  the  renewal  of  hostilities  with  England 
as  probable  in  September,  1804;  and,  since  they  were  certain  to  in- 
volve the  Dutch  in  hostilities  with  her,  he  instructed  Decaen  in  that 
case  to  be  ready  to  occupy  the  Cape  or  any  other  desirable  point  d'appui. 
The  despatch  of  Decaen's  expedition  in  March,  1803,  caused  some 
apprehension  at  London,  which  was  finally  to  be  justified  by  his 
proceedings  at  the  Cape. 

For  the  present,  the  anxiety  of  Ministers  centred  chiefly  on  French 
schemes  that  threatened  the  security  of  the  overland  route  to  India. 
From  the  Mediterranean  came  news  as  to  movements  of  French  troops 
to  its  coasts,  especially  to  Corsica;  and  their  agents  were  reported  to 
be  very  active  in  the  Republic  of  the  Ionian  Isles  and  on  the  coasts  of 
Albania  and  the  Morea.  Similar  information  reached  Petrograd.  There, 
the  sympathies  of  the  Tsar  had  been  Francophil.  Annoyed  at  the 
terms  of  Article  X  of  the  Treaty  of  Amiens  respecting  Malta,  he  with- 
held his  guarantee  of  those  arrangements,  and  in  this  was  followed  by 
Prussia.  But  the  French  moves  against  Turkey  caused  him  grave 
concern.  On  January  yth,  1803,  Admiral  Sir  John  Borlase  Warren, 
British  Ambassador  at  Petrograd,  reported  that,  according  to  Russian 
official  advices  from  Paris,  Napoleon  was  about  to  notify  to  Russia 
his  resolve  to  acquire  the  Morea.  Prince  Czartoryski,  Foreign  Minister, 
when  confirming  that  information,  added  that  the  Emperor  Alexander 
disapproved  these  projects  of  partition ;  and  on  January  2Oth  he  told 
Warren  that  the  Emperor  Alexander  "  wished  the  English  to  keep 
Malta."  On  February  27th,  he  stated  that  Napoleon  "  wished  to  oblige 
Great  Britain  to  declare  war  against  France."  On  March  25th,  Warren 
reported  that  the  Russian  Government "  would  even  be  sorry  that  the 
British  troops  evacuated  the  island,"  and  favoured  the  issue  of  a 
decisive  declaration  by  us  such  as  would  "finish  the  affair2." 

Apprehensions   concerning  the   Levant  were   not   confined   to 

1  Pelet,  Opinions  de  Napoleon ,  ch.  in. 

2  P.O.  Russia,  174.  See,  too,  Hardman,  History  of  Malta  (chs.  xvn,  xxi,  xxn); 
O.  Browning,  England  and  Napoleon,  pp.  70  et  seq. ;  Mollien,  Memoirs,  i.  334. 


NAPOLEON  AND  SEBASTIANPS  REPORT         317 

Ministerial  circles  in  London.  In  a  conversation  which  Pitt  had  with 
George  Rose,  he  at  once  entered  on  the  topic  of  Sebastiani's  Report, 
deeming  its  publication  an  announcement  of  the  actual  designs  of 
France  on  Egypt.  The  two  friends  agreed  that  her  acquisition  of  Egypt 
would  seriously  imperil  British  India;  also,  that  the  intrigues  of 
Sebastiani  in  the  Ionian  Islands,  with  a  view  to  their  reoccupation  by 
France,  warranted  a  thorough  explanation1.  So  general  were  these 
fears  that  the  Addington  Administration  assumed  a  firm  attitude.  On 
February  Qth,  Hawkesbury  charged  Whitworth  not  to  enter  into  any 
discussion  respecting  Malta,  until  the  French  Government  consented 
either  to  restore  completely  the  status  quo  at  the  time  of  the  Peace  of 
Amiens,  or  to  admit  the  reasonableness  of  our  receiving  some  suitable 
compensation  for  the  recent  extensive  additions  to  French  territory. 
In  reply  to  this  request  no  satisfactory  assurance  was  forthcoming. 
Talleyrand  blandly  reasserted  that  Sebastiani's  mission  was  "  strictly 
commercial,"  and  that  Napoleon  sincerely  desired  peace,  which  more- 
over was  imperiously  dictated  to  him  by  the  penury  of  his  finances. 
Shortly  afterwards,  on  February  i8th,  the  First  Consul  sent  for  Whit- 
worth  and  treated  him,  not  to  soothing  falsehoods,  but  to  pugnacious 
half-truths,  complaining  that  all  the  provocations  came  from  London, 
that  we  had  broken  the  Treaty  by  not  evacuating  Egypt  and  Malta,  that 
we  harboured  assassins,  that  every  wind  which  blew  from  England 
bore  nothing  but  hatred.  He  declared  that  he  could  easily  reconquer 
Egypt,  but  would  not  do  so,  lest  he  should  seem  the  aggressor,  besides 
which  that  land  must  sooner  or  later  fall  to  France.  Moreover,  what 
had  he  to  gain  by  a  war  with  England  ?  Why  should  not  the  two  nations 
come  to  an  understanding  and  so  govern  the  world  ?  But  nothing  (he 
proceeded)  would  overcome  the  hatred  of  the  British  Government ; 
and  the  issue  now  was — would  we  fulfil  the  terms  of  the  Treaty  of 
Amiens  or  have  war?  Whitworth,  thereupon,  temperately  set  forth  the 
material  difference  between  the  present  state  of  things  and  that  when 
peace  was  concluded.  Napoleon  cut  him  short :  "  I  suppose  you  mean 
Piedmont  and  Switzerland :  ce  sont  des. . . ,  vous  n'avez  pas  le  droit  d'en 
parler  a  cette  heure."  He  added  that  Sebastiani's  mission  was  necessi- 
tated on  military  grounds  by  our  infraction  of  the  Treaty  of  Amiens ; 
but,  soon  afterwards,  he  authorised  Talleyrand  to  state  that  he  was 
contemplating  a  guarantee  of  the  integrity  of  the  Turkish  empire, 
which  would  remove  our  fears  respecting  Egypt. 

1  G.  Rose,  Diaries,  n,  18-20;  Papers  on  the  Discussions  with  France  (1802-3), 
pp. 377-86. 


3i8  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

Whitworth  believed  that  this  softening  of  tone  was  due  to  Russia's 
remonstrances  against  Napoleon's  encroachments  and  his  refusal  to 
grant  any  suitable  indemnity  to  the  dispossessed  King  of  Sardinia. 
But  it  seems  probable  that  the  naval  unpreparedness  of  France,  and 
the  desire  of  Napoleon  to  assure  the  safe  return  of  his  unfortunate 
expeditionary  force  from  Hayti,  explain  his  subsequent  manoeuvres, 
which  the  Addington  Cabinet  henceforth  ascribed  to  a  resolve  to  gain 
time.  Hawkesbury  now  stiffened  his  demands.  He  pointed  out  that 
Russia  and  Prussia  had  not  guaranteed  the  Maltese  settlement,  as  was 
required  by  the  Treaty;  also,  that  the  confiscation  of  the  Spanish 
Priories  of  the  Order  of  St  John,  and  other  pecuniary  losses,  must 
incapacitate  the  Order  for  the  defence  of  the  vast  fortifications  of 
Valetta  and  tempt  Napoleon  to  renew  his  facile  exploit  of  June,  1798. 
True,  Article  X,  relating  to  Malta,  stipulated  the  presence  of  2000 
Neapolitan  troops  there  for  a  year.  But  of  what  avail  was  a  temporary 
occupation  by  the  troops  of  a  Power  which  itself  existed  on  sufferance  ? 
And  what  chance  of  survival  was  there  for  the  truncated  Order,  now 
that  Malta,  emerging  from  happy  obscurity,  had  become  the  crux  of 
the  Eastern  Question?  Indeed,  the  Maltese  compromise  of  1802  was 
workable  only  in  an  era  of  sincere  goodwill,  and  Napoleon  had  made 
peace  more  dangerous  than  open  war. 

Apprehensions  were  also  aroused  by  the  official  View  of  the  State 
of  the  Republic,  issued  at  Paris  on  February  2ist,  1803.  After  dilating 
on  the  prosperity  of  France,  and  referring  to  the  continued  British 
occupation  of  Egypt  and  Malta,  the  Report  stated  that  two  parties, 
one  of  them  pacific,  the  other  warlike,  struggled  for  mastery  in  England. 
Therefore,  by  a  deplorable  necessity,  France  must  possess  an  army 
of  half  a  million  men,  "  ready  to  undertake  its  defence  and  avenge  its 
injuries.... Whatever  success  intrigues  may  experience  in  London,  no 
other  people  will  be  involved  in  new  combinations.  The  Government 
asserts  with  conscious  pride  that  England  alone  cannot  maintain  a 
struggle  against  France."  Even  so,  the  attitude  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment was  cautious.  On  February  28th,  Hawkesbury  instructed  Whit- 
worth  to  point  out  that  Egypt  had  been  evacuated,  and  all  the  other 
conditions  of  the  Amiens  Treaty  had  been  fulfilled,  except  Article  X; 
and  Malta  had  not  been  evacuated,  because  of  the  refusal  of  Russia  and 
Prussia  to  act  as  guarantors,  the  weakening  of  the  Order  of  St  John,  and 
the  threatening  moves  of  France  in  the  East.  A  guarantee  of  the 
integrity  of  the  Turkish  empire  by  France  would,  indeed,  banish  our 
fears  regarding  Egypt ;  but  we  would  not  withdraw  from  Malta  until  she 


PROVOCATION  AND  FORBEARANCE  319 

offered  some  "substantial  security."  This  was  an  invitation  to  a  com- 
promise, and,  on  February  28th,  Andreossi  assured  Talleyrand  that 
the  British  Ministers  were  peaceably  inclined.  This  appeared  in  their 
prosecution  at  this  time  of  a  French  Emigre ,  Peltier,  who  in  a  journal, 
L'Ambigu,  had  declaimed  against  the  First  Consul.  Despite  a  brilliant 
defence  by  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  the  accused  was  condemned,  but, 
when  a  rupture  with  France  became  imminent,  punishment  was  de- 
ferred, and  he  was  finally  released.  The  French  also  released  a  few 
British  ships  that  had  been  unjustly  seized1. 

These  slight  relaxations  of  tension  were  nullified  by  the  sight  of 
the  armaments  proceeding  in  French  and  Dutch  ports.  Though 
designed,  it  was  said,  for  Colonial  expeditions,  they  were  deemed  part 
of  the  French  programme  announced  on  February  2ist.  Accordingly, 
on  March  Qth,  a  royal  message  was  read  to  Parliament,  inviting  it  to 
adopt  further  measures  for  the  national  defence,  and  an  increase  of 
10,000  seamen  was  unanimously  voted.  By  way  of  retort,  the  First 
Consul  issued  a  Memorandum  justifying  the  retention  of  French 
troops  in  Holland  and  Switzerland  and  the  formation  of  armed  camps 
near  Calais.  He  also,  on  March  i3th,  subjected  Whitworth  to  a  violent 
tirade  before  the  diplomatic  circle  at  the  Tuileries.  The  Ambassador 
kept  his  temper,  and  then  privately  intimated  his  resolve  to  cease 
attending  receptions  if  he  received  such  treatment.  Napoleon  seems 
afterwards  to  have  regretted  his  outburst ;  for  the  Russian  Ambassador, 
MarkofT,  resented  it  and  forwarded  to  the  Tsar  unfavourable  com- 
ments on  the  incident.  The  support  of  Russia  being  highly  desirable, 
both  disputants  sought  to  impress  the  Tsar  with  the  justice  of  their 
cause.  Of  late,  Alexander  had  repelled  French  offers  for  a  partition 
of  Turkey  and  inclined  towards  a  neutrality  not  unfavourable  to  us. 
Malmesbury,  however,  shrewdly  surmised  that  now,  as  in  the  days 
of  Catharine,  Russia  would  cajole  all  the  Powers,  but  act  with  none 
of  them.  Addington,  more  optimistic,  cherished  some  hopes  from  that 
quarter.  The  chief  reason,  however,  of  his  forbearance  towards  France 
was  (as  he  privately  stated  to  Malmesbury)  his  resolve  to  wait  "till 
she  had  heaped  wrong  upon  wrong,  and  made  her  arrogant  designs 
so  notorious,  and  her  views  of  unceasing  aggrandisement  so  demon- 
strable, as  to  leave  no  doubt  on  the  public  mind,  nor  a  possibility  of 
mistake  on  the  part  of  the  most  uninformed  pacific  men2."  That 

1  Cobbett,  Pol.  Register  (1803),  pp.  276,  289,  315,  374,  798 ;  Coquelle  (chs.  iv,  v) ; 
Dropmore  Papers,  vn.  140. 

2  Malmesbury,  iv.  210,  246,  247. 


320  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

Addington's  patience  and  Napoleon's  petulance  were  disgusting  the 
nation  with  the  peace  became  abundantly  evident.  Canning,  an 
enthusiastic  admirer  of  Pitt  and  a  persistent  belittler  of  Addington, 
pointed  the  contrast  between  them  in  his  celebrated  song : 

And  oh !  if  again  the  rude  whirlwind  should  rise, 
The  dawning  of  peace  should  fresh  darkness  deform, 
The  regrets  of  the  good  and  the  fears  of  the  wise 
Shall  turn  to  the  Pilot  that  weathered  the  storm. 

Much,  however,  could  be  urged  in  favour  of  Addington's  waiting 
policy.  Peace  having  been  concluded,  its  author  had  to  ensure  for 
it  a  fair  trial.  Moreover,  so  impetuously  self-willed  an  opponent  as 
Napoleon  was  likely  to  put  himself  in  the  wrong.  Addington,  Alex- 
ander I,  Fox,  Metternich,  Hardenberg,  Castlereagh  and  Talleyrand 
were,  in  succession,  to  find  out  the  advantage  of  giving  him  free  rein 
at  a  crisis;  or,  as  the  last  named  phrased  it:  // n'y  ajamais  eu  de  con- 
spirateur  dangereux  contre  lui  que  lui-meme1.  The  sole  hope  for  the 
preservation  of  peace  in  the  spring  of  1803  was  that  he  should  sub- 
stitute reason  for  menace,  and,  admitting  that  his  annexations  and  other 
proceedings  had  naturally  alarmed  Great  Britain,  should  offer  either 
to  forego  one  or  more  of  them  or  to  admit  the  justice  of  her  claim  to 
compensation,  conceded  in  the  negotiations  at  Amiens. 
^  This  was  the  gist  of  Hawkesbury's  note  of  April  3rd  to  Andreossi, 
which  pointed  out  that  France  had  hitherto  refused  to  give  the 
assurances  and  explanations  we  had  a  right  to  expect;  but  that  a 
settlement  was  desired  on  the  following  bases :  Great  Britain  to  retain 
Malta  in  perpetuity,  indemnifying  the  Knights  of  St  John ;  France  to 
evacuate  the  Dutch  Netherlands  and  Switzerland,  but  to  retain  Elba ; 
Great  Britain  to  acknowledge  the  kingdom  of  Etruria  and  the  Italian 
and  Ligurian  Republics,  provided  that  the  King  of  Sardinia  received 
a  suitable  indemnity.  These  demands  were  large;  but  Hawkes- 
bury  added  that,  if  they  were  deemed  impracticable,  the  French 
Government  should  suggest  "  some  other  equivalent  security  by  which 
His  Majesty's  object  in  claiming  the  permanent  possession  of  the 
island  of  Malta  may  be  accomplished,  and  the  independence  of  the 
island  secured."  These  terms,  then,  were  merely  our  first  word  in  a  new 
negotiation2.  In  reply,  Talleyrand,  while  urging  complaints,  declared 
that  France  would  accord  all  possible  satisfaction  and  security,  short  of 

1  Talleyrand,  Memoires,  n.  135. 

2  Coquelle,  p.  54;  O.  Browning,  pp.  54-7. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  MALTA  AND  ITS  CLIMAX    321 

acquiescing  in  our  possession  of  Malta.  But,  after  he  had  seen  the  First 
Consul,  his  statement  became  more  defiant.  Napoleon,  he  declared, 
would  rather  be  cut  to  pieces  than  consent  to  a  British  acquisition  of 
Malta,  and  he  took  his  stand  on  the  inviolability  of  the  Treaty  of 
Amiens.  Talleyrand  suggested,  as  alternative  plans  of  solving  the 
Maltese  problem,  either  a  mixed  garrison  of  French,  British,  Italians 
and  Germans  in  Valetta,  or  (as  Joseph  Bonaparte,  also,  suggested)  the 
British  possession  of  Corfu  or  Crete  in  lieu  of  Malta.  Whitworth 
declared  that  nothing  but  the  occupation  of  Malta  for  a  term  of  years 
would  relieve  our  apprehensions.  Privately,  however,  he  outlined 
to  Hawkesbury  a  possible  compromise,  viz.  either  the  retention  of 
Malta  for  a  term  of  years  or  the  garrisoning  merely  of  the  fortifications 
of  Valetta,  the  rest  of  the  island  being  left  to  the  Knights. 

By  this  time,  a  fresh  cause  for  apprehension  had  arisen.  Early  in 
April,  Napoleon  despatched  7000  more  French  troops  into  the  Dutch 
Netherlands,  where  they  occupied  commanding  positions.  Here  was 
an  occasion  for  the  British  Government  to  protest  against  this  further 
violation  of  the  Treaty  of  Luneville;  but  Hawkesbury  let  slip  the 
opportunity,  and  allowed  the  discussion  to  turn  almost  entirely  upon 
Malta.  On  April  i3th,  he  approved  Whitworth's  proposals  and  sug- 
gested ten  years  as  the  minimum  term  for  our  occupation  of  Malta — 
which  would  admit  of  the  construction  of  docks  at  Lampedusa, 
with  a  view  to  the  permanent  occupation  of  that  neighbouring  islet. 
Joseph  Bonaparte,  in  the  absence  of  the  First  Consul  at  St  Cloud, 
favoured  some  such  solution;  and,  on  April  1 8th,  Whitworth  expressed 
hopes  of  a  peaceful  settlement.  What,  then,  was  his  surprise  three  days 
later  to  hear  from  Talleyrand  that  the  crux  of  the  problem  was,  not 
the  reestablishment  of  the  Order  of  St  John,  but  "the  suffering  Great 
Britain  to  acquire  a  possession  in  the  Mediterranean ! " 

This  brought  the  dispute  to  a  climax;  and  the  British  Ministers 
resolved  to  bring  it  to  a  decisive  issue.  They  were  moved  thereto  by 
news  as  to  the  concentration  of  troops  on  the  Northern  coasts  of 
France  and  in  Zealand  as  if  for  an  invasion.  Further,  as  the  French 
navy  comprised  only  40  effective  sail  of  the  line,  a  rupture,  if  it  were  to 
come,  as  seemed  inevitable,  had  better  come  soon,  while  we  possessed 
a  clear  superiority  over  the  French  and  Dutch  fleets.  True,  our  supplies 
of  seamen  and  naval  stores  had  run  dangerously  low,  owing  to  the 
economies  of  the  Earl  of  St  Vincent  at  the  dockyards ;  but,  even  so, 
the  advantage  at  sea  lay  with  us  in  1803,  while  in  1805  it  would  be 
precarious  owing  to  Napoleon's  control  of  nearly  all  the  ports  of 

W.&G.I.  21 


322  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

western  Europe,  from  Amsterdam  to  Spezzia1.  His  policy  of  coast 
control  and  the  avowal  of  a  design  to  exclude  us  from  the  Mediter- 
ranean threatened  the  national  existence ;  and  no  Ministry,  however 
pacific,  dared  run  risks  on  so  vital  a  point.  All  the  advice  that  reached 
Downing  Street  was  in  favour  of  firmness.  From  the  beginning  of  the 
crisis,  George  III,  whose  influence  over  the  Cabinet  was  great,  had 
been  eager  for  war.  The  Grenvilles  and  Malmesbury  had  throughout 
censured  Hawkesbury's  proceedings  as  weak,  undignified  and  certain 
to  lead  to  further  humiliations.  Pitt,  deeming  himself  privately  pledged 
to  support  Addington,  was  more  tolerant ;  but  he  viewed  the  European 
situation  with  "infinite  anxiety,"  and  after  Napoleon's  official  Declara- 
tion of  February  2ist,  1803,  held  that  we  must  not  give  up  Malta 
"without  fresh  and  substantial  security2."  Refusing  the  suggestions 
of  several  friends  that  they  should  all  seek  to  overthrow  the  Cabinet, 
he  continued  to  it  a  general  support,  and  privately  advised  Lord 
Chatham,  Master  of  Ordnance,  to  act  firmly  on  the  Maltese  question. 
This  indeed  was  the  general  opinion;  and  Addington,  for  his  own 
credit,  could  not  now  retreat.  In  common  with  nearly  all  our  leading 
politicians,  he  and  Hawkesbury  deeply  distrusted  Napoleon,  believing 
him  to  be  animated  by  boundless  ambition,  an  inveterate  hatred  of 
this  country  and  an  utter  disregard  of  principle.  Thus,  personal  con- 
siderations, not  less  than  regard  tor  national  security,  led  Ministers 
to  insist  on  a  speedy  answer  to  the  alternatives :  either  the  possession 
of  Malta  for  ten  years,  or  war.  To  this  fundamental  condition,  Hawkes- 
bury on  April  23rd,  appended  articles  requiring  the  consent  of  France 
to  the  cession  of  Lampedusa  by  His  Sicilian  Majesty3,  the  evacuation 
of  the  Dutch  Netherlands  within  a  month  of  the  signature  of  a  con- 
vention on  these  topics,  and  the  provision  of  a  suitable  indemnity 
for  the  King  of  Sardinia,  failing  which  last  Great  Britain  would  refuse 
to  acknowledge  the  Italian  and  Ligurian  Republics.  If  these  conditions 
were  not  accepted  within  seven  days,  Whitworth  was  to  leave  Paris. 
The  arrival  of  terms  so  uncompromising,  which  in  all  but  name 
formed  an  ultimatum,  surprised  Whitworth,  who,  in  the  first  instance 
stated  them  informally  to  Talleyrand ;  but,  when  that  Minister  declined 
to  receive  them  in  this  way,  he  repeated  them  officially,  only  to  meet 
with  a  stiff  refusal.  He  then  requested  an  interview  with  the  peace- 
maker, Joseph  Bonaparte,  who  admitted  that,  in  private  conversations 

1  Dropmore  Papers,  vn.  148;  Barham  Papers,  ill.  68,  69;  O.  Browning,  44,  100, 
174,  191 ;  Coquelle,  62-5. 

2  Dropmore  Papers,  vn.  149,  151. 

3  Ferdinand  IV  was  willing  (A.  Bonnefons,  Marie  Caroline,  p.  261). 


DETERMINATION  OF  THE  BRITISH  CABINET   323 

with  the  First  Consul,  three  or  four  years  had  been  named  by  the  latter 
as  the  longest  possible  term  for  a  British  occupation  of  Malta.  Joseph 
Bonaparte,  also,  now  declared  that  he  found  in  his  brother  a  dis- 
position to  avoid  a  rupture,  and  that  he  was  perplexed  how  to  act. 
Whitworth,  therefore,  considered  that  negotiation  was  still  possible, 
but  that  it  was  likely  to  be  with  the  sole  purpose  of  gaining  time 
for  French  preparations.  The  First  Consul  had  just  sent  off  General 
Lauriston  to  London,  with  despatches  for  Andreossi,  who  would 
probably  be  recalled,  as  too  Anglophil  in  sentiment.  Talleyrand,  how- 
ever, also  wrote  to  Andreossi,  urging  him  to  see  Hawkesbury  and  try 
to  bring  him  to  a  reasonable  decision.  But  the  British  Cabinet  had 
uttered  its  last  word,  and  was  now  as  inflexible  as  it  had  previously  been 
complaisant.  At  Paris,  Joseph  Bonaparte  and  Talleyrand  worked  hard 
for  peace ;  and  their  efforts  can  hardly  but  have  been  furthered  by  the 
arrival  of  news  of  the  almost  complete  destruction  of  the  French  forces 
in  Hayti.  Foreseeing  the  effects  of  these  tidings  on  the  temper  of  the 
First  Consul,  Whitworth  did  not  attend  the  Sunday  reception  at  the 
Tuileries,  and  thus  escaped  the  tirade  prepared  for  him,  which  in 
fractions  was  vented  on  those  present. 

Various  expedients  were  resorted  to  by  the  friends  of  peace  for 
the  purpose  of  delaying  Whitworth 's  departure  from  Paris,  fixed  for 
May  3rd.  Joseph  Bonaparte  sent  a  belated  proposal  to  hand  over 
Malta  to  Russia,  which  Whitworth  declined  to  consider.  Talleyrand 
pointed  out,  that  the  final  British  terms  would  in  any  case  necessitate 
a  consultation  of  all  the  Powers  named  as  guarantors  in  Article  X — 
a  proceeding  evidently  designed  to  gain  time.  The  final  proposal,  that, 
after  Malta  had  been  in  British  hands  for  a  term  of  years,  it  should 
revert  to  Russia,  met  with  some  support  from  Whitworth,  as  calculated 
to  humour  Bonaparte,  whose  violent  temper,  if  crossed  at  all  points, 
might  lead  to  something  desperate.  Markoff  did  not  think  the  Tsar 
would  accede  to  this  plan,  and,  on  May  yth,  Hawkesbury  brushed 
aside  all  these  proposals  as  "  loose,  indefinite  and  unsatisfactory," 
adding  that  he  had  authentic  information  that  Russia  would  not  consent 
to  garrison  Malta.  Nevertheless,  he  sent  to  Whitworth  Instructions 
practically  identical  with  those  of  April  23rd.  But  Napoleon  would  not 
hear  of  a  longer  occupation  of  Malta  than  a  year  or  two.  In  a  Council 
of  seven  persons  held  at  St  Cloud  on  May  nth  only  two,  Joseph 
Bonaparte  and  Talleyrand,  were  for  peace.  The  others  followed  the 
First  Consul,  in  approving  a  course  certain  to  lead  to  a  rupture. 

Unfortunately,  the  war  party  was  now  strengthened  by  the  arrival 

21 — 2 


324  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

of  an  offer  from  the  Tsar  to  intervene  in  the  Maltese  affair ;  and  this  was 
taken  as  a  sign  of  his  intention  to  support  France.  Afterwards, 
Napoleon  would  not  listen  to  any  pacific  proposal,  even  from  his 
brother.  Accordingly,  Whitworth  quitted  Paris  on  May  i2th,  having 
been  delayed  (as  he  phrased  it)  by  "infamous  chicanery."  On  the 
morrow,  Talleyrand  sent  after  him  a  note,  evidently  inspired  by  the 
First  Consul,  setting  forth  with  much  acerbity  the  faults  of  the  British 
Government,  dilating  on  his  championship  of  the  sanctity  of  Treaties, 
and  declaring  that,  if  France  gave  way  now,  she  would  next  be  required 
to  destroy  her  harbours,  fill  up  her  canals,  and  ruin  her  manufactures. 
He  charged  Great  Britain  with  insulting  the  French  nation  and  aiming 
at  the  destruction  of  the  Order  of  St  John ;  and  he  once  more  offered 
to  place  Malta  under  the  control  of  either  Russia,  or  Austria,  or  Prussia. 
Hawkesbury  declined  the  proposal,  as  calculated  merely  to  spin  out 
the  negotiation.  Whitworth  embarked  at  Calais  on  May  lyth,  and  was 
received  in  London  somewhat  coolly  by  Ministers  as  having  exceeded 
his  Instructions  and  listened  to  dilatory  proposals.  He,  for  his  part, 
privately  criticised  Hawkesbury  and  stated  that  France,  being  un- 
prepared for  war,  would  have  given  way  about  Malta,  if  our  terms  had 
not  been  so  specific.  Certainly,  Joseph  Bonaparte,  Talleyrand,  and 
a  few  other  leading  men,  desired  peace  even  at  the  price  of  extensive 
concessions;  but  the  British  Ministers  had  become  convinced  that 
Napoleon's  sole  aim  was  to  gain  time  until  the  naval  situation  became 
less  unfavourable.  Talleyrand,  finally,  declared  that,  if  the  British 
Government  had  humoured  Napoleon  to  some  extent,  he  would  have 
made  them  a  present  of  Malta1.  No  words  of  the  First  Consul  bear 
out  that  statement. 

In  one  important  matter,  however,  the  Addington  Cabinet  had 
offended  Russia .  If  we  may  trust  the  statements  of  Vorontzoff ,  Russian 
Ambassador  at  London,  he  had,  previous  to  the  rupture,  handed  to 
Hawkesbury  the  Tsar's  offer  of  mediation  on  the  Maltese  affair.  No 
notice  was  taken  of  this  offer ;  and,  after  the  outbreak  of  war,  Vorontzoff 
was  astounded  by  Addington's  statement  in  the  House  of  Commons 
that,  if  such  mediation  had  been  offered,  due  regard  would  have  been 
paid  to  it.  To  his  request  for  an  explanation,  Hawkesbury  replied  that 
he  had  not  had  time  to  bring  the  matter  before  the  King,  but  would 
take  an  early  opportunity  of  doing  so.  As  will  shortly  appear,  Fox 
pressed  the  House  to  declare  in  favour  of  Russia's  mediation,  and 
Ministers  complied;  but,  after  Hawkesbury's  evasion,  Alexander,  of 
1  O.  Browning,  224-69;  Malmesbury,  iv.  250-4. 


THE  RESPONSIBILITY  FOR  THE  RUPTURE       325 

course,  refused  to  deal  with  the  Addington  Cabinet.  Well  might 
Vorontzoff  declare  that  our  Foreign  Office  "spoilt  all1." 

In  a  question  so  complex  as  that  of  the  rupture  of  the  Peace  of 
Amiens  it  is  not  easy  to  adjust  the  responsibility  with  any  approach 
to  exactitude.  That  the  British  Government  was,  in  a  technical  sense, 
guilty  is  obvious ;  and  there  is  no  force  in  the  plea  that  the  terms  of 
that  Peace  were  unworkable ;  for  the  men  who  signed  it  were  also  those 
who  infringed  Article  X.  Moreover,  in  the  last  stages  of  the  negotia- 
tion, their  insistence  was  so  rigid  as  to  expose  them  to  the  charge  of 
breaking  the  peace  of  the  world  in  order  to  acquire  Malta.  Further, 
their  procedure  was  inconsistent.  In  the  month  of  April,  1803,  they 
assumed  an  unbending  attitude,  which  was  all  the  more  surprising  and 
annoying  by  contrast  with  their  tame  acquiescence  throughout  nearly 
the  whole  of  the  year  1802.  Doubtless,  their  intention  finally  was  to 
impress  Napoleon  with  the  power  of  the  British  Government  to  make 
out  a  good  case,  and  of  the  nation  to  support  it,  if  need  be,  by  force 
of  arms.  If  so,  the  change  was  belated  and  abrupt.  Probably,  it  seemed 
to  him  unreal ;  for  it  evoked  from  him  further  efforts  at  intimidation, 
nor  did  he  lower  his  tone  until,  to  his  surprise,  he  discovered  the 
imminence  of  hostilities  which  might  cost  him  an  expeditionary  force. 
There  seems,  therefore,  good  ground  for  concluding  that  Addington 
and  his  colleagues  never  recovered  the  ground  lost  by  their  previous 
tame  acquiescence,  and  that,  by  the  end  of  the  year  1802,  Napoleon  had 
concluded  that  they  were  amenable  to  methods  of  intimidation  which 
he  had  found  successful  in  every  other  instance.  A  study  of  history 
should  have  revealed  to  him  the  error  of  coercing  the  Island  Power  over- 
much. But  it  should,  also,  have  prescribed  to  the  British  Government 
the  maxim  Principiis  obsta,  in  dealing  with  a  man  who  both  in  power 
and  ambition  dwarfed  Lewis  XIV.  Moreover,  they  took  no  steps  effec- 
tively to  explain  the  British  case ;  and  by  failing  to  bring  home  to  the 
public  Napoleon's  violations  of  the  Treaties  of  Luneville  and  Amiens, 
and  by  letting  the  whole  stress  lie  on  Malta  (the  weakest  part  of  their 
case)  they  appeared  before  the  world  as  treaty-breakers,  while  he 
figured  as  the  champion  of  international  justice.  No  important  negotia- 
tions have  ever  been  more  signally  mismanaged  than  those  of  Amiens 
and  their  sequel  by  Addington  and  Hawkesbury.  From  this  censure 
however,  the  impartial  critic  will  except  Whitworth,  who,  through- 
out, tempered  firmness  with  discretion,  manliness  with  extreme 
forbearance. 

1  G.  Rose,  Diaries,  n.  41-4.  Vorontzoff  detested  Hawkesbury.  See  Malmesbury, 
IV.  192,  247,  253- 


326  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

On  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  admitted  that  for  a  self-respecting 
Power  to  keep  at  peace  with  Napoleon  was  at  all  times  difficult,  and 
in  1803  wellnigh  impossible.  His  military  and  civic  triumphs  filled 
him  with  boundless  confidence  and  swelled  his  inordinate  pride.  The 
diplomatic  success  over  Great  Britain  gained  at  Amiens  transcended 
the  fondest  hopes  of  Frenchmen1.  Yet  every  month  of  peace  aggran- 
dised his  power,  and  so  swift  was  the  transformation  as  to  bewilder 
all  beholders.  Great  Britain,  who  both  could  and  ought  to  have  pro- 
tested at  the  first  infraction  of  the  Treaties  of  Luneville  and  Amiens, 
was  informed  by  him  that  the  former  Treaty  did  not  concern  her ;  and 
her  statesmen,  intent  on  the  "experiment  of  continuing  the  Peace," 
failed  to  insist  emphatically  on  the  maintenance  of  the  order  of  things 
established  by  those  Treaties.  But  this  technical  omission  could  not 
bind  their  hands  indefinitely ;  and,  when  even  the  Orient  came  within 
the  sweep  of  Napoleon's  designs,  they  could  not  but  intervene.  They  did 
so  awkwardly,  even  clumsily.  They  took  no  effective  steps  to  concert 
with  Russia  measures  such  as  would,  probably,  have  imposed  moderation 
on  the  First  Consul.  And  when  her  offer  of  mediation  arrived  it 
received  cavalier  treatment,  which  was  destined  to  postpone  for  a  year 
all  hope  of  an  Anglo- Russian  alliance. 

These  shortcomings,  however,  arose  from  slackness  and  incom- 
petence, not  from  lust  of  domination.  In  view  of  the  Eastern  projects 
of  Napoleon,  it  was  but  reasonable  for  Great  Britain  to  require  the 
occupation  of  Malta  during  a  period  which  would  admit  of  the  con- 
struction of  docks  at  Lampedusa,  which  islet  would  then  serve  as  a 
Mediterranean  base,  while  Malta  reverted  to  the  Maltese.  In  the  cir- 
cumstances, nothing  short  of  this  could  safeguard  the  interests  of  Great 
Britain  in  the  Levant.  Her  retirement  from  the  Mediterranean  at  the 
end  of  1796  had  given  free  play  to  the  Oriental  designs  of  1798,  which 
had  been  directed  against  India.  Her  exclusion  from  that  sea  and  its 
domination  by  France  were  clearly  the  aims  of  Napoleon  in  gaining 
control  over  large  parts  of  its  coastline  in  1802-3.  A  Peace  so  fertile 
in  menacing  aggressions  was  no  peace ;  and  for  its  rupture  he  was  in 
effect  responsible.  Doubtless,  he  would  in  any  case  have  made  war, 
so  soon  as  the  French  and  Dutch  navies  were  ready ;  and  his  Instruc- 
tions to  Decaen  point  to  the  autumn  of  1804  as  the  probable  time2. 
Thus,  the  Addington  Administration,  notwithstanding  all  the  futility 
of  its  procedure,  was  right  in  its  final  resolve  to  bring  matters  to  an 

1  Pasquier,  Memoires,  I.  161. 

2  For  Decaen's  doings  at  the  Cape  see  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.  January,  1900. 


BRITISH  DECLARATION  OF  WAR  327 

immediate  issue.  News  that  arrived  from  Naples  justified  their 
decision.  Our  Ambassador  there,  a  Court,  wrote  to  Hawkesbury,  on 
April  aoth,  that  the  French  Envoy,  Alquier,  had  required  the  Govern- 
ment to  make  common  cause  with  France  against  Great  Britain;  for 
(said  Alquier)  "the  interests  of  the  two  countries  are  the  same.... It  is 
the  intention  of  France  to  shut  every  port  to  the  English  from  Holland 
to  the  Turkish  dominions,  to  prevent  the  exportation  of  her  merchan- 
dise and  to  give  a  mortal  blow  to  her  commerce,  for  there  she  is  most 
vulnerable.  Our  joint  forces  may  wrest  from  her  hands  the  island  of 
Malta."  Acton,  in  reply,  refused  to  violate  the  neutrality  of  Ferdinand 
towards  his  former  Ally1.  These  tidings  from  Naples  clinched  the 
evidence  that  Napoleon  was  planning  a  war  of  annihilation  against  the 
Island  Power2. 

The  British  Government  declared  war  on  May  i8th;  and,  on  that 
same  day,  H.M.  frigate  Doris,  after  a  running  fight,  captured  off 
Ushant  an  armed  French  lugger  which  resisted  detention.  The  conduct 
of  the  Doris  was  perhaps  a  little  severe,  Admiral  Cornwallis,  who 
commanded  the  squadron  off  Brest,  having  on  May  i6th  ordered  his 
cruisers  merely  to  detain  French  vessels3.  Infuriated  by  this  event, 
the  First  Consul  ordered  the  detention  of  all  British  males  of  military 
age  then  in  France,  a  tyrannical  act  which  more  than  anything  else 
tended  to  make  our  people  wholehearted  in  the  War.  These  incidents 
and  the  diatribes  of  Napoleon  against  la  perfide  Albion  tended  to 
popularise  a  War  which  the  great  mass  of  Frenchmen  had  previously 
disliked.  On  this  side  of  the  Channel,  the  contest  was  at  first  taken  up 
somewhat  doubtfully.  Parliament  was  kept  in  the  dark  as  to  the  merits 
of  the  case,  and  not  until  May  23rd  was  it  in  possession  of  information 
sufficient  for  a  debate.  Fox,  Grey  and  Whitbread  protested  against 
the  rupture.  The  views  of  Fox  were  a  curious  mixture  of  fatuity  and 
good  sense.  To  his  friends  he  had  long  been  declaring  that  Bonaparte 
was  really  afraid  of  war,  and  that  the  French  annexation  of  Piedmont 
and  treatment  of  Germany  were  defensible.  As  for  Malta  and  Egypt, 
he  belittled  their  importance,  and  more  than  once  asserted  that  the 
question  of  Peace  or  War  was  bound  up  with  that  of  turning  out  the 
Addington  Ministry.  On  the  other  hand,  he  saw  clearly  that  we  could 
not  possibly  help  the  Swiss,  and  that  war  with  France  would  probably 

1  P.O.  Sicily  and  Naples,  54. 

2  French  troops  soon  reoccupied  the  heel  of  Italy,  an  act  which  the  French 
Foreign  Office  sought  to  justify  by  reference  to  an  alleged  secret  article  of  the  Treaty 
of  Amiens,  which  had  no  existence.   See  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.  April,  1900,  pp.  331-5. 

3  J.  Leyland,  Blockade  of  Brest,  i.  14. 


328  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

tend  to  aggrandise  her  power1.  In  his  speech  of  May  23rd,  he  declared 
vehemently  that  the  War  was  all  about "  bare  Malta,  unconnected  with 
any  great,  general,  generous  interest  of  Europe  " ;  but  he  concluded  by 
strongly  urging  acceptance  of  the  recent  proposal  of  the  Emperor  of 
Russia  to  mediate  between  us  and  France  on  the  Maltese  question. 
Hawkesbury  made  a  lame  reply,  stating  that,  while  he  sympathised 
with  the  end  proposed,  yet  its  realisation  must  cause  hesitation,  delay 
and  the  enfeebling  of  the  nation's  effort.  Pitt,  also,  applauded  the 
motives  of  Fox,  but  advised  trust  in  the  Government  as  to  the  time 
and  manner  of  giving  them  effect.  Above  all,  he  pleaded  for  unity  in 
the  prosecution  of  the  struggle  for  national  security.  Finally,  Hawkes- 
bury promised  to  use  all  possible  means  for  coming  to  an  understanding 
with  Russia  respecting  the  subject  in  dispute.  On  May  28th,  he  drew 
up  a  Note  requesting  the  Tsar  to  mediate,  not  merely  respecting  Malta, 
but  also  in  the  affairs  of  Europe.  The  following  was  suggested  as  a 
basis:  Great  Britain  to  retain  Malta,  unless  France  would  either 
renounce  all  her  Italian  possessions  and  reinstate  the  King  of  Sardinia, 
or  retire  from  the  Belgic  Provinces,  placing  them  under  some  powerful 
sovereign.  The  Tsar  waved  aside  these  proposals,  probably  from  dislike 
and  distrust  of  the  Addington  Cabinet. 

The  tongue-tied  gaucherie  of  Ministers,  when  contrasted  with  the 
effective  diatribes  of  Bonaparte,  created  so  general  a  prejudice  against 
Great  Britain  as  to  preclude  much  hope  of  her  finding  an  Ally.  Con- 
sequently, she  had  to  trust  to  the  pressure  of  maritime  warfare;  and 
the  course  of  the  War  was  to  reveal  the  slowness  of  such  methods, 
when  contrasted  with  the  swift  action  of  the  Land  Power,  possessing 
the  central  position  and  nearly  all  the  strategic  points,  from  the  Texel 
to  the  heel  of  Italy.  The  first  events  of  the  War,  as  Fox  foretold,  at 
once  aggrandised  the  might  of  Napoleon.  Having  already  massed  a 
considerable  force  in  the  Dutch  Netherlands,  he  launched  it  against 
Hanover,  despite  the  Declaration  of  George  III,  as  Elector  and  Prince 
of  the  Empire,  on  May  i6th,  that  he  would  maintain  strict  neutrality. 
The  Tsar,  though  guarantor  of  the  Germanic  System,  offered  no 
effective  protest  against  the  invasion  of  Hanover,  and  the  King  of 
Prussia,  guarantor  of  the  neutrality  of  Northern  Germany,  likewise 
maintained  a  prudent  reserve,  probably  because  he  had  been  cajoled 
or  coerced  by  General  Duroc,  despatched  by  Napoleon  to  Berlin  in 
March,  1803.  Hanover,  therefore,  was  occupied  without  opposition 
by  General  Mortier.  He  concluded  with  the  Duke  of  Cambridge,  at 

1  Memorials  of  C.  J.  Fox,  in.  372,  381,  384,  388,  391. 


RUSSIAN  AND  FRENCH  DESIGNS  329 

Suhlingen,  a  Capitulation,  which  George  III  refused  to  ratify.  Mortier 
therefore,  treated  the  Electorate  as  a  conquered  land.  Its  revenues  were 
controlled  by  France  and  her  troops  were  supported  by  the  popula- 
tion. Napoleon,  also,  excluded  British  commerce  from  the  north- 
western coast  of  Germany,  which  was,  therefore,  blockaded  by  the 
British  fleet1.  The  consequent  stagnation  of  trade  in  Germany  induced 
the  Tsar  to  undertake  a  negotiation  for  a  general  settlement,  on  the 
basis  of  the  evacuation  by  France  of  the  Dutch  Netherlands,  Switzer- 
land and  all  Italy  (except  Piedmont),  Malta  also  being  occupied  for 
a  time  by  Russian  troops.  To  these  proposals  neither  belligerent 
acceded,  Napoleon  deeming  them  excessive,  while  the  British  Govern- 
ment feared  to  place  Malta  as  a  pledge  in  Russian  hands.  There  were 
some  grounds  for  this  mistrust.  Alexander  had  taken  the  Republic  of 
the  Ionian  Isles  under  his  suzerainty  and  was  now  seeking  to  gain  a 
foothold  in  Albania  and  the  Morea.  The  designs  of  Napoleon  were 
similar,  but  far  wider,  extending  to  the  eventual  partition  of  the  Turkish 
dominions.  At  present,  these  schemes  clashed.  But  what  guarantee 
was  there  that,  so  soon  as  Malta  was  in  Alexander's  hands,  he  would 
not  become  an  accessory  to  the  designed  partition? 

In  the  Mediterranean,  circumstances  favoured  Great  Britain  far 
more  than  in  the  North  Sea.  True,  Napoleon  marched  a  large  force 
to  hold  the  heel  of  Italy  and  menace  Sicily,  Corfu,  the  Morea  and 
Egypt.  But  the  menace  was  hollow,  so  long  as  a  strong  British  fleet 
held  that  Sea.  Conscious  of  the  cardinal  importance  of  Levantine 
interests,  the  Cabinet  despatched  to  Malta  a  powerful  fleet  under 
Nelson.  His  Instructions,  of  date  May  i8th,  1803,  bade  him  protect 
Malta,  Naples,  Sicily,  the  Ionian  Isles  and  any  part  of  the  Turkish 
dominions  that  was  threatened,  while  preventing  Spanish  warships 
from  joining  the  French2.  It  soon  appeared  that  there  was  no  im- 
mediate prospect  of  a  Franco- Spanish  Alliance;  but  Nelson  was 
fully  occupied  in  covering  the  Levant  and  watching  the  French  in 
Toulon  and  southern  Italy.  Their  designs  on  Corfu  and  the  Morea 
caused  general  anxiety.  The  Porte,  alarmed  by  French  and  Russian 
intrigues  in  Albania  and  the  Morea,  heard  with  much  satisfaction  of 
the  arrival  of  Nelson's  fleet  at  Malta;  for  its  presence  at  that  com- 
manding port  sufficed  to  sterilise  the  Oriental  schemes  of  the  two 
potentates.  Fresh  light  was  thrown  on  Russian  designs  by  a  letter 
which  Pitt  received  from  the  young  Earl  of  Aberdeen,  dated  Patras, 

1  Garden,  vm.  193;  Paget  Papers,  II.  92;  Dropmore  Papers,  vii.  151. 

2  Nicolas,  v.  68;  also  v.  87,  107,  no,  166,  282. 


330  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

November  loth,  1803.  The  Earl,  after  a  lengthy  tour  in  the  Morea, 
expressed  his  sympathy  with  the  downtrodden  Greeks,  but  added: 
"the  Russians  are  more  detested  than  even  the  Turks  themselves. 
They  have  conceived  such  an  idea  of  the  ignorance  and  barbarity  of 
that  nation  as  renders  it  perfectly  impossible  for  the  Greeks  to  view 
their  conquests  with  a  favourable  eye,  notwithstanding  their  being  of 
the  same  race,  and  other  circumstances  tending  to  promote  a  friend- 
ship1." 

Seeing  that  Great  Britain  regarded  the  Turkish  empire  as  a 
bulwark  against  French  or  Russian  moves  towards  India,  accord  with 
Alexander  I  was  difficult.  And,  early  in  the  year  1804,  another  com- 
plication occurred.  The  childish  behaviour  of  George  III  betokened 
a  return  of  his  mental  malady.  The  change  caused  much  apprehension, 
not  only  in  England  but  in  every  Court  friendly  to  us;  for,  in  case 
of  another  attack  of  lunacy,  large  powers  would  be  wielded  by  the 
Prince  of  Wales,  still  a  patron  of  Fox  and  the  pacifist  group2.  This 
consideration,  the  political  nullity  of  Ministers,  and  the  coy  abstention 
of  Pitt  from  public  life,  depressed  British  prestige,  and  nothing  worthy 
of  note  occurred  until  the  spring  of  1804.  Then,  the  participation  of 
certain  subordinate  British  Ministers  in  the  Pichegru-Cadoudal  plot 
for  kidnapping  or  murdering  Napoleon,  brought  fresh  discredit  on  the 
Administration — a  farcical  sequel  to  the  affair  being  the  fooling  of 
Francis  Drake,  our  Envoy  at  Munich,  by  an  agent  provocateur  of 
Fouche's,  Mehee  de  la  Touche3.  This  affair,  and  the  inefficient 
preparations  of  Ministers  against  a  French  invasion,  helped  to  pre- 
cipitate a  crisis  which  had  long  been  imminent;  and,  near  the  end  of 
April,  Addington  advised  the  King  (who  had  now  in  some  measure 
recovered)  to  send  for  Pitt. 

The  opportunity  now  again  presented  itself  of  forming  a  truly 
national  Administration,  such  as  had  been  proposed  in  1794.  But  now, 
as  then,  the  bitter  prejudices  of  the  King  against  Fox  led  him  to  veto 
Pitt's  proposal  to  include  the  Whig  leader  and  his  followers.  Nothing 
could  bend  the  royal  will.  The  results  were  disastrous;  for  the  Gren- 
villes  and  Windham  had  latterly  united  with  Fox  to  overthrow 
Addington,  and  now  declined  to  join  a  Cabinet  formed  "  on  a  principle 
of  exclusion."  Their  abstention,  especially  that  of  Grenville,  was  a 
national  misfortune ;  for  it  deprived  the  country  of  his  great  experience 

1  Pitt  MSS.  104  (Pub.  Re'cord  Office). 

2  Dropmore  Papers,  VH.  214,  223  ;  G.  Rose,  Diaries,  chs.  n,  HI;  Malmesbury,  iv. 
288.  3  For  evidence  see  Rose,  Life  of  Napoleon,  I.  450-4. 


PITT'S  RETURN  TO  OFFICE  331 

and  stern  objectivity,  which  in  time  past  had  so  often  corrected  the 
sanguine  viewiness  of  Pitt.  The  Prime-Minister  now  assigned  the 
Foreign  Office  to  the  Earl  of  Harrowby,  the  Dudley  Ryder  of  Pitt's 
happier  days  at  Cambridge  and  Wimbledon.  In  1789-91,  Ryder 
served  as  Under- Secretary  for  Foreign  Affairs  with  the  Duke  of  Leeds, 
and  afterwards  as  Paymaster  of  the  Forces  and  Vice-president  of  the 
Board  of  Trade.  In  the  House,  his  knowledge  of  currency  questions 
and  power  of  exposition  gained  him  repute.  He  was  raised  to  the 
peerage,  as  first  Earl  of  Harrowby,  in  1803.  Uncertain  health  and 
temper  limited  the  circle  of  his  friends,  but  these  recognised  his 
abilities,  and  augured  for  him  a  distinguished  career  at  the  Foreign 
Office.  Hawkesbury  now  went  to  the  Home  Office,  Camden  to  the 
War  Office,  and  Melville  (formerly  Henry  Dundas)  to  the  Admiralty, 
from  which  St  Vincent  gladly  retired.  Addington  was  shelved ;  but  six 
of  his  colleagues  were  retained  by  Pitt.  Party  spirit  was  by  no  means 
assuaged  by  these  arrangements,  completed  in  May,  1804;  but  the 
genius  of  Pitt  and  the  recovery  of  the  King's  health  now  encouraged 
our  former  Allies  to  regard  less  unfavourably  an  Alliance  with  Great 
Britain. 

Thus,  at  last,  she  emerged  from  the  discredit  into  which  the 
Addington  Cabinet  had  allowed  her  to  sink ;  but  in  regard  neither  to 
home  nor  to  foreign  politics  was  her  situation  so  favourable  as  it  had 
been  at  the  beginning  of  1801 ,  when  Pitt  and  Grenville  resigned  office. 
The  weakness  and  incapacity  of  their  successors  may  justly  be  con- 
sidered as  the  fundamental  cause  of  the  defective  Treaty  of  Peace,  of 
its  infraction  by  Napoleon,  and  of  the  resumption  of  hostilities  under 
conditions  far  less  propitious  than  those  which  had  marked  the  close 
of  the  Revolutionary  War. 

II 

The  month  of  May,  1804,  which  saw  the  return  of  Pitt  to  office, 
was  marked,  also,  by  the  proclamation  of  the  French  Empire.  That 
dramatic  event,  a  sequel  to  the  kidnapping  and  execution  of  the  Due 
d'Enghien,  caused  not  less  satisfaction  to  the  French  Jacobins,  most 
of  whom  welcomed  the  advent  of  a  dynasty  stained  with  the  blood 
of  a  Bourbon,  than  abhorrence  to  other  Emperors.  But,  whereas 
Francis  II  (still  German  Emperor)  resorted  to  the  tame  rejoinder 
of  declaring  himself,  Francis  I,  Hereditary  Emperor  of  Austria, 
Alexander  I  evinced  great  indignation  and  for  a  time  suspended  dip- 
lomatic relations  with  France.  There  were,  however,  few  signs  that  he, 


332  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

still  less  that  Francis,  would  draw  the  sword  on  behalf  of  the  Bourbons 
or  to  avenge  the  Due  d'Enghien,  as  Gustavus  IV  of  Sweden  desired. 
In  the  previous  winter,  that  monarch  had  received  from  Paris  tempting 
offers  for  a  Franco- Swedish  alliance  with  a  view  to  obtaining  the  use 
of  the  Swedish  fleet  for  the  invasion  of  England.  In  return  for  this 
help,  Napoleon  offered  him  Norway  at  the  cost  of  Denmark,  the  latter 
Power  to  acquire  Bremen  and  Verden.  Prussia  he  tempted  by  the  offer 
of  Swedish  Pomerania  and  part  of  Hanover1.  Gustavus,  then  on  a 
lengthened  tour  in  Germany,  rejected  these  degrading  proposals,  and 
made  repeated  overtures  to  her  leading  States  for  a  monarchical 
crusade.  His  eccentric  behaviour  and  extravagant  profession  of  faith 
did  little  to  recommend  the  scheme. 

The  first  signs  of  a  rapprochement  between  Russia  and  Great  Britain 
appeared  early  in  1 804  owing  to  their  alarm  at  the  intrigues  of  Napoleon 
in  Albania  and  the  Morea.  On  March  Qth,  the  Tsar's  Foreign  Minister, 
Prince  Czartoryski,  wrote  to  Vorontzoff,  Russian  Ambassador  at 
London,  expressing  satisfaction  at  Great  Britain's  intention  to  oppose 
a  French  partition  of  the  Ottoman  Empire.  On  March  loth,  Warren 
reported  a  similar  resolve  on  the  part  of  the  Tsar.  A  Russian  force  had 
left  Sevastopol  for  Corfu,  and  it  was  hoped  that  Great  Britain  would 
send  troops  to  Malta  to  cooperate.  Thus,  out  of  the  revival  of  the 
Eastern  Question  sprang  the  Anglo-Russian  accord  of  i8o42.  It  was 
furthered  by  sympathy  with  the  dispossessed  King  of  Sardinia  and 
anxiety  respecting  the  kingdom  of  Naples.  Here,  the  royal  authority 
existed  on  sufferance  only.  Soon  after  his  rupture  with  Great  Britain, 
Napoleon  ordered  French  troops  into  Neapolitan  territory  in  defiance 
of  his  Treaty  of  Florence  with  Ferdinand  IV.  Moreover,  by  occupying 
the  heel  of  Italy  the  French  threatened  the  Russians  at  Corfu  and  the 
anarchic  western  provinces  of  Turkey.  British  and  Russian  policy, 
therefore,  began  to  converge  on  the  object  of  expelling  the  French 
from  southern  Italy.  Since  Russia  could  do  little  in  the  Mediterranean 
without  the  protection  of  the  British  fleet,  which  needed  Malta  as  base, 
Alexander  ought  to  have  acquiesced  in  Britain's  occupation  of  that 
island,  which  he  alone  could  not  possibly  hold  against  the  French  fleet. 
Naval  considerations,  therefore,  should  have  led  him  to  forego  his 
claim  to  Malta;  but,  as  will  duly  appear,  he  revived  it,  thereby  nearly 
ruining  the  Anglo-Russian  entente.  Moreover,  Russia's  demands  for 
subsidies  were  lofty,  and  on  so  vast  a  problem  as  the  future  settle- 

1  P.O.  Austria,  73.    C.  Stuart  to  Hawkesbury,  March  loth,  1804. 

2  Rose,  Third  Coalition,  pp.  viii-x. 


FRENCH  OFFENCES  AGAINST  LAW  OF  NATIONS    333 

ment  of  Europe  there  arose  certain  differences  of  opinion.  During 
the  summer  of  1804  discussions  proceeded  satisfactorily,  but,  on 
October  loth,  Harrowby  wrote  that  Russia  and  Austria  seemed  not 
disinclined  to  join  in  schemes  for  a  partition  of  Turkey  which 
Napoleon  was  dangling  before  them1.  Accordingly,  Russian  overtures 
were  scrutinised  closely,  especially  when  they  were  followed  by  a 
demand  for  the  evacuation  of  Malta.  Apparently,  Alexander  hoped 
that  the  increasing  power  of  Napoleon  and  the  growing  difficulties  of 
Great  Britain  would  induce  her  to  surrender  that  island. 

The  general  situation  was  complicated  by  Napoleon's  seizure  of 
Sir  George  Rumbold,  British  Minister-resident  in  the  Free  City  of 
Hamburg ;  and  by  the  rupture  between  Great  Britain  and  Spain.  The 
former  incident  illustrates  the  methods  of  the  Land  Power,  the  latter 
those  of  the  Sea  Power.  On  the  flimsy  pretext  that  British  Envoys  on 
the  Continent  had  conspired  against  him,  Napoleon,  on  October  yth, 
ordered  Fouche,  Minister  of  Police,  to  prepare  to  carry  off  Rumbold 
from  his  residence  on  the  river-front  at  Hamburg2.  On  the  24th,  the 
seizure  was  skilfully  effected,  and  Rumbold,  with  all  his  papers,  was 
hurried  off  to  Paris.  Not  even  the  eagerness  of  Bonaparte  and  the 
guile  of  Fouche  could  detect  signs  of  conspiracy  in  the  papers.  More- 
over, the  violation  of  the  territory  of  a  Free  City,  which  was  under  the 
protection  of  the  Tsar  and  the  guardianship  of  Frederick  William,  con- 
stituted a  challenge  to  both  those  potentates.  The  Prussian  monarch, 
as  Protector  of  the  Circle  of  Lower  Saxony,  sent  to  Paris  a  pressing 
request  for  Rumbold 's  liberation,  with  which  the  French  Emperor 
ungraciously  complied3.  The  incident  showed  that  the  Corsican  ven- 
detta spirit,  incarnate  in  Napoleon,  would  stoop  to  any  outrage 
calculated  to  wreak  revenge  upon  the  hated  islanders  and  drive  them 
from  the  Continent. 

The  same  month,  however,  witnessed  a  high-handed  infraction 
of  the  law  of  nations  by  Great  Britain  at  sea.  True,  she  had  grave  cause 
of  complaint  against  the  Court  of  Madrid  for  its  breaches  of  neutrality 
in  the  present  conflict ;  but  it  could  plead  force  majeure.  By  the  Con- 
vention of  October  igth,  1803,  Spain  had  agreed  to  pay  to  Napoleon 
the  yearly  sum  of  72,000,000  francs.  Further,  the  Aigle,  a  French  '74, 
had  long  been  in  harbour  at  Cadiz,  and  five  French  warships  took  refuge 
at  Corunna,  remaining  in  harbour  for  months,  and  necessitating  the 

1  Third  Coalition ,  p.  47. 

2  Nap.  Corr.  No.  8100. 

3  G.Jackson,  Diaries,  I.  242-52;  Malmesbury,  Diaries,  iv.  330-5;  Hardenberg, 
Denkwiirdigkeiten,  n.  94  et  seq. 


334  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

presence  of  British  ships  under  Cochrane  to  observe  them.  Indeed, 
Napoleon  acted  in  a  way  which  implied  control  over  those  dockyards ; 
and  Melville,  in  a  review  of  the  naval  situation  on  July  3rd,  stated  that 
we  must  regard  the  Spanish  fleet  as  a  probable  enemy1.  The  repeated 
protests  of  Frere,  British  Ambassador  at  Madrid,  against  Spain's 
infraction  of  neutrality,  were  ignored  or  explained  away,  until,  in 
September,  news  arrived  that  some  1500  French  troops  were  marching 
from  Bayonne  to  Corunna  to  reinforce  the  crews  of  the  five  ships ;  and 
Cochrane  forwarded  information  as  to  extensive  naval  preparations 
there  and  at  Cadiz.  The  British  Government,  thereupon,  sent  orders 
to  Frere  to  leave  Madrid  unless  he  received  satisfactory  assurances. 
But  it,  also,  resolved  to  seize  four  Spanish  treasure-ships  which  were 
reported  as  soon  due  at  Cadiz.  On  September  i8th,  the  Admiralty 
issued  orders  to  Admiral  Cornwallis,  commanding  the  British  fleet  off 
Brest  to  detach  two  frigates,  which,  with  other  ships  from  the  Straits 
or  off  Cadiz,  were  to  detain  the  treasure-ships.  Unfortunately,  Captain 
Graham  Moore  of  the  Indefatigable  could  pick  up  only  two  more 
British  frigates  before  October  5th,  when  he  sighted  the  four  armed 
Spaniards ;  and  Spanish  pride  scouted  the  thought  of  surrender  to  a 
nearly  equal  force.  In  the  ensuing  conflict,  one  of  the  Spaniards  blew 
up,  and  the  others  were  overpowered  and  captured.  The  Admiralty 
Instructions  clearly  contemplated  the  muster  of  enough  British  ships 
to  banish  all  thought  of  resistance.  Even  in  that  case,  to  capture 
four  armed  treasure  ships  before  a  declaration  of  war  constituted  a 
breach  of  the  Law  of  Nations.  The  British  Government,  therefore, 
erred,  first,  in  not  taking  an  earlier  opportunity  to  bring  matters  to  a 
decisive  issue ;  secondly,  in  deferring  action  until  the  Spanish  treasure- 
ships  were  nearing  home ;  thirdly,  in  not  assuring  the  despatch  of  a 
sufficient  force  to  satisfy  the  amour  propre  of  the  Spanish  commander. 
Frere  did  not  leave  Madrid  until  November  loth,  and  was  of  opinion 
that,  apart  from  this  unfortunate  incident,  a  rupture  must  have 
occurred2.  But  it  came  about  in  a  way  detrimental  to  British  prestige, 
and  made  an  unfavourable  impression  on  the  Tsar,  thereby  increasing 
the  difficulty  of  an  Anglo-Russian  rapprochement. 

This  development  was  to  be  furthered  by  the  arrival  at  Petrograd 
of  a  far  abler  Ambassador  than  Warren,  who  begged  to  be  recalled 
for  service  afloat3.  Lord  Granville  Leveson-Gower,  first  Lord  Gran- 

1  Nap.  Corr.  7007,  7098,  7113,  7742;  Nicolas,  v.  484;  Barham  Papers,  in.  42. 

z  J.  Leyland,  Blockade  of  Brest,  n.  34,  36,  64,  87-9,  126;  Nicolas,  v.  241 ;  Parl. 

Debates, HI.  74, 89, 91 .    3  Czartoryski,  Memoirs,  1.319;  Malmesbury,  Diaries,  iv.  254. 


CZARTORYSKI'S  MEMORANDUM  335 

ville  (1773-1846),  was  a  devoted  Pittite,  who  in  1800  had  been 
appointed  a  Lord  of  the  Treasury.  He  arrived  at  Petrograd  early  in 
November,  1804.  His  Instructions,  dated  October  loth,  bade  him 
assist  in  the  Austro-Russian  accord,  arrange  for  a  suitable  compromise 
between  Austria  and  Sardinia  in  North  Italy,  and  set  right  a  mis- 
understanding that  had  arisen  as  to  the  proposed  Anglo- Russian 
operations  in  South  Italy.  Harrowby  pointed  out  that,  if  the  French 
seized  the  whole  of  southern  Italy,  and  perhaps  Sicily  also,  the  pro- 
visioning of  Nelson's  fleet  would  become  so  difficult  as  greatly  to 
increase  the  chances  of  the  Toulon  fleet  capturing  the  Russian  force 
at  Corfu,  and  gaining  a  foothold  in  the  Morea.  Even  these  arguments 
produced  little  effect  at  Petrograd ;  for  larger  questions  now  arose  to 
overshadow  them. 

Alexander  had  decided  to  lay  the  basis  of  a  new  European  System, 
and  for  this  purpose  despatched  to  London  his  confidant  and  counsellor, 
Novossiltzoff ,  who  was  charged  to  communicate  direct  with  Pitt  and 
Harrowby.  His  Instructions,  dated  September  nth  [O.S.]  1804,  pre- 
scribe as  guiding  principles  the  liberation  of  Europe  from  Napoleonic 
control  and  the  establishment  of  institutions  "founded  on  the  sacred 
rights  of  humanity."  France  is  to  be  restrained  within  just  limits, 
Sardinia  and  other  States  gaining  at  her  expense.  A  Federal  System  is 
suggested  for  Germany.  Above  all,  European  Peace  will  be  guaranteed 
by  a  league  of  the  Great  Powers,  headed  by  Russia  and  Great  Britain, 
a  Code  of  International  Law  being  drawn  up  for  the  guidance  of  all 
States,  binding  them  to  use  their  united  forces  against  any  member 
guilty  of  its  infraction.  A  partition  of  the  Turkish  empire  is  hinted 
at  as  possible ;  and  the  document  closes  with  the  suggestion  that,  if 
other  States  gain  in  territory,  the  two  protagonists  should  secure 
equivalent  advantages;  Great  Britain,  however,  being  urged  to 
mitigate  her  Maritime  Code.  This  ideal  programme  was  corporealised 
by  Czartoryski  in  a  secret  Memorandum,  which  placed  Alexander  on 
the  throne  of  a  Great  Poland  comprising  the  "kingdom  of  Prussia"; 
as  an  equivalent  for  which  Austria  was  to  absorb  Bavarian  and  Suabian 
lands,  Frederick  William  annexing  States  in  western  Germany,  and 
even  the  Dutch  Netherlands,  if  necessary.  Turkey  was  to  be  left  alone, 
until  she  should  somehow  dissolve  into  a  Federation  of  States  acknow- 
ledging Alexander  as  "  Protector  of  the  Slavs  of  the  East."  Whether  this 
secret  Memorandum  received  the  Tsar's  authorisation  or  was  merely 
Czartoryski's  pro-Polish  gloss  on  his  phrase  "equivalent  advantages," 
is  far  from  clear.  Alexander,  more  than  once,  drew  up  a  lofty  pro- 


336  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

gramme  and  left  to  subordinates  its  reduction  to  profitable  practice. 
In  any  case,  NovossiltzofFs  mission  bristled  with  difficulties.  He  had 
to  humour  the  Anglophil  Vorontzoff,  and  yet  lower  British  maritime 
claims ;  to  remould  the  Continent  on  ideal  principles  by  means  of  a 
Coalition  likely  to  prove  distressingly  worldly;  and,  if  possible,  to 
arrange  for  the  peaceful  demise  of  Turkey  and  the  resurrection  of 
Poland  at  the  expense  of  the  Tsar's  expected  Ally,  Prussia.  It  is  not 
surprising  that  Czartoryski  finally  declared  that "  Novossiltzoff  did  not 
execute  the  mission  to  our  satisfaction1." 

His  further  statement  that  neither  Pitt  nor  Vorontzoff  approved 
all  the  Russian  proposals  is  open  to  question ;  for  there  is  documentary 
proof  that  Pitt  acceded  to  the  most  important  of  them.  Harrowby 
having  been  injured  by  an  accident  just  after  the  preliminary  in- 
terviews, Lord  Mulgrave  at  the  close  of  1804  came  to  supervise 
affairs  at  the  Foreign  Office;  but  the  negotiation  for  the  Third 
Coalition  needed  the  action,  not  of  a  locum  tenens,  but  of  the 
Prime-Minister.  In  a  long  Note  of  January  iQth,  1805,  to  Novos- 
siltzoff, the  British  Government  declared  its  fundamental  agreement 
with  the  generous  designs  of  the  Tsar  for  the  deliverance  of  Europe 
and  its  future  tranquillity.  The  basis  of  Anglo-Russian  union  should 
be  the  restriction  of  France  within  her  former  limits,  the  adoption 
in  the  liberated  territories  of  measures  calculated  to  ensure  their  peace 
and  wellbeing  and  to  constitute  them  a  barrier  against  French  aggran- 
disement; also  to  establish,  at  the  peace,  a  guarantee  for  the  safety 
of  the  different  Powers  and  to  reestablish  in  Europe  a  general  system 
of  Public  Law.  For  the  attainment  of  these  great  objects  a  general 
Coalition  must  be  formed,  including  if  possible  Prussia.  The  Dutch 
and  Swiss  Republics,  the  kingdom  of  Sardinia,  and  Tuscany  and 
Modena  should  be  reestablished,  while  the  other  lands  previously 
conquered  or  controlled  by  France  must  form  part  of  the  new  Barrier 
System.  For  the  same  purpose,  the  Sardinian  monarchy  should  be 
strengthened,  and  Austria  and  Prussia  placed  in  strong  positions 
over  against  France  in  Italy  and  near  the  Netherlands2.  The  British 
Note  made  no  reference  to  the  vaguer  topics  named  in  Novossiltzoffs 
Instructions,  nor  did  it  mention  Malta  and  the  Maritime  Code.  Prob- 
ably, he  left  them  unnoticed  in  these  his  first  interviews,  and  main- 
tained a  discreet  silence  concerning  Czartoryski 's  favourite  scheme  for 

1  Czartoryski,  Memoirs,  chs.  iv,  v.  The  Grand-duke  Mikhailovich  (UEmpereur 
Alexandra  I,  I.  38)  considers  the  Novossiltzoff  mission  the  Tsar's  first  independent 
effort  in  diplomacy. 

2  C.  K.  Webster,  British  Diplomacy  (1813-1815),  App.  i. 


PITT  AND  THE  RUSSIAN  PROPOSALS  337 

absorbing  the  original  kingdom  of  Prussia  and  pushing  her  westwards. 
Perhaps,  Vorontzoff  dissuaded  him  also  from  naming  Austria's  acquisi- 
tion of  Bavarian  and  Suabian  territories,  a  notion  always  firmly  opposed 
by  George  III  and  his  Ministers. 

Distinguishing  the  chimerical  from  the  practical  portions  of  the 
Russian  programme,  we  may  conclude  that  Pitt  laid  stress  on  the 
latter  and  kept  them  to  the  fore  in  the  negotiations;  also,  that  Malta 
and  the  Maritime  Code  were  not  at  first  mentioned ;  for,  on  or  about 
January  iQth,  Novossiltzoff  reported  that  the  British  Government 
entirely  agreed  with  the  proposals  he  had  hitherto  made,  especially 
when  he  characterised  them  as  designed  to  restore  the  Balance  of 
Power.  Pitt,  after  promising  subsidies  amounting  to  £5,000,000  to 
the  Allies,  declared  that  the  aims  of  the  two  countries  exactly  coincided, 
as  indeed  will  appear  from  a  comparison  of  the  present  proposals  with 
those  made  by  Pitt  and  Grenville  to  Russia  in  their  Note  of  November 
1 6th,  1798,  outlining  the  programme  for  the  Second  Coalition. 
Perhaps  the  more  practical  portions  of  the  Tsar's  programme  were 
inspired  by  that  Note,  which,  in  its  turn,  focussed  Grenville's 
settlement  suggested  on  December  22nd,  1795.  There  is  a  marked 
similarity  between  the  British  proposals  of  1795,  1798,  1805  and 
I8I41. 

NovossiltzofFs  caution  in  holding  back  some  of  the  more  conten- 
tious of  the  Russian  demands  probably  arose  from  a  desire  not  to  com- 
plicate further  an  already  tangled  situation.  As  had  happened  at  the 
close  of  1799,  when  Great  Britain  was  discussing  with  her  Allies  the 
terms  of  a  possible  pacification,  so  again  now,  early  in  1805,  Napo- 
leon sent  New  Year's  offers  of  peace  to  George  III2.  The  King  in 
his  Speech  from  the  Throne,  of  January  i5th,  referred  to  them 
courteously,  but  declined  further  discussion  "without  previous  com- 
munication with  those  Powers  on  the  Continent  with  whom  I  am 
engaged  in  confidential  intercourse,  and  especially  with  the  Emperor 
of  Russia,  who  has  given  the  strongest  proofs  of  the  wise  and  dignified 
sentiments  with  which  he  is  animated,  and  of  the  warm  interest  which 
he  takes  in  the  safety  and  independence  of  Europe."  This  reply,  like 
that  of  January,  1800,  was  calculated  to  reassure  our  friends  that  we 
would  not  lay  down  our  arms  without  due  consultation  with  them. 
Vorontzoff ,  in  further  interviews  with  Pitt,  found  him  ready  to  concur  in 

1  For  the  British  draft  treaties  of  January  2ist  and  March  isth,  1805,  see  Third 
Coalition,  pp.  90,  119. 

*  Nap.  Corr.  No.  8252.  On  the  same  day  (January  2nd,  1805)  he  wrote  to  the 
King  of  Spain  urging  him  to  make  war  on  England. 

W.&G.  I.  22 


338  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

the  Russian  proposals  for  the  settlement  of  Europe,  but "  quite  decided 
not  to  give  up  Malta,"  and  not  to  relax  the  British  Maritime  Code. 
In  the  month  of  May,  a  breakdown  of  the  negotiation  seemed  in- 
evitable, for  Pitt,  though  deeply  grieved  at  such  an  issue,  would  not 
give  way,  and  intimated  that  Leveson-Gower's  hands  were  tied  on 
those  two  questions. 

Meanwhile,  on  April  nth,  1805,  that  Ambassador  had  signed  with 
Czartoryski  a  Treaty  which,  in  the  main,  corresponded  closely  with  a 
draft  sent  from  London  a  month  earlier.  He  met  with  several  diffi- 
culties; for,  though  Novossiltzoff,  on  his  return  to  Petrograd,  gave  a 
satisfactory  account  of  British  policy,  yet  Alexander  and  Czartoryski 
began  to  insist  on  modifications.  They  required  that  the  King  of 
Sardinia  should  acquire  the  Genoese  Republic,  to  which  Leveson- 
Gower  demurred  as  harsh  and  unjust  to  its  inhabitants.  Then,  they 
haggled  over  the  conditions  of  the  British  subsidies,  and  demanded 
that  Novossiltzoff,  who  was  to  go  to  Paris  to  present  the  Allied  terms, 
should  stipulate  the  revision  of  the  Maritime  Code  by  a  Congress,  also 
the  evacuation  of  Malta  by  the  British  troops,  and  its  occupation  by 
Russian  troops,  in  case  Napoleon  absolutely  insisted  on  such  a  clause 
as  a  sine  qua  non  of  peace.  The  British  Ambassador  fought  these  two 
proposals  and  finally  procured  the  abandonment  of  the  former,  the  other 
being  made  conditional  on  the  consent  of  the  British  Government, which 
of  course,  would  not  be  forthcoming.  Leveson-Gower  counted  the 
insertion  of  this  proviso  a  diplomatic  triumph ;  but  he  had  not  reckoned 
on  the  pertinacity  of  Alexander,  who  finally  demanded  the  inclusion  of 
the  original  demand.  It  met  with  an  equally  firm  refusal  at  London, 
Mulgrave  declaring,  on  June  5th,  that  Great  Britain  was  ready  to  give 
up  important  conquests  in  the  East  and  West  Indies,  but  could  not 
now  surrender  Malta,  which  protected  the  Levant  and  the  kingdom  of 
Naples.  The  island  in  British  hands  was  a  purely  defensive  station,  but 
in  those  of  France  would  be  a  constant  menace  to  Sicily,  southern 
Italy  and  the  East1.  Moreover,  in  April,  1805,  Great  Britain  had 
despatched  about  7000  troops,  under  General  Sir  James  Craig,  to  the 
Mediterranean  over  a  sea  not  under  her  control2;  while  the  Tsar  was 
sending  from  Sevastopol  and  Corfu  a  larger  force, under  General  Lacey 
(Lasci),  which  depended  largely  upon  British  transports.  How  Great 
Britain  was  to  support  these  forces  in  southern  Italy  if  she  gave  up 
Malta,  was  not  explained  by  Alexander  and  his  advisers. 

1  Third  Coalition,  pp.  127-40,  155. 

2  Gen.  H.  Bunbury,  The  Great  War,  pp.  181-97. 


ANGLO-RUSSIAN  NEGOTIATIONS  AND  NAPOLEON  339 

In  a  final  effort  to  placate  them,  Pitt  and  Mulgrave  consented  to 
the  eventual  admission  of  a  Russian  garrison  to  Valetta,  provided  that 
the  States  bordering  on  France  should  be  strengthened  sufficiently  to 
form  a  solid  barrier  against  French  aggression,  and,  also,  that  arrange- 
ments could  be  made  with  Spain  for  the  cession  of  Minorca  to  Great 
Britain  in  place  of  Malta.  This  last  provision  found  definite  expression 
in  Mulgrave's  despatch  of  June  yth,  while  Pitt,  in  a  majestic  survey  of 
the  services  of  Great  Britain  to  the  common  cause,  set  forth  cogent 
reasons  why  the  transfer  of  Malta  to  Russia  would  not  strengthen  her 
efforts.  Yet,  very  reluctantly,  he  consented  to  accept  some  other  station 
in  the  Mediterranean,  provided  that  Sardinia  were  greatly  strengthened, 
that  Switzerland  gained  entire  independence,  and  that  Prussia  acquired 
Luxemburg  and  the  country  between  the  Moselle,  Rhine  and  Meuse, 
so  as  to  interpose  a  strong  military  barrier  between  France  and  the 
Dutch  Netherlands1.  The  scheme  adumbrates  that  which  came  about 
in  1814. 

Long  before  the  British  despatches  of  June  5th  and  yth  reached 
Petrograd,  Novossiltzoff  had  left  for  Berlin,  en  route  for  Paris2.  The 
situation  accordingly  was  complex  and  obscure.  Ostensibly,  he  was 
about  to  offer  to  Napoleon,  in  answer  to  his  New  Year's  appeal,  the 
Anglo-Russian  terms  for  a  general  pacification;  but  the  two  Powers 
disagreed  on  important  topics;  and  their  disagreement  could  hardly 
escape  his  eager  scrutiny.  We  now  know  that  Napoleon  was  resolved 
not  to  listen  to  Russia's  mediation3. 

Indeed,  during  his  Italian  tour  of  the  early  summer  of  1805,  his 
deeds  and  writings  betrayed  supreme  contempt  for  the  other  Powers. 
A  prey  to  megalomania,  he  expressed  complete  belief  in  the  success  of 
his  schemes  for  the  invasion  of  England  or  Ireland,  adding  that,  as  a 
result,  "  the  Indies  are  ours  when  we  want  to  take  them."  He  scoffed 
at  the  Anglo- Russian  negotiations  and  ridiculed  the  notion  that  another 
Coalition  could  be  formed4.  Yet  he  took  the  steps  that  were  best 
calculated  to  provoke  it.  First,  he  declared  himself  King  of  Italy — 
a  signal  infraction  of  the  Treaty  of  Luneville — and,  soon  afterwards, 
he  framed  the  daring  plan  of  annexing  to  France  the  Ligurian  or 
Genoese  Republic,  which  he  carried  into  effect  on  June  4th5.  This 

1  Third  Coalition,  pp.  165-74;  Corbett,  Campaign  of  Trafalgar,  App.  A.  The 
Minorca  proposal  has  been  overlooked  by  Sorel  (vi.  417)  and  most  writers. 

2  He  left  Petrograd  on  June  nth  and  reached  Berlin  on  June  23rd  (G.  Jackson, 
Diaries,  I.  300). 

8  Lettres  inedites  de  Talleyrand,  p.  121. 

4  Nap.  Corr.,  Nos.  8788-92,  8807,  8813. 

5  E.  Driault,  Austerlitz,  p.  179. 


340  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

coup  defoudre  at  once  cleared  away  the  murk  that  hung  over  the  Con- 
tinent. The  timid  acquiescence  of  Francis  in  threats  that  came  from 
Paris,  and  his  peevish  exaggeration  of  trifling  differences  with  the 
Courts  of  London  and  Petrograd,  gave  place  to  a  secret  resolve  to  end 
the  humiliating  subservience  to  France. 

Even  more  marked  was  the  change  in  the  Tsar.  Annoyance  at  the 
stiff  resistance  of  Pitt  was  overborne  by  fierce  resentment  at  the 
rapacity  of  Napoleon ;  and  he  sent  off  Instructions  to  Novossiltzoff  at 
Berlin,  to  return  to  the  Prussian  officials  the  French  passports  which 
they  had  procured  for  him  and  to  break  off  the  overture  to  Napoleon. 
The  Envoy,  in  doing  so  on  July  loth,  informed  Hardenberg  that  the 
French  annexation  of  Genoa  and  the  manner  of  its  accomplishment 
ended  all  hopes  of  peace.  He,  also,  wrote  to  Vorontzoff  at  London, 
stating  that  the  selfishness  and  isolation  of  Prussia  precluded  all  hope  of 
assistance  from  her,  but  that  Austrian  troops  would  be  ready  to  march 
westwards  by  the  middle  of  August.  As  for  the  North- Germans,  they 
now  saw  that  Napoleon  was  "no  angel  but  a  devil,"  ready  to  swallow 
Germany  if  she  remained  inactive.  At  Petrograd,  also,  after  a  final 
protest  on  the  Maltese  affair,  Czartoryski  consented  to  shelve  both  it 
and  the  Malta- Minorca  exchange  proposal.  Accordingly  on  July  28th, 
the  Anglo-Russian  Treaty  of  April  i  ith  was  ratified,  the  former  article 
respecting  Malta  being  omitted.  On  August  Qth,  Stadion,  the  Austrian 
Ambassador,  signified  secretly  the  accession  of  Francis  II  to  that 
Treaty1.  Thus,  within  nine  weeks  the  Genoese  incident  brought  about 
the  formation  of  a  Coalition  which  British  diplomacy  had  failed  to 
effect  during  twenty-six  months. 

The  Treaty  of  April  nth,  1805,  forms  the  first  official  attempt  at 
reestablishing  the  European  System  on  firm  and  just  foundations.  Its 
main  object  is  to  form  a  General  League  of  European  States  in  order 
to  restrict  France  within  her  ancient  borders,  and  restore  the  Balance 
of  Power  on  the  territorial  basis  noted  above,  so  as  to  "guarantee  the 
safety  and  independence  of  the  different  States  and  oppose  a  solid 
barrier  to  future  usurpations."  For  this  purpose,  Great  Britain  will 
supply  her  sea  and  land  forces  and  her  transports  where  necessary,  and 
will  aid  her  Allies  throughout  the  War  by  subsidies  at  the  yearly  rate 
of  £1,250,000  for  each  body  of  100,000  regular  troops,  also  by  pre- 
liminary subsidies.  The  Allies  agree  not  to  lay  down  their  arms  before 
the  conclusion  of  a  General  Peace.  Ten  separate  articles  provide  for 

1  Third  Coalition,  pp.  189-97,  App.  I,  n;  Paget  Papers,  11.  186;  G.  Jackson, 
Diaries,  i.  458. 


THE  THIRD  COALITION  341 

the  accession  of  "  the  Emperor  of  Germany  "  and  the  King  of  Sweden, 
if  they  will  act  against  France  within  four  months ;  also  of  Prussia  and 
Denmark ;  the  addition  of  the  Belgic  Provinces  to  the  Dutch  Republic, 
and  of  Geneva  (then  French)  to  the  Swiss ;  the  furnishing  of  250,000 
troops  by  Austria  and  1 15,000  (finally  increased  to  180,000)  by  Russia, 
"  besides  levies  raised  by  her  in  Albania,  Greece,  etc."  other  con- 
tingents raising  the  total  to  500,000  men;  also,  the  accession  of  Spain 
and  Portugal,  Great  Britain  using  Russia's  mediation  to  make  peace 
with,  and  win  over,  Spain.  By  the  sixth  and  seventh  separate  articles 
the  Allies  bind  themselves  not  to  interfere  with  the  desire  of  the  French 
respecting  the  form  of  government,  or  with  that  of  other  countries 
where  their  armies  shall  act,  not  to  appropriate  to  themselves  con- 
quests made  before  the  Peace,  but  on  its  conclusion  to  assemble  a 
Congress  to  discuss  and  fix  the  bases  of  International  Law.  They  also 
assign  to  Prussia,  in  case  she  joins  them,  her  former  lands  west  of  the 
Rhine,  with  an  addition  "more  or  less  great,"  which  will  extend  her 
dominions  to  the  French  frontier  on  the  side  of  the  Belgic  Provinces 
(Cologne  and  Juliers  are  implied).  By  a  separate  and  secret  article  they 
agree  to  respect  the  agrarian  settlement  effected  by  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, and  state  that,  though  monarchy  will  best  assure  the  repose  of 
France  and  of  Europe,  they  will  seek  its  restoration  by  spreading  that 
conviction  in  France,  not  by  a  preliminary  and  formal  proclamation. 
They  leave  the  Dutch  and  Swiss  free  to  choose  their  Governments, 
but  will  see  with  pleasure  the  choice  of  the  House  of  Orange  by  the 
former,  and  will  advise  the  King  of  Sardinia  to  grant  to  his  people 
suitable  institutions.  They  also  express  the  hope  that  a  System  of 
International  Law  may  be  "guaranteed  by  general  assent  and  by  the 
establishment  in  Europe  of  a  federal  system  assuring  the  independence 
of  weak  States  and  presenting  a  formidable  barrier  against  the  ambition 
of  the  stronger." 

The  proposals  for  the  assembly  of  a  Congress  for  the  redaction  of 
principles  of  International  Law  and  the  foundation  of  a  European 
Federal  System  were  due  to  the  generous  initiative  of  Alexander ;  but, 
according  to  the  testimony  of  Czartoryski,  Mulgrave  and  Leveson- 
Gower,  they  met  with  complete  sympathy  and  support  from  the 
British  Government.  The  statement  just  quoted  respecting  the  French 
monarchy  also  accords  with  Pitt's  earlier  declarations;  and,  but  for 
some  trace  of  resentment  in  Alexander's  mind  about  Malta  and  Mari- 
time Law,  the  agreement  between  the  British  and  Russian  Governments 
was  complete.  By  insisting  on  the  differences  between  the  British 


342  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

draft  treaty  of  March  i5th,  1805,  and  the  elaborate  document  that  we 
have  now  summarised,  Thiers  and  other  historians  have  been  led  to 
expatiate  on  the  distinction  between  the  generous  spirit  of  Alexander 
and  the  narrowly  insular  aims  of  Great  Britain.  That  distinction  is 
overdrawn.  The  early  drafts  of  a  compact  generally  differ  greatly  from 
its  final  form ;  and  the  British  Foreign  Office  was  not  accustomed  to 
insert  ideal  aspirations  in  its  treaties.  Moreover,  in  this  case  it  sought 
to  provide  primarily  for  the  establishment  of  peace  and  security.  But 
popular  liberties  were  also  to  be  safeguarded  and,  as  we  have  seen, 
Leveson-Gower  championed  those  of  Liguria  against  Czartoryski 
There  is,  also,  good  reason  for  thinking  that,  except  in  regard  to 
Maritime  Law,  Pitt  and  his  colleagues  did  not  fall  short  of  Alexander 
in  desiring  the  foundation  of  an  International  System.  Where  they 
differed  was  in  facility  of  expression. 

To  root  ideas  in  actuality  is  the  test  of  statesmanship.  The  task 
was  peculiarly  difficult  in  the  year  1805.  Great  Britain  could  act  only 
through  the  slow  and  indirect  method  of  maritime  blockade.  Russia 
could  act  only  by  means  of  the  territories  of  Austria  or  Prussia,  the 
latter  of  whom  clung  to. a  profitable  neutrality,  while  the  former  was  a 
prey  to  poverty,  nervousness  and  divided  counsels.  The  Habsburg 
Power  joined  the  Allies  under  the  impulse  of  the  news  from  Genoa, 
which  yielded  one  more  proof  that  peace  with  Napoleon  was  more 
dangerous  than  war.  Towards  Paget,  the  British  Ambassador,  the 
Court  of  Vienna  maintained  extreme  reserve,  and,  perhaps  for  the  sake 
of  secrecy,  it  conducted  all  its  negotiations  with  us  at  Petrograd,  finally, 
after  much  insistence,  securing  the  offer  of  an  initial  subsidy.  The 
Chancellor,  Count  Lewis  von  Cobenzl,  entreated  that  negotiations 
with  France  might  be  kept  up  to  the  last  so  as  to  avert  the  danger  of 
an  attack  from  Napoleon  before  the  Russians  arrived.  Yet  Austria's 
plan  of  campaign,  first  sketched  in  outline  on  July  iQth,  erred  in  two 
important  respects.  Believing  Napoleon  to  be  absorbed  in  his  scheme 
of  invading  England,  the  Hofkriegsrath  assigned  to  the  chief  army 
under  Arch-duke  Charles  the  operations  in  North  Italy ;  while  General 
Mack,  with  whom  he  was  on  bad  terms,  was  to  advance  with  a  smaller 
force  into  Bavaria.  Still  more  serious  was  the  miscalculation  as  to 
time,  80  days  being  reckoned  as  the  minimum  within  which  Napoleon's 
Grand  Army  could  march  from  Boulogne  to  the  Upper  Danube,  and 
60  days  for  the  Russian  army  cantoned  near  the  Galician  border  to 
arrive  in  support  of  Mack.  The  latter  calculation  was  nearly  correct; 
the  former  was  too  long  by  three  weeks ;  and  in  that  error  lay  the  chief 


BREAKDOWN  OF  THE  THIRD  COALITION        343 

cause  of  the  disaster  of  Ulm  which  struck  the  Third  Coalition  to  the 
heart1. 

Other  causes,  however,  contributed  to  this  event.  Austria  counted 
on  the  aid  of  the  Elector  of  Bavaria,  but  wrongly ;  for,  after  dissembling 
his  intentions,  he  joined  Napoleon  so  soon  as  the  vanguard  of  the 
Grand  Army  appeared  on  the  River  Main.  Consequently,  the  Allies 
were  unexpectedly  weak  at  their  centre;  and  it  soon  appeared  that 
they  had  spent  too  much  strength  on  enveloping  moves  at  their  extreme 
right  and  left.  Russia  and  Great  Britain  sent  large  contingents  into 
northernGermany.  After  wearisome  negotiations  with  Sweden  concern- 
ing the  choice  of  Stralsund  in  Swedish  Pomerania  as  base2,  an  Anglo- 
Russo- Swedish  force  began  to  assemble  on  the  lower  Elbe,  much  to 
the  annoyance  of  Frederick  William,  who,  besides  being  on  the  worst 
of  terms  with  Gustavus,  regarded  Hanover  as  his  by  reversion.  Pitt 
and  Mulgrave,  hoping  to  bribe  Prussia  into  active  support  of  this 
expedition,  expected  that  in  the  spring  of  1806,  at  the  least,  250,000 
Allies  would  sweep  the  French  from  the  Netherlands  and  attack 
France  through  the  northern  plain — a  dream  cherished  in  1794  and 
1799,  but  not  destined  to  fulfilment  until  1814. 

Nor  was  this  all.  The  Anglo-Russian  expedition  destined  for 
southern  Italy  was  to  assist  in  driving  the  French  from  the  Peninsula. 
As  a  political  move  the  plan  had  some  merit ;  but  on  naval  and  military 
grounds  it  was  open  to  censure.  For  it  was  clear  that,  if  (as  sound  strategy 
required)  Napoleon  recalled  his  troops  from  the  heel  of  Italy  in  order 
to  concentrate  in  her  northern  plain,  the  expedition  would  merely 
beat  the  air.  This  is  what  happened — and  not  only  in  south-eastern 
Italy,  but  also  in  Hanover.  Recalling  his  troops  from  those  extremities, 
the  great  captain  massed  them  in  central  positions  where  they  would 
act  with  telling  effect.  Thus,  as  happened  in  the  case  of  all  the  Coalitions, 
France  opposed  swift  concentration  to  the  enveloping  and  ill  concerted 
movements  of  Allies,  who  greatly  outnumbered  her  except  at  the  one 
essential  point. 

The  danger  of  Austria  succumbing  before  the  arrival  of  Russian 
succours  ought  to  have  stirred  Prussia  to  prompt  action.  This  the 
British  Government  sought  to  assure.  So  soon  as  Napoleon's  moves 
towards  the  Danube  were  fully  ascertained,  it  despatched  Harrowby 
on  a  special  mission  to  Berlin,  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  that  Court, 
and  if  possible  those  of  Denmark,  Saxony  and  Hesse-Cassel,  into  line 

1  Third  Coalition,  pp.  190,  283. 

2  Koch  and  Scholl,  11.  366,  370, 


344  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

against  France .  ^.lopeus ,  Prussian  Ambassador  in  London ,  had  already 
been  sounding  the  Pitt  Administration  about  pecuniary  help;  and, 
on  October  27th,  Mulgrave  instructed  Harrowby  to  offer  Prussia 
£2,500,000  a  year  in  subsidies  for  the  support  of  200,000  men  in 
active  service,  the  purpose  being  to  drive  the  French  from  the  Dutch 
Republic  and  to  protect  Dutch  and  North  German  territory  during 
the  war.  In  order  to  complete  the  Barrier  system,  the  Belgic  Provinces 
were  to  be  offered  to  Prussia,  intermediate  districts  between  them  and 
her  present  domains  being  added,  so  as  to  facilitate  her  communica- 
tions with  this  new  territory.  These  offers  were  subject  to  the  approval 
of  the  Tsar  and  his  representative  at  Berlin,  who  would  also  discuss 
with  Harrowby  the  additions  to  Austria's  territories,  if  she  manifested 
jealousy  at  Prussia's  proposed  acquisitions.  Great  Britain,  for  her  part, 
while  vetoing  all  discussion  of  her  Maritime  Code,  was  prepared  to 
forego  her  colonial  gains  except  Malta  and  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope1. 

The  choice  of  Harrowby  for  so  difficult  a  mission  is  unaccountable ; 
for  his  accident  had  shaken  a  constitution  naturally  infirm ;  and  Jack- 
son, with  a  spice  of  jealousy,  pronounced  him  a  peevish  invalid,  often 
incapacitated  by  fits  and  incapable  even  of  ordinary  duties2.  He  arrived 
at  Berlin  on  November  i6th,  a  stranger  to  its  intrigues,  and  needing 
constant  instruction  from  Jackson,  whom  for  the  time  he  superseded. 
The  situation  at  that  capital  was  highly  critical.  The  Tsar  had  arrived 
there  three  weeks  earlier ,  for  the  purpose  of  gaining  permission  (hitherto 
firmly  refused)  for  his  troops  to  enter  Prussian  territory.  In  this  he 
now  succeeded,  thanks  to  the  effrontery  of  the  French  in  violating  the 
principality  of  Ansbach  (ceded  to  Prussia  in  1791).  Under  the  sting 
of  this  insult,  Frederick  William  seemed  inclined  to  act  with  vigour 
against  France.  He  allowed  the  Russians  to  enter  his  territory  and 
entered  into  friendly  discussions  with  Alexander  as  to  cooperation  with 
the  Allies,  in  case  Napoleon  should  refuse  to  accept  the  armed  media- 
tion of  Prussia.  Meanwhile,  the  French  having  evacuated  Hanover, 
in  order  to  concentrate  against  Mack,  he  ordered  a  Prussian  force 
to  occupy  that  Electorate.  The  news  followed  of  the  surrender  of 
practically  the  whole  of  Mack's  army  at  and  near  Ulm.  It  clinched 
the  predominance  of  Prussia,  and  enabled  her  to  raise  her  terms,  while 
the  Tsar  felt  bound  to  humour  her,  in  order  to  ensure  speedy  and 
vigorous  action  against  Napoleon's  flank  or  rear. 

These  circumstances  explain  the  conditions  which  Prussia  virtually 

1  Third  Coalition,  pp.  207-20. 

z  G.  Jackson,  Diaries,  I.  377;  Rose,  Pitt,  p.  545,  Pt  II. 


PROPOSED  TRANSFER  OF  HANOVER  TO  PRUSSIA    345 

dictated  to  the  Tsar  in  the  Secret  Treaty  of  Potsdam  (November  3rd, 
1805).  With  180,000  troops,  she  would  join  the  Allies,  if  within  four 
weeks  Napoleon  should  refuse  her  terms  for  a  general  settlement  on 
the  following  lines :  for  France,  the  boundaries  of  the  Peace  of  Luneville 
(i.e.  "the  natural  frontiers,"  with  the  exception  of  the  south  of  the 
Dutch  Netherlands);  an  indemnity  for  the  King  of  Sardinia  at  the 
expense  of  the  "  kingdom  of  Italy  "  (a  clause  which  implied  the  reten- 
tion of  Piedmont  by  France) ;  the  withdrawal  of  French  troops  from 
Germany,  the  Dutch  and  Swiss  republics  and  Naples ;  the  indepen- 
dence of  the  kingdom  of  Lombardy;  the  line  of  the  Mincio,  with 
Mantua,  for  Austria  in  northern  Italy ;  and  a  surer  frontier  for  Prussia. 
One  or  two  phrases  pointed  to  a  more  rigid  restriction  of  French  power, 
should  Fortune  favour  the  Allies.  But  the  sting  of  the  Treaty  lay  in 
the  first  secret  article,  which  stipulated  Prussia's  eventual  acquisition 
of  Hanover  either  by  exchange  or  other  arrangement.  For  the  attain- 
ment of  this  object  the  Tsar  promised,  very  reluctantly,  to  use  his  good 
offices.  As  for  the  exchange,  Prussia's  principality  of  East-Frisia  was 
named ;  and  Hardenberg  (who  disliked  the  whole  proposal)  spoke  of 
the  possible  acquisition  by  the  House  of  Brunswick  of  Upper  Gelder- 
land  and  Juliers — the  latter  of  which  Harrowby  was  about  to  offer  to 
Prussia1. 

These  last  proposals  were  kept  secret  from  Harrowby ;  but  a  Russian 
Special  Envoy,  d'Oubril,  was  charged  to  present  the  whole  Treaty  to 
the  British  Government.  Its  disclosure  came  as  a  shock  to  Pitt  and 
Mulgrave.  That  Prussia  should  angle  after  Hanover  was  not  surprising, 
though  their  offers  to  her  (if  in  time)  might  have  caused  some  sense 
of  shame  at  her  present  demand;  but  that  the  Tsar  should,  however 
reluctantly,  support  a  scheme  for  despoiling  his  Ally  to  benefit  a 
calculating  trimmer,  passed  belief.  The  proposal  was  made  shortly 
after  the  news  of  Trafalgar  had  sent  a  thrill  of  sorrow  but  also  of 
exultation  through  these  islands.  Well,  therefore,  might  Pitt  remark 
to  Vorontzoff  that,  if  England  had  been  beaten  at  sea  and  compelled 
to  sign  a  separate  peace,  such  a  proposal  would  have  been  out  of  the 
question.  He  refrained  from  so  much  as  naming  it  to  the  King,  for 
fear  of  killing  him  or  driving  him  mad.  Vorontzoff  regarded  it  "with 
inexpressible  astonishment "  and  begged  that  he  might  be  spared  the 

1  Hansing,  Hardenberg  und  die  dritte  Coalition,  ad  fin. ;  H.  Ulmann,  Russisch- 
preussische  Politik  (1801-6),  pp.  237,  270-2;  Hardenberg,  Denkwiirdigkeiten  (n, 
P-  353)  stated  that  Harrowby  offered  the  Dutch  Netherlands  to  Prussia;  but  he 
offered  "  such  acquisitions  on  the  side  of  Holland  and  the  Low  Countries"  as  would 
strengthen  her  influence  upon  them  (Third  Coalition,  pp.  226,  227). 


346  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

humiliation  of  presenting  a  formal  demand  on  this  head.  If  he  felt  the 
shock,  how  much  more  did  Pitt!  Cut  to  the  quick  by  Mack's  disaster 
at  Ulm,  though  hereupon  cheered  by  the  triumph  at  Trafalgar,  he  was 
once  more  struck  down  by  Prussia's  demand,  backed  as  it  was  by 
Alexander.  Collecting  himself  by  a  visible  effort,  he  declared  to 
Vorontzoff  his  readiness  to  make  great  sacrifices  to  satisfy  Prussia,  but 
never  at  the  expense  of  the  patrimony  of  George  III.  He,  also,  pro- 
tested against  the  utter  indifference  of  our  Allies  to  the  sentiments  and 
interests  of  Great  Britain1. 

With  a  last  rebound  of  his  sanguine  nature,  he  sought  to  satisfy 
Prussia's  land-hunger  by  some  other  means  and  thus  bring  about  her 
armed  mediation  at  Paris,  which  Napoleon,  full-blown  with  triumph, 
would  certainly  reject.  Then  Prussia  and  the  Allies  might  liberate  the 
Dutch  Netherlands,  and  a  general  peace  might  come  to  pass,  Great 
Britain  restoring  all  her  conquests  except  Malta  and  the  Cape.  Or, 
at  the  worst,  she  could  fight  on,  leaving  "  our  perfidious  Allies  "  to  do 
what  they  could  for  themselves.  On  December  5th,  he  wrote  more 
fully  in  the  same  strain.  Criticism  of  Pitt's  plans  in  1805  is  generally 
based  on  the  assumption  that  they  were  fantastic  and  unsound.  But 
all  the  dictates  of  sound  policy  should  have  induced  Prussia  to  take 
up  arms  against  the  French  Emperor,  whose  enormous  power  and 
unconcealed  contempt  for  her  threatened  her  overthrow.  It  was  the 
conduct  of  Frederick  William  and  his  advisers  that  ran  counter  to  the 
reasonable  expectations  on  which  statesmanship  is  based.  Who  could 
have  foreseen  the  surrender  of  Frederick  William  to  Napoleon,  his 
mean  acceptance  of  Hanover  at  the  Emperor's  hands,  and  the  sequel- 
Jena,  with  the  countless  humiliations  that  followed  ? 

For  a  time,  Frederick  William  prepared  to  draw  the  sword ;  Harden- 
berg  (always  a  friend  to  England)  strove  to  find  some  compromise  as  to 
Hanover ;  Harrowby ,  though  now  exceedingly  ill,  made  tempting  offers 
to  Prussia ;  and  her  General  Staff  not  only  took  under  Prussian  pro- 
tection and  control  the  Allied  forces  in  Hanover,  but  also  held  in  leash 
a  great  army  of  veterans  ready  to  spring  at  Napoleon's  rear,  so  soon 
as  he  should  reject  the  conditions  offered  by  Haugwitz,  her  Plenipo- 
tentiary, at  the  sword's  point.  Through  this  web  of  schemes  the  French 
Emperor  struck  at  Austerlitz.  Four  days  later,  Austria  concluded  with 
the  conqueror  an  armistice  on  the  basis  of  the  withdrawal  of  the  Russians 
from  her  territory.  The  Tsar  now  appealed  for  help  to  the  King  of 
Prussia,  who,  during  a  few  days,  seemed  about  to  grant  it.  But,  mean- 

1  Czartoryski,  Memoirs,  II.  ch.  ix. 


END  OF  PITT  AND  OF  THE  THIRD  COALITION     347 

while,  the  Allied  cause  had  been  betrayed  by  Haugwitz.  That  time- 
serving politician  was  only  too  ready  to  rise  to  Napoleon's  bait,  Hanover, 
and,  bringing  with  him  the  attractive  offer  of  peace  and  the  Electorate, 
he  returned  to  Berlin. 

Tidings  of  these  disasters  filtered  through  slowly  to  the  British 
Government  in  the  closing  days  of  the  year.  Pitt  had  gone  to  Bath 
to  recover  from  a  sharp  attack  of  the  gout  and  to  gain  strength  for  the 
struggle  with  the  Foxites  and  Addingtonians  in  the  coming  session. 
Their  recent  attacks  on  Lord  Melville  (accused  of  malversation  at  the 
Admiralty),  and  their  arraignment  of  the  Government's  lavish  expen- 
diture in  aid  of  uncertain  Allies,  had  already  been  so  fierce  that 
Huskisson  taunted  them  with  building  their  hopes  of  place  and  power 
on  the  ruins  of  Europe1.  Now  their  opposition  bade  fair  both  to 
overthrow  Ministers  and  to  reverse  their  foreign  policy.  Pitt  alone  could 
defend  it  adequately  before  the  half-doubtful,  half-hostile  Commons; 
and  even  his  oratory  would  pale  if  Fortune  frowned  on  all  his  enter- 
prises. The  Grenvilles  had  bitterly  censured  his  sending  a  large  force 
to  Hanover  on  the  chance  of  Prussia's  cooperation,  and  so  did  the 
Army  itself2.  And  now  there  came  news  of  the  havoc  dealt  by  a  storm 
to  the  expeditionary  force,  then  of  the  defection  of  Austria  and  retreat 
of  the  Tsar,  lastly,  of  the  sinister  behaviour  of  Prussia.  Surmising 
the  truth,  that  Hanover  was  her  overmastering  desire,  Mulgrave  on 
January  6th,  1806,  urged  on  Pitt  the  necessity  of  tempting  her  to 
immediate  action  by  the  offer  of  the  Dutch  Netherlands3.  This 
degrading  suggestion  elicited  no  reply.  A  week  later,  there  fell  on 
Pitt  the  last  blow  of  all,  the  news  that  Frederick  William  had  acceded 
to  Napoleon's  terms.  It  was  true.  That  monarch,  as  usual,  had 
resolved  to  take  the  easiest  and  most  profitable  course.  His  decision 
to  accept  peace  with  dishonour  was  fraught  with  momentous  results. 
On  Prussia,  it  entailed  a  loss  of  moral  worse  than  a  dozen  defeats  in 
the  field.  For  the  Allies,  it  involved  the  reversal  of  their  plans  for  the 
liberation  of  the  Dutch  Netherlands  and  their  withdrawal  from  Hanover 
at  the  fiat  of  Berlin.  For  Pitt  himself,  it  meant  death.  On  January  23rd 
he  sank  to  rest. 

The  political  causes  of  the  collapse  of  this  imposing  Coalition  are 
not  far  to  seek.  The  inveterate  jealousy  between  Prussia  and  Austria  still 
defied  the  utmost  efforts  of  Great  Britain  and  Russia  to  bring  those 

1  Horner,  Corr.  I.  347. 

2  Dropmore  Papers,  vn.  316-20. 

3  See  Appendix  F. 


348  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

Powers  to  accord.  For  a  short  space  after  the  Ansbach  incident,  a 
union  of  the  four  Great  Powers  appeared  to  be  near  at  hand ;  and  if 
Hardenberg  had  been  sovereign  of  Prussia,  her  splendid  army, 
launched  against  Napoleon's  rear,  might  have  altered  the  course  of 
history.  But  short-sighted  selfishness  then  dictated  her  policy;  and 
the  Coalition,  strong  at  the  wings  but  weak  at  the  centre,  reeled  under 
the  home-thrust  of  a  master  of  war  whose  expansive  policy  in  time  of 
peace  had  not  yet  betrayed  him  into  a  diffuse  and  ineffective  strategy. 
Eight  years  were  to  pass  before  adversity  grouped  them  in  a  compact 
phalanx,  and  prosperity  relaxed  his  grip  on  both  political  and  military 
combinations. 


Ill 

The  Pitt  Administration  was  succeeded  by  an  ill-assorted  union 
of  the  Grenvilles  with  Foxites  and  Addingtonians,  soon  to  be  dubbed 
"  the  Ministry  of  all  the  Talents."  Lord  Grenville  became  First  Lord 
of  the  Treasury,  and  in  September,  1806,  his  brother  Thomas  suc- 
ceeded Grey  at  the  Admiralty ;  Fox  took  the  Foreign  Office ;  Spencer, 
Home  Affairs,  and  Windham  the  War  and  Colonial  Office.  Addington 
(now  Lord  Sidmouth)  became  Lord  Privy  Seal,  and,  in  October,  1806, 
Lord  President.  The  Grenville  Ministry,  as  it  should  be  called,  carried 
the  Abolition  of  the  Slave  Trade,  and  some  other  useful  measures  of 
late  postponed  by  Pitt.  But  its  raison  d'etre  was,  first,  opposition  to 
his  policy  of  European  Coalitions,  and,  second,  the  conclusion  of 
peace,  if  it  could  be  secured  without  too  great  sacrifices.  Accordingly, 
Ministers  sought  to  withdraw  from  Continental  entanglements  and  to 
embark  on  a  more  purely  British  policy.  Trafalgar,  Austerlitz  and  the 
defection  of  Prussia  pointed  the  moral  of  the  situation.  The  three 
Coalitions  against  France,  sapped  by  mutual  distrust  and  jealousy,  had 
,  served  but  to  aggrandise  her  power.  Thanks  to  the  First  Coalition, 
she  had  acquired  "the  natural  frontiers"  together  with  a  firm  control 
over  the  United  Netherlands  and  northern  Italy.  The  Second  Coalition 
yielded  to  her  Piedmont  and  the  hegemony  of  Switzerland.  And  now, 
the  pitiful  collapse  of  the  Austro-Russian  defence  enabled  her  to 
acquire  from  the  Habsburgs  eastern  Venetia,  Istria,  and  Dalmatia,  to 
drive  them  out  of  Germany  and  exalt  their  rivals,  Prussia  and  Bavaria. 
Well  might  Napoleon  defy  Great  Britain  to  attempt  to  form  yet 
another  Coalition1. 

1  Nap.  Corr.  9929. 


SICILY  HELD  349 

The  diffuse  efforts  of  the  Allies  against  southern  Italy  and  Hanover 
were  now  speedily  reversed.  Napoleon's  swift  centripetal  moves  from 
those  outlying  parts  having  won  decisive  triumphs  in  the  valleys  of  the 
Danube  and  the  Po,  he  now  prepared  to  reoccupy  southern  Italy  and 
to  make  profitable  use  of  Hanover  in  the  hitherto  unratified  compact 
with  Prussia.  In  both  cases,  as  also  in  the  crushing  terms  imposed  on 
Austria,  there  appears  the  new  Leitmotif  of  his  policy,  his  "coast- 
system,"  soon  to  be  re-named  the  Continental  System.  A  note  of 
intense  eagerness  pervades  all  his  references,  early  in  the  year  1806, 
to  southern  Italy  and  Sicily.  As  Ferdinand  IV  and  Maria  Carolina 
had  thrown  off  the  mask  of  neutrality  and  admitted  the  Anglo-Russian 
expedition,  he  now  accused  them  of  perfidy,  declared  them  deposed, 
and  ordered  Massena  and  Joseph  Bonaparte  with  a  large  French  force 
to  drive  the  Allies  into  the  sea.  "Above  all  do  not  lose  a  moment  in 
trying  to  capture  Sicily1."  The  Crown  of  the  Two  Sicilies  was  held  out  as 
the  prize  for  Joseph.  On  the  collapse  of  the  Neapolitan  defence, General 
Craig  determined  to  embark  for  Sicily,  which  his  original  Instructions 
pointed  out  as  far  more  important  than  Naples;  and,  despite  the 
clamour  of  Maria  Carolina  and  the  representations  of  our  Ambassador, 
Hugh  Elliot,  he  withdrew  the  British  force  to  Messina.  Lacey  also 
retired  with  his  Russians  to  Corfu.  The  King,  Queen  and  H.  Elliot 
sought  refuge  at  Palermo,  where  General  Acton  (latterly  out  of  favour) 
resumed  his  position  as  Chief  Minister.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that 
Craig's  prompt  withdrawal  and  the  measures  taken  by  Collingwood 
to  protect  the  Bourbons  at  Palermo  saved  Sicily  from  French  domina- 
tion. The  Sicilians  detested  the  Bourbons  and  longed  for  British  rule, 
a  fact  which  partly  explains  the  tortuous  intrigues  of  Maria  Carolina 
against  our  officials  in  Sicily.  A  British  victory  at  Maida  in  Calabria 
(July,  1806)  averted  all  danger  of  a  speedy  French  conquest  of  that 
island2. 

Though  Great  Britain  thus  retained  in  the  Mediterranean  two 
islands  which  prevented  Napoleon's  domination  of  that  sea — but 
principal  de  mapolitique — yet  on  the  coast  of  the  North  Sea  he  achieved 
over  her  a  bloodless  triumph,  the  fruit  of  his  masterly  bargainings  with 
Prussia.  That  Power,  having  occupied  Hanover  and  assured  the 
ignominious  retirement  of  the  Anglo-Russian  forces,  demobilised,  as 
though  peace  were  secure.  Never  was  there  a  worse  blunder.  Napoleon, 

1  Nap.  Corr.  9781,  9788. 

2  Bunbury,  The  Great  War  with  France,  pp.  210-56,  415-36;  Collingwood, 
Memoirs,  183-96;  Diary  of  Sir  John  Moore,  n.  ch.  xxn. 


350  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

encouraged  by  this  news  and  by  the  appointment  of  Fox  as  British 
Foreign  Minister,  believed  that  he  had  the  game  in  his  hands ;  and, 
when  Haugwitz  at  Paris  in  February,  1806,  sought  to  gain  his  consent 
to  certain  changes  in  the  Franco-Prussian  compact  of  December,  1805, 
he  found  the  Emperor  inexorable.  Finally,  on  February  i5th,  1806,  that 
luckless  statesman  had  to  sign  what  was  in  effect  a  new  Treaty,  whereby 
Prussia  ceded  Ansbach  to  the  Elector  (now  King)  of  Bavaria,  and  was 
forced  to  agree  to  the  immediate  and  definitive  acquisition  of  Hanover, 
and  to  close  all  that  coastline  to  British  trade.  Frederick  William 
must  now  have  seen  the  significance  of  Napoleon's  " Greek  gift"  of 
Hanover.  Eventually,  it  must  involve  war  with  Great  Britain.  Never- 
theless, on  March  Qth,  he  ratified  the  new  Treaty,  and  sought  to 
placate  George  III  by  offering  him  East-Frisia  and  certain  other 
districts.  In  reply,  King  George  protested  against  the  spoliation  of  his 
ancestral  territory,  urged  the  King  of  Prussia  not  to  "  set  the  dreadful 
example  of  indemnifying  himself  at  the  expense  of  a  third  party,'* 
and  concluded  by  appealing  to  the  Head  of  the  Empire,  and  to  the 
Tsar  as  guarantor  of  the  Germanic  System.  Nothing  came  of  this 
appeal ;  for  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  was  tottering  to  its  fall.  But  Great 
Britain,  already  indignant  at  Prussian  perfidy,  promptly  retaliated 
against  exclusion  from  the  most  valuable  corridor  still  open  to  British 
commerce.  On  May  i6th,  Fox  ordered  the  blockade  of  the  estuaries 
of  the  Trave,  Elbe,  Weser  and  Ems,  and  this  was  soon  extended  to  the 
whole  coastline  between  the  Elbe  and  Brest.  This  "paper  blockade" 
caused  great  annoyance  to  neutrals,  especially  to  the  United  States ; 
and  the  blockade  of  Prussia's  new  territory  led  to  a  state  of  hostility 
which  was  formally  recognised  on  June  nth.  Thus  did  Napoleon 
extend  his  coast-system.  He  had  "  thrust  Prussia  into  the  North  "  and 
compelled  her  to  annex  Hanover,  in  order  to  embroil  her  with  the 
Island  Power1. 

When  peace  aggrandised  the  Napoleonic  System  no  less  swiftly  and 
surely  than  war,  it  might  have  seemed  futile  to  enter  into  negotiations 
for  a  general  settlement.  Yet,  so  sanguine  was  the  nature  of  Fox  that  he 
made  the  attempt.  The  warm  sympathy  that  endeared  him  to  all  his 
friends  had  welled  forth  to  all  the  manifestations  of  French  democracy ; 
and  an  admirer  noted  that  his  excessive  hopes  for  that  movement 
sprang  from  his  habit  of  giving  free  rein  to  sentiment  and  too  little 
time  to  enquiry  and  reflexion.  The  same  generous  failing,  probably, 
accounts  for  his  predilection  for  Napoleon.  After  a  visit  to  Paris  in 
1  Nap.  Corr.,  9810,  9811. 


FOX  ATTEMPTS  NEGOTIATIONS  WITH  FRANCE    351 

1802,  the  Whig  leader  expressed  the  belief  that  the  First  Consul, 
however  hostile  to  this  country,  desired  to  reduce  the  military  spirit 
and  to  make  the  French  a  commercial  people1.  Romilly,  who  was  also 
in  Paris,  came  to  an  opposite  and  far  saner  conclusion2.  The  belief 
that  Napoleon  was  wedded  to  peace  and  "afraid  of  war  to  the  last 
degree  "  was  another  of  Fox's  delusions,  worthy  of  a  place  beside  his 
conviction  that,  if  war  came,  Grey  was  "literally"  the  only  Briton 
who  could  conduct  it 3.  The  situation  was  therefore  piquant,  when  Fox, 
with  his  fervid  aspirations  after  peace,  sought  to  compass  it  under  a  chief 
whom  he  had  firmly  opposed  because  of  his  bellicose  and  reactionary 
tendencies.  Unfortunately,  his  letters  are  rare  in  these  last  nine  months 
of  his  career ;  but  his  actions  betoken  so  unruffled  a  dignity  amidst 
countless  disappointments,  so  firm  a  resolve  to  tread  the  path  of 
honour,  as  to  reveal  the  loss  which  the  nation  sustained  through  his 
exclusion  from  office  in  1794  and  in  1804  by  the  fiat  of  George  III. 
On  February  2Oth,  1806,  Fox  prepared  the  way  for  the  negotiations 
by  revealing  to  Talleyrand  the  details  of  an  alleged  plot  for  the  murder 
of  Napoleon,  which  had  been  mooted  to  him.  The  Emperor  replied 
in  suitable  terms  and,  in  his  speech  of  March  2nd  to  the  Corps 
Legislatif,  offered  peace  to  Great  Britain  on  the  basis  of  the  Treaty 
of  Amiens.  Conscious,  perhaps,  that  this  Treaty  was  now  defunct, 
he  modified  the  offer  in  his  survey  of  French  affairs  to  the  Senate 
(March  5th).  True,  he  spoke  in  terms  which  implied  the  continuance  of 
French  domination  over  the  Netherlands,  the  Rhineland  and  Italy,  the 
annexation  of  Genoa  being  also  explained  as  a  necessary  result  of  that  of 
Piedmont.  He  further  alluded  to  the  extension  of  his  federative  system 
over  the  Dutch  Netherlands,  Istria  and  Dalmatia  as  indispensable 
to  French  power,  and  therefore  irrevocable ;  but  he  proposed  a  pacifica- 
tion on  the  general  principle  of  recognising  our  recent  acquisitions  in 
the  Indies  as  an  equivalent  to  the  extension  of  his  power  in  Europe4. 
Here  was  a  conceivable  basis  for  a  settlement;  and,  on  March  26th, 
Fox  replied,  stating  that  some  of  the  Amiens  terms  were  vague,  but 
expressing  the  hope  of  the  British  Government  for  an  equitable  com- 
promise between  the  two  Powers  and  their  respective  Allies.  He  added, 
however,  that  he  could  not  negotiate,  still  less  conclude,  a  treaty 
without  the  participation  of  Russia.  To  this  statement,  Talleyrand,  on 
April  ist,  sent  the  rejoinder,  that  Napoleon  attributed  the  rupture  of 

1  F.  Horner,  Memoirs,  i.  255,  348. 

2  Life  of  Sir  S.  Romilly •,  I.  415-23. 

3  Corr.  of  C.J.  Fox,  ill.  372,  381,  385,  391,  406. 

4  Nap.  Corr.  No.  9929;  Moniteur,  March  6th,  1806. 


352  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

the  Peace  of  Amiens,  not  to  this  or  that  article,  but  to  his  refusal  to 
conclude  with  Great  Britain  a  treaty  of  commerce  such  as  would  harm 
French  industries ;  that  she  must  give  up  all  thought  of  interfering 
in  French  arrangements  (presumably  those  relating  to  commerce); 
that  she  was  a  great  Sea  Power,  while  France  was  a  great  Land 
Power;  therefore,  the  participation  of  another  Land  Power  (Russia) 
would  be  unfair,  and  he  would  never  place  himself,  as  regards 
Continental  affairs,  at  the  discretion  of  Great  Britain  and  that  of  Russia 
operating  conjointly. 

This  reply  augured  ill  for  an  accommodation.  Under  the  specious 
plea  that  Great  Britain  and  France  were  equal  in  strength  on  their 
respective  elements  and  therefore  must  meet  each  other  alone, 
Napoleon  was  about  to  eliminate  our  Ally  from  the  negotiation  which 
Fox  had  declared  must  proceed  conjointly  with  her,  or  not  at  all. 
Besides,  it  was  certain  that  Napoleon  would  bring  in  his  Spanish, 
Italian  and  Dutch  Allies;  otherwise  the  peace  would  be  partial.  Accord- 
ingly, Great  Britain  must,  in  honour,  include  Russia  and  Sweden  in  the 
negotiations.  Such  was  the  purport  of  Fox's  answer  on  April  8th ;  and 
he  further  stated  that,  while  deeming  a  treaty  of  commerce  advantageous 
to  both  countries,  he  would  postpone  it  as  a  matter  for  future  arrange- 
ment. Napoleon,  however,  absolutely  declined  to  discuss  matters  with 
the  Coalition  and  insisted  on  treating  with  Great  Britain  alone.  To 
this  demand  Fox,  on  April  2ist,  sent  a  firm  refusal,  repeating  it  on 
June  1 4th,  with  the  expression  of  a  hope  that  the  negotiation  might 
secure  the  tranquillity  of  Europe.  Meanwhile,  Talleyrand  had  sent 
for  the  Earl  of  Yarmouth,  who  was  then  at  the  depot  for  British 
prisoners  at  Verdun,  and  proposed  through  him  to  make  secret  com- 
munications to  Fox1.  With  this  proposal  Fox  concurred.  Talleyrand, 
therefore,  when  pressed  by  Yarmouth,  stated  that  Napoleon  would 
make  no  difficulty  about  the  restitution  of  Hanover  by  Prussia  to 
George  III.  As  for  the  Bourbons  and  Sicily,  "vous  Vavez ;  nous  ne  vous  la 
demandonspas"  Asked  whether  France  would  guarantee  the  integrity 
of  the  Ottoman  empire,  he  replied  in  the  affirmative;  but  it  must  be 
soon;  for  "beaucoup  se prepare,  mais  rien  n'estfait." 

The  hint  gained  in  significance  from  the  weekly  extensions  of 
Napoleon's  authority.  After  aggrandising  his  South-German  Allies 
and  proclaiming  Joseph  Bonaparte  King  of  Naples,  the  Emperor 

1  Francis  Seymour,  Earl  of  Yarmouth  and  second  Marquis  of  Hertford  (1743- 
1822),  sat  in  Parliament  from  1766  to  1794,  and  was  Plenipotentiary  to  Berlin  and 
Vienna  in  1794  (see  ch.  u).  The  despatches  summarised  above  are  in  Parl.  Papers 
(December  22nd,  1806).  See,  too,  Ann.  Reg.  (1806),  pp.  708-91. 


INTENTIONS  OF  NAPOLEON  353 

declared  his  brother  Lewis  King  of  Holland,  a  project  dating  from 
March  8th,  1806,  and  carried  into  effect  on  June  5th.  On  the  same 
day,  he  appropriated  the  Papal  enclaves  of  Benevento  and  Ponte- 
corvo,  assigning  them  as  dukedoms  to  Talleyrand  and  Bernadotte1. 
Meanwhile,  he  was  pressing  on  with  his  German  lieges  the  scheme  of 
the  Confederation  of  the  Rhine ;  and  on  July  i^th  he  secretly  signed 
with  the  Kings  of  Bavaria  and  Wurtemberg,  and  certain  lesser  Princes, 
a  Treaty  to  that  effect2.  For  the  present,  he  concealed  it,  probably  in 
the  hope  of  inducing  Great  Britain  and  Russia  to  sign  separate  treaties 
of  peace  before  they  heard  of  this  revolutionary  change  in  Central 
Europe.  Thus,  partly  by  intimidation,  partly  by  secret  diplomacy,  he 
intended  to  separate  his  opponents  and  compel  them  to  surrender  at 
discretion. 

His  intentions  appear  clearly  in  his  Correspondence.  On  May  3  ist 
he  writes  to  Talleyrand,  complaining  that  the  extreme  weakness  of 
Prussia  leaves  him  little  hope  that  she  will  assist  him  in  compelling 
England  to  make  peace.  She  will  not  even  close  the  Sound  to  British 
ships.  Therefore,  he  must  go  on  with  the  British  negotiation  and  look 
about  for  some  other  lands  to  grant  to  Prussia,  in  case  she  has  to  give 
back  Hanover  to  George  III.  Some  domain  of  300,000  inhabitants, 
say,  Hesse-Cassel,  will  do  for  her.  Further,  he  urges  King  Joseph  to 
prepare  to  seize  Sicily ;  for  peace  will  be  made  with  the  British  when 
that  island  is  secured.  By  July  4th,  he  decides  never  to  allow  Great 
Britain  to  keep  Malta  and  maintain  control  over  Sicily ;  for  this  would 
form  an  "impassable  barrier"  to  French  communications  with  the 
Adriatic  and  the  Levant.  She  must  therefore  give  up  either  Malta  or 
Sicily ;  and  in  either  case,  he  will  humour  her  about  Hanover.  Similarly, 
he  will  grant  a  separate  peace  to  Russia,  reluctantly  leaving  Corfu  to 
her3.  These  letters  explain  why  neither  Great  Britain  nor  Russia  could 
make  peace  with  him,  and  why  Prussia  broke  with  him.  For  the 
present,  his  divulsive  plans  prospered.  The  Russian  Plenipotentiary, 
d'Oubril,  who  arrived  at  Paris  on  July  6th,  was  so  dazzled  by  his 
splendour,  or  cowed  by  his  threats,  as  to  sign  with  Talleyrand  a  separate 
Treaty,  a  secret  article  of  which  stipulated  the  cession  of  Sicily  to 
King  Joseph,  Ferdinand  IV  receiving  from  Spain  the  Balearic  Isles 

1  Nap.  Corr.  9944,  10314,  10316. 

2  H.  A.  L.  Fisher,  Napoleonic  Statesmanship:   Germany,   ch.  v;  E.  Driault, 
Austerlitz,  pp.  376-88.    On  August  6th,  Francis  II  abdicated  as  Head  of  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire;  and  that  venerable  organism  expired. 

3  Nap.  Corr.  Nos.  10396,  10409,  10416,  10448,  10499.   For  Gentz's  comments 
on  the  negotiations  of  1806,  see  Sir  R.  Adair,  Mission  to  Vienna,  ad  fin. 

W.  &G.  I.  23 


354  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

for  his  son  Francis,  the  former  Prince  Royal  (July  2Oth).  Believing 
that  he  had  saved  Germany  from  the  projected  Napoleonic  League 
and  Austria  from  ruin,  d'Oubril  hurried  back  to  Petrograd,  there  to 
meet  with  an  indignant  reception  by  his  master,  who  repudiated  this 
degrading  compact. 

Yet  Napoleon  had  won  a  respite  of  some  weeks,  and  had  for  the 
time  separated  the  Allies.  He  now  turned  against  Great  Britain, 
resolved  to  wrest  Sicily  from  her  at  all  costs :  witness  the  last  sentence 
of  his  letter  of  August  6th  to  King  Joseph — "  Peace  or  war,  you  shall 
have  Sicily1."  Accordingly,  his  Plenipotentiary,  General  Clarke, 
declared  to  Yarmouth  that,  since  France  had  gained  a  signal  success 
by  separating  the  Allies,  she  must  now  raise  her  terms.  Yarmouth 
being  so  indiscreet  as  to  produce  his  full  powers  for  treating  in  regular 
form,  the  negotiation  promised  to  be  short.  But  Fox,  rebuking 
Yarmouth  for  this  lapse,  sent  out  to  Paris  a  statesman  known  for  his 
pacific  views,  the  Earl  of  Lauderdale,  to  assist  him  and  finally  to  take 
over  his  duties. 

The  conferences  with  Clarke  during  the  month  of  August  revealed 
the  hopelessness  of  coming  to  an  accord.  Napoleon  now  scornfully 
rejected  the  original  basis  of  uti possidetis ,  which  implied  Great  Britain's 
retention  of  St  Lucia,  Tobago,  the  Cape  and  Surinam.  True,  early 
in  September,  on  hearing  that  Alexander  I  refused  to  ratify  the  Oubril 
compact,  he  seemed  inclined  to  lower  his  tone.  But  now,  as  ever,  the 
crux  was  Sicily.  The  principle  of  good  faith  to  our  Neapolitan  Ally 
and  the  dictates  of  naval  strategy  alike  forbade  the  surrender  of  that 
island  to  Joseph  Bonaparte.  Moreover,  Fox  is  said  to  have  attached 
great  importance  to  the  maintenance  of  British  power  in  the  Mediter- 
ranean2. Unfortunately,  early  in  August,  he  fell  seriously  ill  of  the 
dropsy.  The  symptoms,  perhaps,  were  aggravated  by  despair  at  the  un- 
favourable turn  of  the  negotiation.  When  his  nephew,  Lord  Holland, 
ventured  to  suggest  that,  after  all,  some  indemnity  might  be  found  for 
the  Bourbons  in  lieu  of  Sicily,  he  replied :  "  It  is  not  so  much  the  value 
of  the  point  in  dispute  as  the  manner  in  which  the  French  fly  from  their 
word  that  disheartens  me.  It  is  not  Sicily,  but  the  shuffling,  insincere 
way  in  which  they  act  that  shows  me  they  are  playing  a  false  game ;  and 
in  that  case  it  would  be  very  imprudent  to  make  any  concessions  which 
by  possibility  could  be  thought  inconsistent  with  our  honour,  or  could 

1  Nap.  Corr.  10657. 

2  Lord  Holland,  Memoirs  of  the  Whig  Party,  n.  340;  also,  Ann.  Reg.  (1806), 
ch.  ix,  which  is  by  him.          i?f  "Ca»r'n**il*  "   Vil  IT. 


DEATH  OF  FOX:  SICILY  REMAINS  THE  CRUX    355 

furnish  our  Allies  with  a  plausible  pretence  for  suspecting,  reproaching 
or  deserting  us1." 

Fox  died  on  September  i3th.  French  writers  have  often  represented 
that  event  as  the  chief  cause  for  the  breakdown  of  the  negotiation, 
asserting  that  Fox's  colleagues  and  Lauderdale  were  less  peaceably 
inclined  than  the  deceased  statesman.  Such  assertions  are  at  variance 
with  the  evidence.  Holland,  who  knew  both  Fox  and  his  colleagues, 
believed  that  no  difference  of  opinion  occurred  between  him  and  them 
on  this  head,  and  that  his  death  made  no  difference  to  the  issue  of  the 
negotiation.  Further,  with  one  immaterial  exception,  the  despatches 
sent  to  Lauderdale  after  that  event  deviated  neither  in  matter  nor  in 
tone  from  those  of  March-August  23rd.  Moreover,  Lauderdale  con- 
tinued to  make  every  possible  effort  to  bring  about  an  honourable 
peace,  for  which  since  the  year  1793  he  had  consistently  striven2.  He 
remained  at  Paris  until  October  6th ;  but  in  vain.  On  September  24th, 
Napoleon  left  St  Cloud  to  direct  the  War  to  which  his  insolent  treat- 
ment of  Prussia  had  now  driven  her  long-suffering  monarch3.  The 
Instructions  left  behind  for  Champagny  precluded  all  hope,  either  of 
a  joint  negotiation  with  Great  Britain  and  Russia  or  of  the  retention 
of  Sicily  by  the  Neapolitan  Bourbons.  On  September  25th,  the  French 
Plenipotentiary  offered  to  Great  Britain  the  Cape,  Malta,  Hanover, 
Tobago  and  the  French  settlements  in  India;  but  he  insisted  on  the 
cession  of  Sicily,  the  Bourbons  receiving  the  Balearic  Isles  and  an 
annuity  from  the  Court  of  Spain.  As  these  cynical  terms  were 
Napoleon's  ultimatum,  the  negotiation  lapsed. 

Thus,  Sicily  was  the  chief  cause  of  the  prolongation  of  the  War, 
as  Malta  had  been  of  its  inception.  At  this  point,  as  at  all  important 
crises  since  November,  1792,  the  Franco- British  dispute  turned 
essentially  on  questions  of  naval  strategy.  On  the  surface,  there  appear 
in  1793, 1797, 1803, 1 806  altercations  respecting  the  Scheldt,  Gibraltar, 
Malta,  Sicily.  What  was  really  at  stake  was  the  French  control  of  the 
Dutch  Netherlands  and  mastery  of  the  Mediterranean.  A  sure  instinct 
impelled  even  peace-loving  Ministers  to  hold  out  firmly  on  matters 
that  concerned,  first,  the  safety  of  the  East  Coast  and,  finally,  the 
communications  with  India.  For  the  present,  Great  Britain  had  to 

1  Corr.  of  C.  J.  Fox,  iv.  476.    Sir  Robert  Adair,  Mission  to  Vienna  (Introd.) 
refutes  the  assertions  of  Bignon  that  Fox  had  offered  to  cede  Sicily ;  but  the  slander 
has  been  widely  accepted. 

2  Holland,  Memoirs  of  the  Whig  Party,  n.  76-81,  346-52. 

3  The  chief  cause  of  the  rupture  was  Hanover  (Garden,  x.  153).    See,  too, 
G.  Jackson,  Diaries,  11.  12-14,  501-11. 

23—2 


356  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

acquiesce  in  French  control  of  Dutch  territory ;  but  she  reduced  the 
danger  by  occupying  the  Cape;  and  Napoleon's  Levantine  schemes 
now  warned  her  to  hold  on  both  to  Malta  and  Sicily. 

He  revenged  himself  by  overthrowing  Prussia.  So  swift  were  his 
moves  that  neither  Russia  nor  Great  Britain  could  help  her.  Austria, 
who  could  have  done  so,  remembered  Prussia's  inaction  of  the  year 
before1.  Consequently,  this  second  phase  of  the  Third  Coalition  cor- 
responds closely  to  the  first.  Prussia  takes  the  place  of  Austria.  Her 
main  army  having  been  utterly  beaten  at  Jena-Auerstadt  (October  I4th), 
the  survivors  scatter  eastwards;  not  until  February,  1807,  do  the 
Russo-Prussian  forces  make  a  determined  stand,  at  Eylau;  and  not 
until  April  26th  is  the  revived  Coalition  placed  on  a  firm  basis  by  the 
Treaty  of  Bartenstein  between  those  Powers.  To  this  Treaty  Great 
Britain  (who  had  made  peace  with  Prussia)  soon  acceded,  offering  a 
subsidy  of  £1,000,000  on  June  27th,  a  fortnight  after  the  Russians 
were  utterly  overthrown  in  the  battle  of  Friedland.  So  halting  had 
been  the  moves  of  the  Allies,  whereby  they  threw  away  the  few  chances 
left  open  to  them  by  the  perfervid  genius  of  Napoleon. 

The  sole  interest  attaching  to  Great  Britain's  policy  in  these  gloomy 
months  belongs,  not  to  her  dilatory  diplomacy,  but  to  the  develop- 
ment of  the  elemental  struggle  between  her  and  Napoleon.  On 
November  2ist,  three  weeks  after  his  triumphal  entry  into  Berlin,  he 
issued  thence  his  famous  Decree,  declaring  the  British  Isles  in  a  state  of 
blockade,  and  all  commerce  and  communication  with  them  forbidden, 
all  British  subjects  in  French  or  Allied  lands  subject  to  imprisonment 
and  all  British  property  good  prize,  the  half  of  it  being  used  to  indemnify 
merchants  for  the  losses  inflicted  by  British  cruisers.  The  preamble 
justifies  this  measure  by  a  recital  of  the  harsh  British  customs  which 
enjoined  the  capture  of  the  crews  and  cargoes  of  hostile  merchant- 
men, the  blockade  of  non-fortified  harbours,  the  practice  of  nominal 
blockade,  even  over  an  entire  coast,  and,  in  fine,  of  all  her  measures 
calculated  to  ruin  the  trade  of  the  Continent.  All  Napoleon's  Allies 
are  ordered  strictly  to  carry  out  this  Decree,  so  that  a  cordon  may  be 
drawn  against  the  Islanders,  from  the  Elbe  to  the  south  of  Italy.  The 
King  of  Holland  is  urged  to  great  activity  in  enforcing  this  Decree — 
"the  sole  means  of  striking  home  at  England  and  compelling  her  to 
peace  " — also,  to  build  25  sail  of  the  line,  so  that  in  four  or  five  years 
Napoleon  and  his  Allies  may  challenge  her  maritime  supremacy2. 

1  Adair,  Mission  to  Vienna,  p.  142. 

2  Nap.  Corr.  11283,  11377,  11378. 


THE  BERLIN  DECREE:  THE  UNITED  STATES    357 

Such,  then,  was  the  Emperor's  policy — to  utilise  the  resources  of 
all  lands  under  his  control,  to  close  them  to  British  commerce,  and 
finally  to  mass  their  fleets  for  the  utter  overthrow  of  the  Island  Power. 
The  construction  of  warships  which  he  now  pressed  on  in  Dutch, 
French,  Spanish  and  Italian  ports  furnished  a  telling  commentary  on 
this  Decree.  Commercial  war  was  to  prepare  for  political  destruction. 
The  programme  was  merely  a  gigantic  development  of  ideas  set  forth 
by  the  French  Jacobins.  The  Report  of  January  ist,  1793,  to  the 
French  Convention  insisted  on  the  artificiality  of  the  British  Empire 
and  the  facility  with  which  it  might  be  attacked  in  so  many  quarters  as 
to  ensure  the  ruin  of  British  credit.  This  notion  inspired  Bonaparte  in 
his  Egyptian  Expedition.  And  now,  that  avenue  being  closed  by  the 
British  occupation  of  Malta  and  Sicily,  he  expanded  the  alternative 
scheme,  named  in  his  letter  of  February  23rd,  1798,  of  seizing  the 
north-western  coast  of  Germany,  the  probable  sequel  being  the  in- 
clusion of  Prussia  and  Austria  in  his  "coast-system." 

His  plan  of  commercial  warfare  against  Great  Britain  having  its 
roots  far  in  the  past,  we  need  not  take  very  seriously  the  diatribes 
against  her  maritime  tyranny  in  the  preamble  to  the  Berlin  Decree. 
But  her  proceedings  at  sea  had  aroused  much  discontent  among 
neutrals,  especially  in  the  United  States.  Already,  President  Jefferson, 
in  his  official  Message  of  December  3rd,  1805,  had  protested  against 
the  depredations  of  privateers  on  United  States  and  other  shipping 
even  close  to  their  ports,  declaring  that  he  had  armed  light  squadrons 
to  capture  the  offenders  and  have  them  tried  as  pirates.  He,  also, 
referred  to  captures  made  by  warships  contrary  to  the  Law  of  Nations, 
and  declared  that  neutrals  had  as  good  a  right  as  belligerents  to  decide 
what  was  legitimate  trade  for  a  neutral  to  carry  on  with  belligerents. 
Equally  obnoxious  to  him  was  the  custom  whereby  "a  belligerent 
takes  to  itself  a  commerce  with  its  own  enemy  which  it  denies  to  a 
neutral."  Probably,  he  was  referring  either  to  the  Licence  system 
then  commencing,  or  to  the  Rule  of  1756,  cited  above.  But  his 
charges  were  vague,  Great  Britain  not  being  named.  He  named  her, 
however,  in  his  Message  of  January  I7th,  1806,  as  infringing  the  terms 
of  the  Jay  Treaty  of  1794-5,  and  as  impressing  seamen  from  United 
States  shipping.  That  practice  and  the  right  of  search  which  it  involved 
was  certainly  productive  of  infinite  friction1.  In  April,  1806,  Congress 
passed  a  Non-Importation  Act,  prohibiting  the  import  of  many  British 
products.  It  came  into  force  on  November  i5th,  but,  owing  to  the 

1  See  Camb.  Mod.  Hist.,  vii.  327-31. 


358  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

clamour  against  it,  was  soon  withdrawn.  Negotiations  were  then  on 
foot  between  Washington  and  London,  and,  in  December,  Jefferson 
announced  that  they  were  "proceeding  in  a  spirit  of  friendship  and 
accommodation  which  promises  a  mutual  advantage1."  The  blighting 
of  these  hopes  resulted  from  the  Berlin  Decree  and  the  retaliation  to 
which  the  British  Government  resorted. 

The  first  retort  to  that  drastic  measure  took  the  form  of  the  British 
Order  in  Council  of  January  yth,  1807,  which,  while  asserting  the 
inherent  justice  of  retaliating  by  the  prohibition  of  all  maritime  trade 
with  France,  such  as  she  threatened  to  apply  to  the  British  Isles,  yet 
restricted  such  punitive  measures  to  vessels  trading  between  any  two 
ports  whence  British  ships  were  excluded.  It  therefore  aimed  at 
stopping  all  trade,  even  that  of  neutrals,  from  harbour  to  harbour 
(except  in  Portugal)  between  Hamburg  and  Venice.  Inasmuch  as 
British  cruisers  now  swept  the  seas,  neutral  trade  probably  suffered 
more  from  the  thorough  application  of  this  limited  measure  than  from 
the  Emperor's  brutum  fulmen  of  a  blockade  of  the  British  Isles.  In 
truth,  he  must  have  resorted  to  that  bombastic  declaration  chiefly  as 
a  means  of  intimidation  and  of  spurring  on  his  antagonist  to  reprisals 
certain  to  arouse  the  wrath  of  neutrals.  In  this,  as  will  shortly  appear, 
he  succeeded. 

The  month  of  February,  1807,  witnessed  the  failure  of  the  Sea 
Power  to  help  Russia.  Driven  from  Warsaw  by  the  pressure  of 
Napoleon's  arms,  she  was  now  threatened  by  her  secular  rivals,  the 
Turks.  General  Sebastiani,  French  Ambassador  at  Constantinople, 
having  induced  the  Porte  to  declare  war  on  Russia  (December  24th, 
1806),  the  British  Government  ordered  a  squadron  to  force  the  Straits 
and  compel  the  Turks  to  make  peace.  Vice- Admiral  Sir  James  Duck- 
worth with  seven  sail  arrived  at  Princes  Islands,  near  Constantinople, 
on  February  2Oth,  1807.  The  wind  failing,  he  anchored  there  and  then 
weakly  complied  with  the  request  of  the  British  Ambassador,  Charles 
Arbuthnot,  now  on  board,  that  he  should  seek  to  end  the  Russo- 
Turkish  War  by  peaceful  negotiation.  Thereupon,  the  Turks  amused 
him  with  specious  offers,  until  their  preparations  were  complete 
both  on  the  spot  and  at  the  Dardanelles.  Then  they  defied  him,  and 
he,  realising  his  helplessness,  ran  for  the  Straits,  passing  the  repaired 
forts  with  considerable  loss.  Subsequently,  the  Russian  squadron 
which  should  have  aided  him  hove  in  sight.  War  with  Turkey  having 
arisen  out  of  our  futile  effort  to  help  Russia,  the  British  squadron 
1  Ann.  Reg.  (1807),  p.  679. 


FAILURE  OF  BRITISH  MILITARY  POLICY       359 

proceeded  to  Alexandria,  where  the  operations  on  land  completely 
miscarried1.  Altogether,  the  naval  and  military  policy  of  the  Fox- 
Grenville  Ministry  proved  a  disastrous  failure.  From  Trafalgar  to  the 
Dardanelles  was  a  plunge  from  the  sublime  to  the  ridiculous. 

The  conviction  gained  ground  that "  All  the  Talents  "  had  frittered 
away  the  national  resources  on  distant  and  difficult  enterprises,  when 
they  should  have  struck  at  France.  Deprived  as  she  was,  for  seven  or 
eight  months,  of  the  presence  of  Napoleon  and  the  Grand  Army,  then 
in  Prussia  or  Poland,  she  presented  a  good  target2.  But  the  genius  of 
Chatham  appealed  in  vain  to  Grenville,  Fox  and  Howick ;  and  their 
dull,  unenterprising  regime  sensibly  contributed  to  the  overthrow  of 
the  Third  Coalition.  In  March,  1807,  Great  Britain  had,  exclusive 
of  artillery,  259,000  men  under  arms.  Of  these,  93,000  were  serving 
abroad,  while  165,000  Regulars  and  Militia  were  in  these  islands, 
without  reckoning  that  uncertain  factor,  the  Volunteers.  But  only 
33 ,000  were  deemed  ready  for  foreign  service ;  and,  owing  to  our  diverse 
responsibilities  in  the  Mediterranean,  the  Cape,  and  South  America, 
it  was  deemed  hazardous  to  send  abroad  more  than  12,000  men3.  Pitt 
and  Barham  had  always  kept  transports  ready  for  the  immediate  des- 
patch of  such  a  number.  But,  as  their  successors  discontinued  this 
practice,  no  force  could  be  sent  speedily  to  the  help  of  our  Allies.  To 
this  cause  may  be  ascribed  the  very  discreditable  failure  to  aid  Russia 
and  Prussia  in  the  spring  of  1807,  when  the  scales  of  war  were  hovering 
in  the  balance. 

In  March,  1807,  the  Grenville  Cabinet  fell,  owing  to  its  resolve 
to  carry  Catholic  Emancipation  and  the  King's  invincible  repugnance 
to  that  measure4.  The  cares  of  State  now  fell  on  the  unimpressive  Duke 
of  Portland,  the  equally  mediocre  Hawkesbury  (soon  to  become  Earl 
of  Liverpool)  at  the  Home  Office,  the  Earl  of  Chatham  at  the  Ordnance, 
and  Perceval  at  the  Exchequer.  Far  stronger  men  were  Lord  Eldon 
as  Lord  Chancellor,  Lord  Castlereagh  for  War  and  the  Colonies,  and 
Canning  for  Foreign  Affairs.  In  this  Tory  and  Old- Whig  Ministry, 
George  Canning  (1770-1827)  alone  calls  for  special  notice  here.  His 
conversational  and  literary  gifts  had  first  shone  in  the  brilliant  society 
of  Fox  and  Sheridan;  but  the  French  Revolution,  fretting  the  rich 

1  P.O.  Turkey,  156,  157;    Collingwood,  Memoirs,  pp.  251-67;    Parl.  Papers , 
March  23rd,  1808 ;  E.  Driault,  La  Politique  orientale  de  Napoleon,  pp.  85-1 10 ;  Adair, 
Mission  to  Vienna,  p.  223. 

2  See  Plain  Facts,  or  a  Review  of  the  Conduct  of  the  late  Ministers  (Stockdale, 
2nd  edit.  June,  1807). 

3  Castlereagh  Memoirs,  viu.  46-8;  Temperley,  G.  Canning,  p.  72. 

4  Castlereagh  Memoirs,  iv.  374-92;  Dropmore  Papers,  ix.  100-20. 


360  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

vein  of  sentiment  in  his  nature,  ranged  him  with  Burke  and  Windham 
on  the  side  of  Pitt.  Admiration  of  Pitt's  genius  and  hatred  of  French 
Jacobinism  were  thenceforth  the  animating  motives  of  his  career.  As 
Under- Secretary  for  Foreign  Affairs  in  1796-9,  he  displayed  equal 
firmness  and  imagination.  Sympathising  with  his  leader  on  the  Catholic 
claims,  he  retired  with  him  in  1801,  but  could  not  be  restrained  from 
contemptuous  sallies  on  Addington  as  responsible  for  the  detested 
Peace  of  Amiens : 

Hail,  thou,  on  whom  our  State  is  leaning! 
O  Minister  of  mildest  meaning ! 
Head  of  wisdom,  soul  of  candour 
Happy  Britain's  guardian  gander, 
To  rescue  from  th'  invading  Gaul 
Her  '  commerce,  credit,  capital ! ' 

Returning  with  Pitt  to  office  in  May,  1804,  as  Treasurer  of  the  Navy, 
he  flung  himself  with  ardour  into  the  struggle  against  Napoleon,  but 
refused  to  have  a  part  in  the  gathering  of  "All  the  Talents,"  with 
"no  Elijah  near."  Such  was  the  statesman,  versatile  but  resolute, 
generous  but  self-willed  and  intriguing,  who,  after  four  months  of 
responsibility,  was  suddenly  called  on  to  solve  one  of  the  most  complex 
and  momentous  problems  of  that  age. 

Like  his  father  seven  years  previously,  Alexander  delighted 
Napoleon  and  exasperated  his  Allies  by  throwing  the  weight  of  Russia 
suddenly  into  the  opposite  scale.  True,  he  had  cause  of  complaint 
against  us.  In  the  spring  and  early  summer  of  1807,  we  had  done 
little  to  help  him  in  the  Baltic  except  by  the  tardy  despatch  of  a  small 
force  under  General  Cathcart  to  Stralsund.  Three  British  sloops  strove 
hard  to  harass  the  French  besiegers  of  Danzig.  But  of  what  avail  were 
three  sloops  ?  Danzig  surrendered  on  May  27th ;  and  its  fall  set  free  a 
considerable  force  for  service  in  the  field.  Exasperation  against  the 
British  was  therefore  rife  at  the  Allied  headquarters1,  especially  after 
the  catastrophe  of  Friedland  (June  i4th).  Despite  the  arrival  of  large 
Russian  reinforcements,  Alexander  soon  decided  to  sue  for  an  armistice ; 
and,  in  a  letter  of  June  24th,  he  stated  to  his  Envoy,  Prince  Lobanoff, 
his  desire  for  a  Franco-Russian  Alliance,  which  "alone  can  guarantee 
the  welfare  and  repose  of  the  world.... An  entirely  new  system  ought 
to  take  the  place  of  that  which  has  existed  here,  and  I  flatter  myself 
that  we  shall  easily  come  to  an  understanding  with  the  Emperor 
Napoleon,  provided  that  we  treat  without  intermediaries2."  Probably, 

1  G.  Jackson,  Diaries,  n.  148.       z  Tatischeff,  Nouvelle  Revue,  June  ist,  1890. 


FRANCO-RUSSIAN  UNDERSTANDING  361 

this  avowal  of  a  desire  to  break  with  Prussia  and  Great  Britain  became 
known  at  the  Tsar's  headquarters  at  Tilsit.  Certain  it  is  that  a  British 
agent,  Mackenzie,  who  was  there  on  June  23rd~5th,  met  with  a  friendly 
reception  from  the  Commander-in-Chief,  Bennigsen,  and  heard  him 
exclaim  at  dinner  on  the  25th : "  The  two  Emperors  have  shaken  hands. 
Europe  has  cause  to  tremble." 

On  that  day,  Napoleon  and  Alexander  met  in  the  friendliest  fashion 
on  a  raft  in  the  middle  of  the  River  Niemen  at  Tilsit ;  and  the  question 
arises — How  did  the  British  Government  come  to  know  of  Alexander's  t 
volte-facet  A  fantastic  story  states  that  a  British  spy  was  on  the  raft 
and  heard  all  their  private  converse ;  but  it  is  far  more  probable  that 
secrets  leaked  out  through  Bennigsen  or  some  other  malcontent 
Russian  officer.  On  his  way  back  to  London,  Mackenzie  arrived  at 
Memel  on  June  26th,  and  brought  news  of  the  Armistice  and  other 
threatening  symptoms  to  a  group  of  British  officials,  including  General 
Sir  Robert  Wilson,  Sir  George  Jackson,  Lord  Hutchinson,  then  on 
a  special  mission,  and  the  British  Ambassador,  Lord  G.  Leveson- 
Gower. 

Nor  was  this  all.  Leveson-Gower's  earlier  despatches  to  Canning 
had  contained  warnings  that  Bernadotte's  corps,  near  the  southern 
border  of  Holstein,  might  invade  that  duchy,  so  as  to  compel  Denmark 
to  close  the  Sound  to  British  ships;  and  now,  on  the  26th,  he  sent  off 
by  Mackenzie  news  of  the  Franco-Russian  rapprochement.  It  reached 
Downing  Street  on  July  i6th.  Already,  our  Envoy  at  Copenhagen, 
Garlike,  had  reported  the  Francophil  tendencies  of  that  Court.  Further, 
the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  on  proceeding  via  Copenhagen  to  take  over  the 
British  Embassy  at  Vienna,  had  reported  (incorrectly  as  afterwards 
appeared)  considerable  activity  in  the  Danish  dockyards.  Official  news 
from  Altona  also  mentioned  menacing  moves  of  the  French  near  by. 
Hence,  the  arrival,  on  or  before  July  i6th,  of  very  disquieting  infor- 
mation from  Memel,  Copenhagen  and  Altona  aroused  intense  anxiety 
at  the  Foreign  Office.  Were  France,  Russia  and  Denmark,  possibly 
Prussia  also,  about  to  form  a  League  like  that  of  1800-1  for  the  closing 
of  the  Baltic?  On  this  occasion,  the  problem  confronting  the  new 
Portland  Cabinet  wras  exceptionally  complex ;  for  a  Northern  League 
would  threaten  the  communications  of  the  British  expeditionary  force 
cooperating  with  our  Swedish  Allies  at  Stralsund.  Further,  the  Por- 
tuguese and  Danish  fleets  (the  latter  consisting  of  ig  sail  of  the 
line)  might  easily  be  seized  by  the  French  troops  in  their  vicinity ;  and 
the  combined  Napoleonic  fleets,  backed  by  some  20  Russian  sail, 


362  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

would  form  an  armada  equal,  at  least  on  paper,  to  the  103  British  sail 
of  the  line  in  commission  early  in  iSoy1. 

N  Such  was  the  problem,  as  it  confronted  Canning  on  July  i6th.  A 

dull  and  unimaginative  man  would  probably  have  decided  to  await 
further  developments  before  making  even  preliminary  preparations. 
But  Canning's  was  an  imaginative  mind,  keenly  patriotic  and  fired  with 
intense  hatred  of  Napoleon.  Aware  of  the  impressionable  nature  of 
Alexander,  and  piecing  together  the  fragments  of  information  from 
Memel,  Copenhagen  and  Altona,  he  pictured  to  himself  as  imminent  a 
vast  conspiracy  for  the  ruin  of  Great  Britain.  Evidently,  the  Danish 
fleet  was  the  heart  of  the  problem.  Very  early  on  the  i8th,  F.  J.  Jackson, 
formerly  Ambassador  at  Berlin,  was  summoned  to  Downing  Street. 
He  found  Canning  in  a  state  of  great  perplexity,  but  convinced  that 
Napoleon  was  about  to  seize  that  fleet,  with  a  view  to  the  invasion  of 
England.  On  the  same  day,  he  framed  his  resolve.  Mulgrave,  First 
Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  at  once  issued  most  urgent  orders2  for  the 
immediate  preparation  for  sea  of  22  sail  of  the  line,  and  29  smaller 
craft,  and  this,  too,  in  addition  to  13  warships,  the  commission  of 
which  he  had  ordered  on  July  i5th.  Those  ordered  on  the  i8th  were 
for  a  particular  service  under  Admiral  Gambier3.  The  purpose  of  this 
formidable  armament  appeared  in  Canning's  Instructions  of  July  i6th 
to  Brooke  Taylor,  whom  he  appointed  successor  to  Garlike  at  Copen- 
hagen. The  new  Ambassador  was  to  proceed  forthwith  to  that  city 
and  declare  to  the  Danish  Government  that  a  British  fleet  was  coming 
to  support  it  in  repelling  all  offers  from  Napoleon. 

On  July  2ist  the  arrival  of  news  up  to  June  25th  from  Tilsit 
(probably  brought  by  Mackenzie)  clinched  Canning's  determination; 
and,  on  the  22nd,  he  informed  Brooke  Taylor  that  Napoleon  had 
proposed  to  the  Tsar  the  framing  of  a  Maritime  League,  in  which 
Denmark  would  be  included.  Distinct  and  satisfactory  assurances 
must  therefore  be  required  from  her  that  no  such  demand  had  been 
made,  or  that,  if  so,  it  had  been  rejected.  Above  all,  Brooke  Taylor 
would  demand  the  deposit  of  the  Danish  fleet  in  British  hands,  in  order 
to  remove  the  object  for  which  Napoleon  was  striving.  Great  Britain 
offered  to  Denmark  her  Alliance  and  the  yearly  payment  of  £100,000 
during  such  time  as  the  fleet  was  held  in  pledge.  It  is  clear  that 

1  See  my  articles  in  Transactions  of  the  R.  Historical  Society  (New  Series,  vol.  xx) 
and  in  Napoleonic  Studies,  pp.  133-65  ;  also,  James,  Naval  Hist.  iv.  201  and  App.  xv ; 
The  Athenaeum,  September  i7th,  1902. 

2  Journals... of  Sir  T.  Byam  Martin,  I.  326,  328. 

3  Admiralty  (Orders  and  Instructions),  152. 


THE  SEIZURE  OF  THE  DANISH  FLEET  363 

Canning  offered  the  Alliance  as  a  device  for  gilding  the  pill ;  for  it  was 
extremely  unlikely  that  so  spirited  a  Power  would  peaceably  accept 
terms  so  humiliating  from  a  State  with  which  its  relations  were  un- 
friendly. Probably,  too,  he  hoped  that  the  arrival  of  Gambier's 
overwhelming  force,  finally  numbering  25  of  the  line  and  many  smaller 
craft,  would  save  the  honour  of  Denmark  and  avert  a  conflict.  If  so, 
he  was  disappointed.  The  overtures,  unskilfully  made  by  Jackson  and 
Brooke  Taylor,  were  indignantly  rejected,  and  hostilities  ensued,  a 
landing  force  finally  on  September  yth  compelling  the  surrender  of 
Copenhagen  and  the  Danish  fleet.  The  latter,  comprising  15  sail  of 
the  line  (mostly  very  old),  as  many  frigates,  and  31  smaller  vessels, 
was  brought  away  near  the  end  of  October. 

Such  was  this  discreditable  episode.  In  seeking  to  reach  an  im- 
partial judgment  upon  it,  the  enquirer  is  first  faced  with  the  question: 
Was  the  information  as  to  the  designs  of  Napoleon  on  Denmark  suffi- 
ciently cogent  to  warrant  action  so  drastic  as  that  taken  by  Canning  and 
his  colleagues  ?  Search  in  the  British  Archives  (which,  though  abundant 
on  this  topic,  may  not  contain  all  the  documents  bearing  on  it)  reveals 
the  fact  that  the  evidence  before  them  by  July  2ist  was  merely  cir- 
cumstantial, and  not  so  complete  as  to  be  conclusive.  It  warranted 
no  more  than  an  inference  that  the  seizure  by  Napoleon  of  the  Danish 
fleet  was  highly  probable.  In  the  ensuing  debates  on  this  question, 
Canning  referred  to  sources  of  information  (doubtless  those  named 
above)  and  to  a  British  Minister — probably,  Leveson-Gower — as 
furnishing  the  proofs.  But  his  despatches  were  not  decisive  on  this 
question ;  and  Lord  Hutchinson,  who  had  been  at  Memel,  denied  in 
the  House  of  Lords,  on  February  8th,  1808,  that  there  had  existed 
proofs  sufficient  to  justify  the  action  taken  against  Denmark.  Castle- 
reagh,  also,  admitted  that,  so  early  as  July  iQth,  1807,  Ministers  "took 
His  Majesty's  pleasure  as  to  the  propriety  of  the  expedition1."  But 
not  until  August  8th  were  even  the  public  articles  of  the  Treaty  of 
Tilsit  known  in  London;  and  they  contained  nothing  derogatory  to 
Danish  Independence.  Further,  Canning's  despatch  of  August  4th 
urged  Leveson-Gower  to  find  out  whether  there  were  any  secret 
articles2.  Now,  it  was  the  Secret  Treaty  of  Alliance  of  July  yth  which 
contained  the  proviso :  that,  if  Great  Britain  refused  the  Tsar's  offer 
to  mediate  for  peace  between  her  and  France,  he  would  then  make 
common  cause  with  the  latter ;  and  Russia  and  France  would  summon 

1  Hansard  (1808),  p.  169  et  seq. 

2  P.O.  Russia,  70. 


364  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

Denmark,  Sweden  and  Portugal  to  declare  war  against  the  Island 
Power1.  That  Canning's  keen  intuitions  divined  the  beginnings  of 
what  might  have  developed  into  a  formidable  plan  may  be  granted; 
but  his  imagination  soared  high,  when,  on  September  25th,  he  wrote 
to  Paget  that  the  Copenhagen  expedition  had  prevented  "a  northern 
confederacy,  an  invasion  of  Ireland  and  the  shutting  of  Russian  ports2." 
More  probably,  it  hastened  the  latter  proceeding  and  its  sequel,  the 
Tsar's  Declaration  of  War  against  Great  Britain,  which  was  issued  so 
soon  as  he  believed  two  of  his  squadrons  to  be  secure.  On  the  whole, 
the  parliamentary  debates  of  January-March,  1 808 ,  on  this  topic  some- 
what shook  public  confidence  in  the  Ministry.  Its  harsh  treatment  of 
Denmark  was  reprobated  by  the  Duke  of  Gloucester,  Lord  Grenville, 
the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  Lords  Sidmouth,  Darnley,  Erskine,  Moira, 
Hutchinson  and  Grey,  as  also  by  Windham,  Ponsonby  and  Whitbread 
in  the  House  of  Commons. 

To  pass  censorious  judgments  on  Canning  and  his  colleagues,  as 
if  the  problem  of  July,  1807,  had  been  a  simple  one,  is  unjust.  The  very 
existence  of  Great  Britain  was  at  stake ;  and  the  evidence  which  reached 
Downing  Street  on  or  before  July  2ist  rendered  it  very  probable  that 
Napoleon  would  coerce  Denmark  and  compel  the  surrender  of  her 
fleet.  Moreover,  Canning's  intentions  towards  the  Danes  were,  as  his 
letters  and  despatches  show,  friendly.  He  even  hoped  for  the  formation 
of  an  Anglo- Scandinavian  Alliance,  which  might  save  the  North  from 
the  grasp  of  the  two  Emperors3.  All  this  must  be  admitted.  Neverthe- 
less, the  information  on  which  he  founded  his  inference  as  to  Napoleon's 
designs  on  Denmark  amounted,  not  to  proof,  but  only  to  a  high  degree 
of  probability;  and  it  is  very  doubtful  whether,  on  such  evidence, 
he  was  justified  in  a  course  of  action  which  might  lead  to  hostilities 
with  a  weak  Power.  Would  it  not  have  been  better  to  run  the  risk  of 
the  addition  of  ig  Danish  sail  of  the  line  to  the  Napoleonic  Armada 
than  to  incur  the  odium  that  must  result  from  the  seizure  of  those 
ships?  This  is  the  question.  The  conscience  of  that  age,  as  of  our  own, 
has  in  general  answered  it  in  the  affirmative. 

In  November,  1807,  British  policy  exercised  a  somewhat  stringent 
pressure  on  Portugal.  Since  our  rupture  with  the  Court  of  Madrid 
at  the  end  of  1804,  her  existence  had  been  precarious;  and  now  the 
accord  of  the  two  Emperors  at  Tilsit  portended  ruin.  Early  in  August, 
1807,  the  Portuguese  Ministers  were  aware  that  France  and  Spain 

1  Vandal,  Napoleon  et  Alexandre,  i.  505-7.  2  Paget  Papers,  n.  363. 

3  Rose,  Napoleonic  Studies,  pp.  146-50 ;  Lane-Poole,  Life  of  Stratford  Canning,  1.30. 


ARRANGEMENTS  WITH  PORTUGAL  365 

would  force  them  into  war  with  Great  Britain.  They  therefore  begged 
our  Government  through  its  Ambassador,  Viscount  Strangford,  to 
put  up  with  a  nominal  state  of  war ;  but  they  failed  to  convince  either 
Canning  or  him  of  the  feasibility  of  their  proposal.  The  British  Govern- 
ment, also,  urged  resistance  to  Napoleon's  demand  for  the  confiscation 
of  British  ships  and  property ;  and  to  such  a  measure  the  Prince  Regent 
promised  never  to  stoop.  By  September  27th,  however,  Napoleon  had 
laid  his  plans  for  the  complete  partition  of  Portugal,  and  these  led  up 
to  the  Franco- Spanish  Treaty  of  Fontainebleau  (October  27th),  which 
assigned  parts  of  the  kingdom  to  Godoy  and  the  dethroned  King  of 
Etruria,  reserving  the  major  portion  for  future  disposal.  French  and 
Spanish  forces  now  advanced  towards  Lisbon,  the  French  being  in- 
structed to  enter  as  friends,  so  as  to  seize  the  Portuguese  fleet.  On 
their  near  approach,  Strangford  with  some  difficulty  induced  the 
Prince  Regent  and  his  Government  to  retire  from  Portugal  to  Brazil 
under  escort  of  the  British  fleet.  Canning,  also,  signed  with  Portugal 
a  Convention  empowering  us  temporarily  to  occupy  Madeira,  as  was 
done  late  in  the  year1. 

Thus,  in  the  year  1807  the  Sea  and  Land  Powers  bore  hard  upon 
Denmark  and  Portugal  respectively,  our  treatment  of  the  former  being 
honourable  and  straightforward  by  comparison  with  the  vulpine  con- 
duct of  Napoleon  towards  Portugal.  Yet  his  moves,  equally  skilful  and 
forceful,  pushed  successively  along  the  inner  arcs  of  the  Continent, 
everywhere  prevailed ;  while  Great  Britain,  acting  without  any  system 
and  with  slighter  forces  at  diverse  points  of  the  circumference,  nearly 
everywhere  failed.  In  that  fatal  year,  Napoleon  riveted  the  Continental 
System  on  Russia,  Prussia  and  Spain,  gained  the  Alliance  of  Denmark, 
annexed  Etruria  and  the  Ionian  Isles,  drove  the  Swedes  from  their 
Pomeranian  province,  and  partitioned  Portugal.  The  sole  successes  of 
the  Islanders  were  the  capture  of  Cura9oa  and  St  Thomas,  the  seizure 
of  the  Danish  fleet  and  the  rescue  of  the  Portuguese  fleet  from  his 
clutches.  It  would  be  superfluous  here  to  describe  the  Russian  offer  of 
mediation  for  a  general  peace.  Conceived  as  it  was  in  a  spirit  friendly  to 
Napoleon,  it  could  not  find  acceptance  at  Downing  Street.  Somewhat 
similar  proposals  coming  from  Vienna  met  with  a  friendly  response2. 
But  the  deep-rooted  distrust  of  Napoleon  had  increased  with  every  year 
of  triumph  of  his  forceful  policy ;  and  the  pitilessness  with  which  he 

1  F.O.  Portugal,  55;  Garden,  x.  372;  Nap.  Corr.  nos.  12839,  13235,  13237, 
13243,  13314,  and  Lettres  inedites,  nos.  171,  188.    Tout  discours  est  bon,  pourvu  qu'il 
(Junot)  s'empare  de  Vescadre  portugaise. 

2  Coquelle,  chs.  XXI,  XXII. 


366  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

trampled  upon  Prussia  and  other  opponents  banished  all  thought  of 
compromise,  even  in  that  season  of  gloom,  the  winter  of  1807-8. 

Yet  there  was  no  reason  for  despair ;  and  Canning  and  his  colleagues 
never  despaired.  The  failures  of  the  overseas  expeditions  of  the  year 
1 807  were  clearly  due  to  the  bad  management  of  the  Grenville  Adminis- 
tration ;  but  the  nation  was  united  in  the  resolve  not  to  surrender,  and 
was  uplifted  by  the  belief  that  the  Napoleonic  colossus  could  not  long 
bestride  the  earth.  Meanwhile,  Ministers  sought  to  tighten  their 
Maritime,  as  a  retort  to  his  Continental,  System.  The  Order  in  Council 
of  November  nth,  1807,  stated  that,  whereas  the  Order  of  January  7th 
had  not  had  the  desired  effect  of  compelling  Napoleon  to  withdraw 
his  Berlin  Decree  or  of  inducing  neutrals  to  intervene  for  that  purpose, 
Great  Britain  now  considered  all  French  and  subject  ports  to  be  in 
a  state  of  blockade,  and  would  be  justified  in  treating  ships  sailing  to 
and  from  such  ports  as  good  prize.  Nevertheless,  certain  exceptions 
favourable  to  neutrals  were  granted ;  but  vessels  carrying  "  certificates 
of  origin"  (viz.  that  all  the  goods  carried  by  them  were  non-British) 
were  to  be  counted  good  prize.  A  second  Order,  of  November  nth, 
extended  the  facilities  granted  in  1803  to  neutral  importers  for  storing 
their  goods  in  bond  without  payment,  with  a  view  to  reexportation. 
This  Order  was  permissive,  not,  as  has  often  been  represented,  com- 
pulsory. A  third  Order,  of  the  same  date,  declared  illegal  the  sale  of 
enemy  vessels  to  neutrals,  a  clause  designed  specially  to  prevent  bogus 
sales  which  would  be  cancelled  when  the  said  hostile  vessels  reached 
port.  Orders  of  a  fortnight  later  accorded  facilities  to  neutrals  sailing 
between  British  ports  and  ports  in  America  or  the  West  Indies,  or 
between  the  Channel  Islands,  Isle  of  Man,  Gibraltar  or  Malta,  and 
any  hostile  port  not  actually  in  a  state  of  blockade  by  H.M.'s  ships. 
The  most  rigorous  of  these  Orders  was  that  directed  against  ships 
carrying  "  certificates  of  origin,"  as  ordered  by  Napoleon  for  all  vessels 
trading  with  his  ports.  As  he  confiscated  ships  carrying  goods  of 
British  origin,  so  Great  Britain  now  retaliated  by  similar  treatment  of 
ships  carrying  the  products  of  his  or  Allied  States.  Both  Decrees  were 
highly  oppressive  and  enabled  acquisitive  captains,  especially  those  of 
privateers,  to  carry  ofTor  hold  up  ships  on  the  suspicion  that  part  of  their 
cargoes  consisted  of  enemy  goods.  Since  nearly  all  cruisers  were 
British,  the  burden  of  neutral  complaints  fell  upon  us. 

Napoleon's  retort  to  these  Orders  in  Council  appeared  in  the  Milan 
Decrees  of  mid-December,  1807.  Declaring  that  Great  Britain  was 
about  to  compel  neutral  ships  to  resort  to  her  ports  and  pay  duties, 


TENSION  WITH  THE  UNITED  STATES  367 

he  now  threatened  to  confiscate  all  that  should  so  act  or  should  peace- 
fully submit  to  search ;  and  all  vessels  sailing  from  any  British  port  were 
to  count  as  good  prize.  Each  of  the  two  antagonists,  then,  justified  its 
Decrees  as  a  natural  retort  to  those  of  its  rival ;  and  the  system  which 
began  early  in  1806  with  the  exclusion  of  British  commerce  from 
north-western  Germany  now,  by  the  end  of  1807,  covered  all  civilised 
lands  and  rendered  neutral  commerce  wellnigh  impossible.  Sharp 
friction,  consequently,  resulted  with  the  United  States.  Our  relations 
with  them  had  long  been  strained,  owing  partly  to  their  inability  to 
understand  the  necessity  for  Great  Britain  of  maintaining  her  maritime 
claims  as  a  counterstroke  to  Napoleon's  Continental  System,  partly 
to  the  inefficient  statement  of  the  British  case  at  Washington.  Such 
was  the  belief  of  the  Anglophil  Gouverneur  Morris,  who  strongly 
urged  the  despatch  of  an  Ambassador  of  high  rank  and  great  talent1. 
The  difficulty  was  to  find  such  a  one;  for  the  days  of  Malmesbury 
were  past,  and  those  of  Stratford  Canning  had  not  yet  dawned.  So 
exasperating  were  the  restrictions  now  imposed  on  neutral  commerce 
by  both  belligerents,  and  so  much  friction  resulted  from  our  seizures 
of  deserters  from  British  warships  (notably  in  the  Chesapeake  case  of 
February,  1807)  that  war  seemed  imminent.  Seeking  to  find  a.  via  media, 
Jefferson,  in  December,  by  a  general  Embargo  Act  reinforced  the  Non- 
Importation  Act  of  the  previous  year,  and  legal  trade  with  all  foreign 
countries  ceased.  North  American  shippers  sought  by  all  possible 
means  to  evade  this  legislation,  which  proved  ruinous.  Consequently, in 
March,  1809,  a  change  was  made,  prohibiting  trade  with  Great  Britain 
and  France  and  their  Allies,  until  they  should  revoke  their  obnoxious 
Decrees.  Unsuccessful  attempts  were  made  by  the  British  Govern- 
ment, in  the  spring  and  summer  of  that  year,  to  effect  a  compromise 
with  the  new  President,  James  Madison ;  for  the  first  negotiator,  David 
Erskine,  exceeded  his  Instructions,  while  the  second,  F.  J.  Jackson, 
'  offended  American  officials  by  his  haughty  demeanour2.  Consequently, 
trade  went  on  only  through  clandestine  channels  between  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  States,  to  the  intense  annoyance  of  manufacturers  here 
and  shippers  there.  The  Portland  Ministry  received  many  petitions 
from  Lancashire  and  Yorkshire  to  cancel  the  Orders  in  Council ;  but 
for  the  present  it  maintained  them,  doubtless  nerved  thereto  by  the 
masterful  will  of  Canning. 

1  Sparks,  Life  of  G.  Morris,  n.  245.  Auckland  strongly  disapproved  our  Orders 
in  Council  (Drop-more  Papers ,  ix.  158). 

2  E.  Canning,  The  American  Nation  (i8oi-n),  ch.  xvm;  H.  Adams,  Hist,  of 
the  United  States,  iv.  387  et  seq.  v.  90-132. 


368  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

But  now,  when  every  month  witnessed  the  diminution  of  Britain's 
resources  and  the  aggrandisement  of  her  enemy,  there  occurred  an 
event  destined  to  call  forth  her  best  energies  and  to  alter  the  character 
of  the  struggle.  On  May  2nd,  1808,  Madrid  rose  in  fury  against 
its  French  oppressors,  and  in  a  short  space  of  time  all  the  Spanish 
provinces  threw  off  the  yoke  of  Napoleon.  It  is  alike  impossible  and 
superfluous  to  describe  here  the  tortuous  intrigues  whereby  he  had 
occupied  the  Spanish  strongholds,  compassed  the  ruin  of  the  Spanish 
Bourbons  and  placed  Joseph  Bonaparte  on  the  Throne  of  Spain.  By 
the  first  of  May,  he  seemed  to  have  at  his  feet  the  whole  of  the 
Peninsula,  and  to  be  about  to  marshal  its  forces  for  the  two  enterprises 
foremost  in  his  thoughts,  the  utter  isolation  of  Great  Britain  and  the 
eventual  partition  of  the  Ottoman  empire1.  By  the  end  of  the  month, 
the  Spaniards  were  in  revolt  against  his  usurped  authority  and  three 
provinces  were  sending  to  London  Envoys  begging  help  from  the  then 
hostile  British  Government.  The  first  to  arrive  were  those  of  Asturias. 
They  received  a  hearty  welcome  both  from  the  people  and  from  officials, 
Canning  entertaining  them  at  his  house,  and  inviting  Sir  Arthur 
Wellesley  to  meet  them.  The  honour  of  first  proposing  to  Parliament 
the  offer  of  aid  to  Spain  fell  to  an  orator  who  had  generally  opposed 
warlike  measures.  Sheridan,  on  June  i5th,  urged  Ministers  to  seize  the 
opportunity  as  the  greatest  that  had  occurred  since  the  French  Revolu- 
tion for  the  rescue  of  a  nation's  liberty.  "Hitherto"  (he  exclaimed) 
"Bonaparte  has  had  to  contend  against  princes  without  dignity  and 
Ministers  without  wisdom.  He  has  fought  against  countries  in  which 
the  people  have  been  indifferent  as  to  his  success.  He  has  yet  to  learn 
what  it  is  to  fight  against  a  country  in  which  the  people  are  animated 
with  one  spirit  to  resist  him."  Canning,  thereupon,  declared  that 
Ministers  viewed  with  admiration  the  rising  of  the  Spaniards  and 
desired  to  aid  them  immediately.  "  Sir  "  (he  exclaimed),  "it  will  never 
occur  to  us  to  consider  that  a  state  of  war  exists  between  Spain  and  Great 
Britain.  We  shall  proceed  upon  the  principle  that  any  nation  of  Europe 
that  starts  up  with  a  determination  to  oppose  a  Power  which... is  the 
common  enemy  of  all  nations,  becomes  instantly  our  essential  Ally2." 
\  This  principle,  which  was  confirmed  and  extended  in  the  King's 
Speech  of  July  4th,  marked  the  dawn  of  a  new  era  in  British  Foreign 
Policy.  The  old  policy  had  been  based  upon  Treaties  of  the  traditional 
type  with  monarchical  Governments  which  were  out  of  touch  with 

1  Nap.  Corr.  February  2nd;  April  29th;  May  loth,  i3th,  lyth,  iQth,  1808; 
Lettres  inedites,  no.  275.  2  Hansard,  xi.  886-96. 


CHANGE  IN  OUR  METHODS  OF  FOREIGN  POLICY  369 

their  peoples.  The  new  policy  involved  trust  in  informal,  but  none  the 
less  binding,  agreements  with  the  peoples  themselves.  The  old  was 
always  formal,  frequently  hollow,  and  not  seldom  secret.  The  new, 
springing  out  of  vital  sympathies,  relied  on  the  fundamental  promptings 
of  human  nature,  and  therefore  needed  no  very  complicated,  still  less 
secret,  stipulations.  From  the  universal  experience  of  mankind  it  was 
to  be  expected  that  the  old  method  would  persist  long  and  would  often 
invade  and  vitiate  those  of  the  new  order.  The  new  methods  were 
often  discarded  amidst  the  complex  arrangements  of  1814-5  an(^  °f  a 
later  age;  but,  when  once  clearly  asserted  and  shown  to  be  workable, 
they  were  certain  to  gain  ground;  and  their  vitality  could  not  but  increase 
with  the  quickening  of  national  consciousness  and  the  growth  of  popular 
education.  Thus,  the  months  of  May  and  June,  1808,  inaugurate,  not 
merely  a  novel  policy,  but,  what  is  more  important,  a  fresh  spirit, 
destined  to  influence  nations  as  well  as  Governments.  The  latter  now 
tend  to  become  the  mouthpiece  of  the  former ;  and  it  is  significant  that 
this  development  began  with  two  essentially  conservative  nations. 
Spain  and  Great  Britain  led  the  way  in  asserting  the  claims  of  national 
independence  as  against  the  overweening  pretensions  of  the  "heir  to 
the  French  Revolution."  The  wheel  had  come  full  circle.  France, 
which,  in  1793,  had  summoned  all  peoples  to  a  crusade  for  freedom, 
now  found  embattled  against  her  the  primeval  instincts  of  two  great 
peoples,  whose  union  was  destined  to  arouse  and  invigorate  other  com- 
munities and  reduce  her  to  her  former  level.  ^ 

For  the  present,  Canning  and  Castlereagh  sent  help  in  money  and 
arms  to  the  juntas  which  forthwith  sprang  up  in  all  districts  of  Spain. 
Canning  strongly  advised  them  to  form  a  Central  Junta,  to  which  he 
would  at  once  send  a  duly  accredited  Minister.  Dreading  the  deep- 
rooted  provincialism  of  the  Spaniards,  he  forthwith  urged  them  to  a 
national  union ;  and  his  despatches  to  the  first  British  Envoy,  Charles 
Stuart, and  afterwards  toHookhamFrere,  refute  the  charges  of  Napier, 
that  he  lavished  money  heedlessly  on  local  juntas1.  Meanwhile,  the 
success  of  the  Spaniards  at  Baylen  (July  igth)  where  more  than  20,000 
of  Napoleon's  troops  surrendered,  assured  the  liberation  of  the  south 
and  centre ;  and,  a  month  later,  Sir  Arthur  Wellesley's  force,  sent  out 
by  Castlereagh  with  no  very  distinct  aim  in  view,  overthrew  the  French 
Army  of  Portugal  at  Vimeira.  The  arrival  of  incompetent  seniors, 
Burrard  and  Dalrymple,  before  the  end  of  the  battle,  alone  saved  that 

1  Napier,  Peninsular  War,  I.  Bk  2,  ch.  I.  See  my  article  in  American  Hist.  Rev. 
October,  1906. 

W.&G.  I.  24 


370  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

army  from  disaster.  Thereupon,  at  Torres  Vedras,  the  British  leaders 
(Wellesley  rather  reluctantly  acceding)  signed  with  General  Junot  a 
Convention,  misnamed  that  of  Cintra,  whereby  they  secured  control 
of  a  Russian  fleet  sheltering  in  the  Tagus,  and  allowed  the  conveyance 
of  the  French  army  back  to  France  on  British  ships.  This  compact 
has  been  defended  on  strictly  military  grounds;  but  it  erred  in  not 
preventing  the  salvage  of  valuable  booty  by  the  French  troops,  and, 
still  more,  in  not  imposing  restrictions  on  their  future  use  in  the 
Peninsular  War.  These  omissions  exasperated  both  the  plundered 
Portuguese  and  the  Spanish  patriots,  the  latter  declaring  that,  as  the 
French  veterans  would  soon  again  march  through  the  Pyrenees  into 
Spain,  the  British  Generals  had  betrayed  Spanish  interests.  The 
Convention,  therefore,  aroused  the  distrust  of  both  Portuguese  and 
Spaniards  in  British  Generals,  including  Sir  Arthur  Wellesley.  He 
and  the  senior  officers  were  summoned  home  to  face  the  enquiry  which 
public  indignation  demanded.  The  King  and  Canning  shared  the 
widespread  feeling,  which  was  not  dispelled  by  a  generally  favourable 
official  verdict.  The  affair  entailed  another  unfortunate  result.  Castle- 
reagh,  as  was  his  wont,  loyally  supported  Wellesley,  and,  after  the 
enquiry  was  over,  insisted  on  his  reappointment  to  the  Peninsular 
command.  To  this  Canning  objected;  and  the  quarrels  between  these 
two  masterful  Ministers  became  acute.  Nevertheless,  popular  de- 
pression and  the  naggings  of  the  Opposition  failed  to  bend  the  Cabinet's 
resolve  to  persevere  with  the  struggle  in  the  Peninsula;  and  on 
December  Qth,  Canning  despatched  an  indignant  refusal  to  the  Tsar's 
offer  of  mediation  (agreed  on  at  Erfurt),  couched  in  terms  which 
implied  the  recognition  of  Joseph  Bonaparte  as  King  of  Spain. 

The  resolution  to  support  the  Spaniards  was  not  shaken  by  the 
glorious  but  lamentable  failure  of  Sir  John  Moore's  campaign  in 
northern  Spain.  On  January  I4th,  1809,  a  Treaty  of  Alliance  was  signed 
with  the  Central  Junta  of  Seville.  Sharp  differences  with  the  Spaniards 
and  the  reverses  that  were  to  be  sustained  during  four  years  of  wearing 
conflict  failed  to  break  that  compact,  which  led  up  to  the  Treaty  of  1814 
with  the  restored  Ferdinand  VII.  This  fact  alone  emphasises  the  con- 
trast be  ween  the  Anglo-Spanish  union  and  the  artificial  Conventions 
which  built  up  the  first  three  essentially  fragile  Coalitions.  Well  might 
the  prophet  of  that  age  say : "  In  all  that  regarded  the  destinies  of  Spain, 
and  her  own  as  connected  with  them,  the  voice  of  Britain  had  the 
unquestionable  sound  of  inspiration1." 

1  Wordsworth,  Convention  of  Cintra  (Oxford  edit.  1915,  p.  no). 


DISUNION  OF  EUROPE  371 

IV 

In  other  quarters  than  the  Iberian  Peninsula,  British  policy  for  the 
present  worked  ineffectively.  To  the  German  national  movement, 
which  began  to  make  headway  early  in  1809,  Ministers,  especially 
Castlereagh,  were  irresponsive.  Yet,  after  the  interview  of  Napoleon 
and  Alexander  at  Erfurt  in  September  to  October,  1808,  there  were 
clear  signs  that  the  French  Emperor  would  fall  upon  Austria  so  soon 
as  he  had  defeated  the  Spanish  patriots ;  and,  at  the  end  of  1808,  when 
success  had  crowned  his  arms  in  the  Peninsula,  he  hurried  back  to 
Paris  to  prepare  for  the  new  conflict.  At  that  time,  marked  by  the 
utter  humiliation  of  Prussia,  the  hopes  of  all  German  patriots  centred 
in  Vienna.  Reforms,  both  civil  and  military,  were  renovating  the 
energies  of  the  Habsburg  States ;  the  Tyrolese  longed  to  return  to  their 
allegiance  to  the  Emperor  Francis;  and  his  patriarchal  sway  was 
regretted  by  many  other  South- Germans.  For  a  brief  space,  there 
appeared  a  faint  hope  that  Canning  might  league  Great  Britain, 
Austria,  Turkey  and  Persia  together  against  Napoleon  and  the  Tsar. 
Such  was  the  scheme  which  he  entrusted  to  Sir  Robert  Adair,  urging 
him  to  effect  a  reconciliation  with  the  Turks.  Perceiving  that  we  had 
acted  against  them  early  in  1807  solely  on  behalf  of  Russia,  they  were 
by  no  means  loth  to  make  peace ;  but  oriental  pride  and  lethargy  spun 
out  the  negotiations  until  January,  1809;  and  then  it  was  too  late  to 
frame  so  extensive  a  league  in  time  for  the  War  that  speedily  ensued1. 

The  dictates  of  sound  policy  should  have  led  Prussia  to  act  in  con- 
junction with  Austria — a  course  which  Hardenberg  and  Gneisenau 
secretly,  but  strongly,  urged.  Indeed,  in  the  spring  of  1809,  there 
appeared  the  first  signs  of  a  widespread  union  of  the  peoples  from  the 
Tagus  to  the  Niemen.  But  on  their  side  all  was  vague,  and  the  advan- 
tages of  central  position  and  effective  organisation  remained  with  Napo- 
leon. He  seemed  to  have  mastered  the  Spaniards,  and  his  union  with 
Alexander  was  unimpaired.  Moreover,  Austria's  preparations  were  far 
from  complete,  and  the  German  patriots,  besides  being  unorganised, 
could  not  receive  from  Britain  the  timely  and  effective  help  which  her 
fleet  could  afford  to  those  of  Spain  and  Portugal.  These  considerations 
and  the  notorious  indecision  of  Frederick  William  told  against  the 
acceptance  of  requests  for  help  either  at  Stralsund  or  on  the  Hano- 
verian coast.  Austria,  also,  sent  lofty  demands  for  pecuniary  aid,  and 
suggested  diversions  by  us  in  Spain,  Italy  and  the  mouth  of  the  Weser. 
1  Adair,  Mission  to  Constantinople,  I.  ad  fin. 

24—2 


372  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

Thus,  the  choice  open  to  Ministers  was  bewilderingly  wide,  the  pre- 
sence of  a  French  squadron  at  Flushing  also  inviting  a  dash  on  that 
important  post  and  Antwerp.  It  is,  therefore,  not  surprising  that  sharp 
divisions  of  opinion  should  have  arisen  in  the  Cabinet,  accentuating 
the  disputes  between  those  temperamental  opposites,  Castlereagh  and 
Canning.  The  former,  however,  in  March  carried  his  point  for  the 
despatch  of  Sir  Arthur  Wellesley  to  Portugal  for  the  defence  of  that 
country  and  such  wider  operations  as  he  should  judge  expedient.  The 
sum  of  £30,000  was  accorded  to  the  German  patriots,  with  the  promise 
of  a  British  squadron  in  the  Baltic.  Lastly,  after  some  initial  difficul- 
ties, Liverpool  signed  an  Alliance  with  Austria  (April  24th)1. 

All  these  arrangements  were  belated ;  for,  though  the  Tsar  warned 
Austria  against  action,  and  Frederick  William  obstinately  clung  to 
inaction,  she  rushed  into  the  fray  with  the  nervous  haste  that  had 
assured  her  doom  in  1805.  Now,  again,  it  fell  on  her  quickly.  Arch- 
duke Charles  invaded  Bavaria  on  April  I2th,  and,  on  May  i3th,  Napoleon 
entered  Vienna  in  triumph.  The  patriotic  risings  of  Dornberg,  Schill 
and  the  young  Duke  of  Brunswick  came  to  naught  in  April-May,  the 
British  squadron  in  the  Baltic  being  too  fully  occupied  with  the 
Russians  and  Danes  to  render  effective  help  to  the  brave  Schill  in  his 
last  stand  at  Stralsund2.  Signal  ill  fortune  beset  all  the  British  plans 
for  1809.  In  April,  an  attack  by  Admiral  Gambier  with  a  powerful 
squadron  on  the  French  fleet  in  the  Aix  roads  off  Rochefort  was  a 
failure  despite  the  gallant  but  unsupported  efforts  of  Cochrane  with 
fireships  and  small  craft.  Far  more  costly  and  disastrous  was  the 
-Walcheren  expedition,  directed  against  Antwerp.  Knowing  the  im- 
portance which  Napoleon  attached  to  that  dockyard,  on  which  66,000,000 
francs  had  of  late  been  expended,  Castlereagh  drew  up  a  plan  of  attack 
so  early  as  July,  1808.  In  March,  and  again  in  May,  1809,  he  revived 
the  scheme,  and  on  the  i8th  offered  the  command  of  the  land  forces 
to  Lord  Chatham3.  He  was  therefore  responsible  for  what  proved 
to  be  a  very  unfortunate  choice.  His  nominee,  far  from  having 
adequate  experience  in  war,  had  displayed,  even  in  civil  affairs,  a 
tardiness  which  won  him  the  nickname  of  the  late  Lord  Chatham. 
Indeed,  so  soon  as  Thomas  Grenville  heard  of  this  appointment  to 
the  command  of  "  35,000  of  our  best  and  last  troops,"  he  foretold  the 
failure  of  the  expedition.  His  forecast  was  but  too  true.  Chatham 

1  Fortescue,  British  Army,  Bk  13,  ch.  xxv. 

2  Sir  J.  Ross,  Memoirs  of  Adm.  Lord  de  Saumarez,  n.  ch.  ix.  Journals... of  By  am 
Martin,  II.  67-112. 

3  Castlereagh  Memoirs,  vi.  247,  256. 


CANNING  AND  CASTLEREAGH  373 

delayed  the  sailing  of  the  fleet  unnecessarily1:  it  weighed  from  the 
Downs  on  July  28th,  three  weeks  after  the  overthrow  of  Austria; 
and  the  local  difficulties,  added  to  disagreements  with  Rear-admiral 
Sir  Richard  Strachan,  marred  an  enterprise  which,  if  pushed  on 
betimes  with  forceful  energy,  might  have  turned  the  scales  of 
war  on  the  Danube.  By  comparison  with  this  costly  failure, 
Wellington's  Talavera  campaign  was  successful.  He  won  a  decisive 
victory,  and,  though  compelled  by  the  follies  and  selfishness  of  the 
Spanish  commanders  to  retreat  hastily  on  Portugal,  his  advance 
revealed  the  artificiality  of  the  Napoleonic  regime  in  the  Peninsula. 
Three  years  full  of  disaster  were  however  needed,  in  order  to  teach 
the  Spaniards  the  necessity  of  close  and  loyal  cooperation  with  him. 
Meanwhile,  the  Walcheren  fiasco  brought  to  a  climax  the  long 
series  of  disagreements  between  Canning  and  Castlereagh.  Inheriting 
the  hot  temper  and  self-will  of  their  Anglo-Irish  ancestry,  they  always 
clashed.  Even  in  affairs  of  high  moment  which  demanded  cooperation, 
they  held  aloof  from  each  other  with  untoward  results.  Portland,  now 
nearing  the  end  of  his  ineffective  career,  utterly  failed  to  maintain  har- 
mony. Indeed,  his forgetfulness  complicated  the  quarrel  between  them ; 
and  the  feud  came  to  an  appropriate  ending — a  duel  on  Putney  Heath, 
in  which  Canning  was  slightly  wounded,  and  a  partial  reconciliation. 
The  Portland  Cabinet  now  collapsed.  Spencer  Perceval,  its  pedestrian 
but  conscientious  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  sought  to  refashion 
it,  with  the  addition  of  Lords  Grenville  and  Grey ;  but  the  King's  in- 
vincible repugnance  to  Catholic  Emancipation,  which  they  made  a  test 
question,  deprived  the  country  of  their  services2.  The  new  Perceval 
Cabinet  was,  therefore,  distinctly  Tory:  five  Ministers,  Perceval, 
Camden,  Eldon,  Mulgrave  and  Chatham  retaining  their  former  exe- 
cutive functions,  while  Liverpool  became  Secretary  for  War  and  the 
Colonies,  and  Bathurst  for  Foreign  Affairs.  The  last-named  was  soon 
succeeded  by  Marquis  Wellesley,  who,  after  a  distinguished  vice- 
royalty  in  India  (1798-1805),  had  latterly  gone  to  Seville  as  Envoy  to 
the  Central  Spanish  Junta.  A  novice  in  diplomacy,  he  soon  fell  into  the 
adversary's  traps,  and  his  inexperience  was  not  made  good  by  assiduity ; 
for  young  Stratford  Canning  at  the  Constantinople  Embassy  com- 
plained that  he  only  received  scanty  despatches  from  him,  and  at  long 
intervals3.  Nevertheless,  Wellesley  was  well  fitted  by  administrative 

1  Dropmore  Papers,  ix.  311,  312. 

2  Dropmore  Papers,  ix.  322  et  seq.   F.  Horner,  Memoirs,  11.  499. 

3  Lane-Poole,  Life  of  Stratford  Canning,  I.  91,  129. 


374  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

experience,  and  by  special  knowledge  of  the  peculiar  difficulties  con- 
fronting his  brother  in  Spain,  to  forward  the  most  important  enterprise 
undertaken  by  Great  Britain  since  1792.  In  the  dark  years,  1809-11, 
everything  turned  on  the  Peninsular  War ;  and,  while  some  of  his 
colleagues  at  times  shrank  from  the  responsibility  of  continuing  that 
apparently  hopeless  struggle,  Wellesley  never  quailed.  To  him, 
Perceval  and  Liverpool  is  due  the  credit  of  persisting  in  an  enterprise 
which  elicited  the  croakings  of  the  Grenvilles,  the  gibes  of  Cobbett, 
and  the  nervous  remonstrances  of  the  City  of  London1. 

Meanwhile,  difficulties  beset  us  from  other  quarters.  The  mad 
obstinacy  of  Gustavus  IV,  having  foiled  our  efforts  to  help  him2,  he 
was  constrained  to  abdicate.  His  successor,  Charles  XIII,  though 
friendly  to  Great  Britain  and  supported  by  her  fleet,  was  fain  to  come 
to  terms  with  Russia  (September,  1809),  and,  early  in  the  next  year, 
with  Napoleon.  This  capitulation  involved  the  entrance  of  Sweden 
into  the  Continental  System,  and  consequently  war  between  her  and 
Great  Britain;  but  the  Admiralty  privately  instructed  Vice-admiral 
Sir  James  Saumarez,  commander  in  the  Baltic,  to  avoid  hostile  action ; 
and  the  tactful  manner  in  which  he  carried  out  this  difficult  duty 
rendered  possible  the  resumption  of  friendly  relations  in  i8n-i23. 
For  the  present,  however,  British  trade  was  almost  entirely  excluded 
from  the  Baltic. 

Further,  the  movements  of  two  Franch  army  corps  on  Holland 
portended  the  annexation  of  that  kingdom.  Napoleon  had  long  com- 
plained of  the  softness  of  his  brother  Lewis  in  tempering  the  severities 
of  the  Continental  System ;  and  he  now  devised  the  expedient  of  a 
threatened  annexation,  in  order  to  compel  Great  Britain  to  make  peace 
on  his  terms.  This  device  he  put  into  effect,  partly  through  King  Lewis, 
partly  through  the  Dutch  Foreign  Minister,  Roell.  Believing  that  a 
general  peace  could  alone  stave  off  annexation,  they  lent  themselves 
to  the  plan;  and  Roell  selected  as  a  go-between  Labouchere,  a  Dutch 
banker  of  high  repute,  son-in-law  of  Sir  Francis  Baring  of  London, 
who  was  a  Director  of  the  East  India  Company.  Having  reason  to 
believe  in  Wellesley's  desire  for  peace,  now  that  the  Spaniards  were 
on  the  verge  of  disaster,  they  hoped  to  induce  him  and  his  colleagues 
to  mitigate  the  Orders  in  Council  of  1807  in  proof  of  their  pacific 
desires.  After  the  experience  of  the  peace  negotiations  of  1806,  and 

1  Dropmore  Papers,  ix.  287,  313-21,  370-2;  Cobbett's  Political  Reg.  (February 
I7th,  1810). 

2  Diary  of  Sir  J.  Moore,  n.  ch.  xxiv. 

3  Sir  J.  Ross,  Memoirs  of  Saumarez,  n.  ch.  xi. 


FOUCHfi'S  PEACE  OVERTURES  375 

even  more  of  Napoleon's  offers  in  the  years  following,  British  Ministers 
should  have  distrusted  all  such  proposals.  Nevertheless,  early  in  1810 
Wellesley  toyed  with  a  peace  overture  emanating  from  that  arch- 
intriguer,  Fouche,  Napoleon's  Minister  of  Police.  He,  on  his  own 
account,  sent  an  Emigre  named  Fagan,  of  Irish  extraction,  to  sound  the 
Perceval  Cabinet  as  to  possible  terms.  Since  Fouche  insisted  that 
Spain  was  now  conquered  and  that  France  must  have  Sicily,  the  over- 
ture was  soon  at  an  end.  Fouche  was  not  daunted.  He  next  sent  over 
Labouchere,  accredited  from  the  tottering  Dutch  Government.  On 
February  yth,  1810,  Wellesley  gave  him  a  cordial  reception,  but  then, 
and  on  the  nth,  informed  him  that  the  Orders  in  Council  must  remain 
in  force,  unless  Napoleon  would  withdraw  his  Decrees,  to  which  they 
were  a  reply.  Labouchere,  hereupon,  pressed  him  to  save  the  Dutch 
from  annexation,  an  aim  with  which  Wellesley  expressed  sympathy, 
adding  however  that  in  other  matters  (Spain  and  Sicily  were  meant) 
Napoleon  evinced  no  desire  for  a  reasonable  compromise.  Perceiving 
that  he  could  not  bend  the  British  Government,  Napoleon  ordered  the 
military  occupation  of  Holland,  and  in  March,  1810,  annexed  her 
southern  provinces. 

A  third  overture,  made  by  Fouche  on  his  own  responsibility 
through  Baring  and  a  speculator,  Ouvrard,  belongs  rather  to  the 
sphere  of  Court  comedy  than  of  international  policy.  Purporting  to 
come  from  Napoleon  as  a  kind  of  wedding  gift  to  the  world  (he  married 
Marie-Louise  of  Austria  on  April  and,  1810),  it  proposed  to  assign 
Spanish  America  to  Ferdinand  VII  of  Spain,  and  to  effect  a  partition 
of  the  United  States  between  Napoleon  and  George  III.  On  April 
6th  and  i4th  Wellesley  discussed  this  fantastic  scheme  with  Baring, 
even  consulting  Canning  about  it,  and  not  until  May  8th  are  there 
signs  that  he  suspected  a  hoax.  Indeed,  it  was  Napoleon  who  dis- 
covered the  secret,  whereupon  he  dismissed  and  exiled  Fouche,  and 
arrested  Ouvrard.  His  rage  gave  full  publicity  to  the  affair,  thus 
arousing  much  merriment  among  thefrondeurs  both  of  the  Boulevard 
St  Germain  and  of  St  James's.  Wellesley  was  covered  with  ridicule ; 
and  pacific  offers  from  Paris  thenceforth  seemed  mere  tricks  to  weaken 
and  divide  the  Cabinet.  Proposals  for  an  exchange  of  prisoners  went 
on  until  the  autumn  of  1810,  but  thereupon  lapsed,  probably  owing 
to  Napoleon's  confident  belief  that  Massena's  great  army  would  compel 
Wellington  to  a  capitulation1. 

1  For  a  full  account  of  these  negotiations,  based  on  new  evidence,  see  Coquelle, 
chs.  xxvm-xxxi;  also  xxxn-xxxvi  for  the  exchange  of  prisoners. 


376  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

Until  October  loth,  when  the  British  commander  began  his 
triumphant  defence  of  the  lines  of  Torres  Vedras,  the  prospects  were 
indeed  gloomy.  At  home,  the  Government,  which  nervously,  but 
faithfully,  supported  him,  was  barely  warding  off  the  attacks  of  the 
Opposition  leaders,  who  continued  to  declaim  against  the  folly  and 
expense  of  the  Peninsular  War.  The  Reform  movement,  championed 
by  Sir  Francis  Burdett,  was  gathering  head  owing  to  notorious  adminis- 
trative abuses ;  and  the  existing  discontent  was  increased  by  the  decline 
of  the  export  trade  and  dearness  of  corn.  When  work  was  scarce  and 
wheat  sold  at  five  guineas  the  quarter,  the  demand  for  peace  became 
insistent;  and  it  required  all  the  firmness  of  Perceval  to  stave  off  a 
national  surrender  to  an  antagonist  whose  power  and  good  fortune 
seemed  boundless.  On  the  whole,  it  appears  that  the  charges  of 
timidity  and  time-serving  brought  against  his  Administration  in  regard 
to  the  War  in  Spain  are  unfounded.  True,  he  and  Liverpool,  on  several 
occasions,  warned  Wellington  that  it  might  become  necessary  to  with- 
draw his  army;  and  their  private  intimations  sometimes  differed  in- 
excusably from  their  official  communications.  But,  in  view  of  the 
weakness  of  the  Cabinet,  the  strength  of  the  Opposition  and  the  tight- 
ness of  the  money-market,  they  seem  to  have  done  their  best ;  and  it 
was  well  to  apprise  Wellington  betimes  that  evacuation  might,  on  other 
than  military  grounds,  become  necessary.  He  framed  his  measures 
accordingly1.  Later,  on  mature  consideration  of  the  difficulties  of  the 
Government,  he  exonerated  Perceval  and  Liverpool  from  the  savage 
censures  which  Napier  heaped  upon  them2.  His  vindication  deserves 
to  be  quoted: 

I  have  always,  in  public  as  in  private,  declared  my  obligations  to  the 
Government  for  the  encouragement  and  support  which  they  gave  me,  and 
the  confidence  with  which  they  treated  me.  I  was  not  the  Government,  as 
the  Duke  of  Marlborough  was. ...There  was  a  formidable  opposition  to  the 
Government  in  Parliament,  which  opposed  itself  particularly  to  the  opera- 
tions of  the  war  in  the  Peninsula.... It  is  quite  certain  that  my  opinion  alone 
was  the  cause  of  the  continuance  of  the  war  in  the  Peninsula.  My  letters 
show  that  I  encouraged,  nay  forced,  the  Government  to  persevere  in  it.  The 
successes  of  the  operations  of  the  army  supported  them  in  power.  But  it  is 
not  true  that  they  did  not,  in  every  way  in  their  power,  as  individuals,  as 
Ministers  and  as  a  Government,  support  me3. 

Fortunately,  Wellington  had  faced  about  at  the  Lines  of  Torres 

1  Wellington  Despatches,  v.  280-2,  343,  426,  470,  481,  542 ;  vi.  6-10,  51,  147,  320, 
370;  Suppl.  Despatches,  vi.  547. 

2  Napier,  Peninsular  War,  Bk  xi.  ch.  x,  Bk  xiv.  ch.  n. 
8  Stanhope,  Conversations  with... Wellington,  82,  83. 


COMPLETION  OF  THE  CONTINENTAL  SYSTEM   377 

Vedras,  before  home  affairs  entered  upon  an  acute  crisis.  In  October, 
1 8 10,  George  III  became  insane,  and  the  Opposition  hoped  that  the 
accession  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  as  Regent  would  be  fatal  to  the 
Ministry.  Sharp  altercations  occurred  in  Parliament  as  to  the  Minis- 
terial proposals  for  restrictions  on  his  authority ;  but  finally  they  were 
carried.  The  Prince  made  tentative  offers  to  Grenville  and  Grey  for 
the  formation  of  a  Cabinet,  but  in  vain,  owing  to  the  stringency  of 
their  conditions;  otherwise,  it  is  probable  that  Wellington  and  his 
army  would  have  been  recalled  from  the  Peninsula.  By  degrees,  the 
Prince  drifted  away  from  his  Whig  advisers;  and  in  February,  1812, 
when  a  permanent  Regency  Bill  was  passed,  all  risk  of  such  an  issue 
was  at  an  end.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that,  in  the  latter  half  of  1810, 
the  whole  burden  of  the  Napoleonic  War  rested  on  the  shoulders  of 
Wellington;  and  never  was  a  crushing  load  borne  so  prudently,  so 
manfully,  so  triumphantly. 

The  same  months  witnessed  the  completion  of  the  Continental 
System  by  the  annexation  of  Holland  in  July,  and  of  the  north-western 
districts  of  Germany  in  December.  Napoleon  also  tightened  the  cordon 
against  British  commerce  by  the  Trianon  and  Fontainebleau  decrees 
of  August  and  October.  The  former  was  an  involuntary  tribute  to  the 
success  of  our  merchants  in  importing  colonial  produce  into  his  lands ; 
for,  assuming  that  all  such  produce  was  of  British  origin,  he  now 
subjected  it  to  heavy  imposts,  averaging  50  per  cent,  ad  valorem.  Alone 
among  his  Allies,  Alexander  I  declined  to  enforce  this  oppressive 
tariff;  but  he  complied  with  an  imperious  missive  from  Paris  requiring 
the  confiscation  of  a  very  large  number  of  neutral  (mostly  British) 
ships  then  in  the  Baltic1.  This  was  the  severest  blow  yet  sustained  by 
our  commerce,  and  the  heavy  loss  of  merchantmen  (viz.  619)  in  that 
year,  as  well  as  the  sharp  decline  in  exports,  doubtless  explain  the 
prevalence  of  discontent  and  the  timidity  of  our  foreign  policy2. 

Lack  of  information  or  want  of  enterprise  accounts  for  the  neglect 
in  the  year  1810,  of  a  favourable  opportunity  for  coming  to  a  friendly 
understanding  with  the  United  States.  As  has  been  seen,  ineffectual 
efforts  were  made  in  the  previous  year ;  but  President  Madison,  though 
originally  Francophil,  had  not  been  irresponsive.  Moreover,  Napoleon 
in  his  conduct  towards  the  States  had  been  both  harsh  and  insincere, 
retorting  on  their  Non-intercourse  Act  of  1809  by  secret  measures 

1  Probably  many  were  American.    See  H.  Adams,  Hist,  of  the  United  States, 
v.  408-19. 

2  Camb.  Mod.  Hist.  ix.  242,  372-4;  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.  (Jan.  1903)  p.  122. 


378  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

which,  in  May,  1810,  led  to  the  confiscation  of  American  cargoes 
valued  at  $10,000,000.  Further  trickery  ensued,  the  result  being  hot 
indignation  against  him  in  the  States.  Yet,  for  reasons  which  it  is 
difficult  to  explain,  Wellesley  failed  to  profit  by  the  Franco- American 
friction.  Madison,  therefore,  issued  a  proclamation  on  November  2nd, 
stating  that,  unless  Great  Britain  within  three  months  withdrew  her 
Orders  in  Council,  all  intercourse  with  her  would  absolutely  cease. 
Why  he  acted  thus  harshly  towards  Great  Britain,  and  did  not  retaliate 
against  the  far  severer  methods  of  Napoleon,  is  far  from  clear ;  but  it 
seems  that  the  French  Foreign  Minister,  Champagny,  Due  de  Cadore, 
succeeded  in  humouring  him  and  inducing  a  belief  at  Washington  that 
reparation  would  be  offered  and  facilities  for  trade  opened  up.  The 
whole  question,  however,  is  obscure1.  Certain  it  is  that  friction  with 
Great  Britain  continued  unabated.  But  the  events  which  led  to  the 
War  of  1812  must  be  detailed  in  the  following  Chapter. 

Though  British  Ministers  failed  to  assign  due  weight  to  American 
sentiment  and  to  the  personal  factor  always  so  important  at  Washing- 
ton, yet  in  Europe  they  were  by  degrees  feeling  their  way  towards 
effective  measures.  Their  policy,  necessarily  based  on  sea  power,  was 
strengthened  by  the  capture  of  Senegal,  Martinique  and  Cayenne  in 
1809;  of  Guadaloupe,  Amboyna  and  the  lie  de  France  (Mauritius)  in 
1810;  and  of  Java  in  1811.  Thenceforth,  the  resources  of  the  tropics 
were  wholly  at  their  disposal  and  cut  off  from  the  Napoleonic  States, 
except  through  British  agencies.  This  fact,  added  to  the  manufacturing 
superiority  of  the  United  Kingdom,  rendered  the  Continent  dependent 
on  it  at  the  very  time  when  the  French  Emperor  sought  to  sever  all 
connexion  between  them.  In  transferring  the  contest  to  the  economic 
sphere  he  was  unconsciously  marshalling  on  the  side  of  the  Islanders 
forces  against  which  the  mightiest  potentates  struggle  in  vain.  The 
severer  his  Decrees,  the  severer  was  the  distress  inflicted  on  the  French 
people  and  their  Allies,  until,  as  will  duly  appear,  his  Continental 
System  broke  down  in  the  country  where  it  pressed  most  harshly. 

For  Great  Britain,  then,  the  best  course  of  action  was  to  attack 
that  System  from  as  many  sides  as  possible.  This  involved  ceaseless 
activity  at  several  points  of  the  circumference;  and,  since  Napoleon 
enjoyed  the  advantage  of  the  central  position,  the  contest,  in  a  strictly 
military  sense,  seemed  hopeless.  In  an  economic  sense,  it  was  certain 

1  G.  Canning  in  The  American  Nation:  a  History,  vol.  xn.  246-50;  Camb. 
Mod.  Hist.  vii.  332-4.  See  new  evidence  in  F.  E.  Melvin,  Napoleon's  Navigation 
System  (New  York,  1919),  chs.  vi-vin. 


THE  BRITISH  GARRISON  IN  SICILY  379 

finally  to  succeed,  provided  that  the  British  Government  and  nation 
possessed  enough  patience  and  determination  to  carry  it  through. 
Those  qualities  they  displayed  to  a  degree  which  led  him  in  1814  to 
declare  them  "the  most  powerful,  the  most  constant,  and  the  most 
generous  of  my  enemies."  Constancy  was  now  the  characteristic 
needed  for  methods  of  warfare  certain  to  be  fruitful  in  disappointments 
and  therefore  ill-adapted  to  a  parliamentary  system.  That  they  suc- 
ceeded, in  spite  of  Ministerial  mistakes  and  Opposition  naggings,  was 
a  riddle  utterly  incomprehensible  to  Napoleon's  clear-cut  Italian  genius, 
as  also  to  every  Continental  autocrat. 

In  this  circumferential  strategy,  by  far  the  most  important  sector 
was  that  of  Spain  and  Portugal.  There,  the  Sea  Power  acted  with  the 
greatest  possible  advantage  from  excellent  harbours  against  French 
armies,  whose  communications  straggled  across  six  or  seven  hundred 
miles  of  difficult  and  hostile  territory.  Furthermore,  the  Spanish  and 
Portuguese  Colonies  were  now  opened  to  British  commerce,  affording 
a  welcome  relief  to  our  overcharged  industrial  system1.  But  the  Iberian 
Peninsula  was  not  the  only  sector  of  importance.  Next  came  Sicily. 
The  urgency  of  the  conquest  of  that  island  was  a  theme  inspiring 
scores  of  letters  from  Napoleon  to  Murat,  King  of  Naples;  and,  as  we 
have  seen,  a  sense  of  its  value  had  induced  the  Grenville-Fox  Cabinet 
to  break  off  the  peace  negotiations  of  1806,  which  finally  turned  on  its 
surrender.  On  March  3Oth,  1808,  Drummond,  British  Envoy  at 
Palermo,  signed  with  the  Bourbon  Government  a  Convention  for 
alliance  and  mutual  support,  Great  Britain  maintaining  in  Sicily  a 
corps  of  10,000  men  and  paying  to  King  Ferdinand  a  yearly  sum  of 
£300,000,  while  he  in  return  granted  commercial  and  other  privileges2. 
The  British  occupation  was  effective  in  several  ways.  The  possession 
of  Sicily  and  Malta  virtually  closed  the  eastern  Mediterranean  to  a 
French  fleet,  was  a  constant  menace  to  Murat,  and  strengthened  all 
the  Gallophobe  elements  in  Italy.  Further,  from  Sicily  British  goods 
were  often  run  in  successfully  through  the  close  cordon  of  the  Con- 
tinental System.  On  the  whole,  then,  the  maintenance  of  this  large 
garrison  in  Sicily  (about  which  Wellington  sometimes  complained) 
was  fully  justified. 

But  the  effort  was  considerable.  It  was  greatly  enhanced  by  the 
haughty  temper  and  frequent  intrigues  of  Queen  Maria  Carolina.  The 
truth  about  them  will  perhaps  never  be  fathomed;  for  her  neurotic 

1  Sir  F.  d'lvernois,  Effets  du  Blocus  continental,  p.  12. 

2  Koch  and  Scholl,  HI.  86. 


380  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

nature  and  furious  likes  and  dislikes  complicated  even  the  plainest 
issues.  On  the  failure  of  British  efforts  against  Ischia  and  the  Neapolitan 
coast  in  1809,  she  seems  to  have  entered  into  secret  relations  with 
Murat's  underlings.  Certainly,  she  conceived  a  violent  hatred  against  the 
British  officials  in  Sicily,  as  also  against  its  quasi-parliamentary  regime. 
Not  even  the  increase  of  the  British  subsidy  to  £400,000  a  year  satisfied 
her  extravagance  or  softened  her  complaints.  Consequently  the  Sicilians 
and  the  British  drew  more  closely  together,  and  many  were  the 
demonstrations  in  which  the  islanders  shouted  Viva  URe  Georgia.  Our 
Envoys,  a  Court  and  Lord  Amherst,  successively  failed  to  assuage  the 
disputes  with  the  Queen ;  and,  when  her  autocratic  proceedings  caused 
a  deadlock  between  her  and  the  Sicilian  Constitutionals,  the  home 
Government  despatched  as  Envoy  a  man  of  commanding  gifts.  Lord 
William  Bentinck,  formerly  Governor  of  Madras,  was  more  than  a 
match  for  Maria  Carolina,  who  was  moved  to  strong  aversion  by  his 
somewhat  hard  and  ungracious  disposition.  After  reporting  at  London, 
he  returned  in  December,  181 1 ,  armed  with  authority  to  end  the  crisis. 
The  stoppage  of  the  British  subsidy  and  threats  of  a  British  occupation 
of  Palermo  induced  Ferdinand  early  in  1812  to  transfer  his  authority 
to  the  Prince  Royal ;  but  Bentinck  deemed  it  necessary  in  March,  1812, 
to  remove  Ferdinand  and  his  Queen  into  the  interior.  These  high- 
handed proceedings  cleared  the  way  for  the  promulgation  by  the 
Sicilian  Parliament  of  a  Constitution  closely  modelled  on  that  of  Great 
Britain  (June,  1812).  The  abolition  of  feudal  privileges  and  other 
changes  soon  produced  a  slight  reaction,  of  which  the  Queen  sought 
to  take  advantage.  Further  disputes  ensued,  and  Bentinck  finally 
resolved  to  procure  her  departure  from  the  island.  When  about  to 
return,  she  died  in  Austria,  in  September,  1814.  The  new  regime  in 
Sicily  soon  vanished  during  the  period  of  reaction  which  then  set  in ; 
but,  in  the  gloomy  years  that  followed,  it  remained  the  cynosure  of  all 
Italian  patriots;  and  the  events  of  1848  and  1860  made  it  clear  that, 
of  all  the  influences  exerted  by  Great  Britain  in  these  years  of  strife, 
none  was  more  fruitful  than  the  " English  Constitution"  of  1812*. 

The  British  occupation  of  Sicily,  as  we  have  seen,  helped  to  cover 
Turkey  against  Napoleon's  schemes  of  partition,  which  in  1808  prompt- 
ed his  Spanish  enterprise.  The  resumption,  early  in  1809,  of  friendly 
relations  with  the  Sultan  was  of  great  service,  inasmuch  as,  from  1810 

1  Sir  H.  Bunbury,  The  Great  War,  278-80,  329,  442,  462,  464;  R.  M.  Johnston, 
The  Napoleonic  Empire  in  Southern  Italy,  n.  ch.  vm;  Castlereagh  Memoirs,  vm. 
213-32;  Blaquiere,  Letters  from  the  Mediterranean  (1813).  A.  Bonnefons  (Marie- 
Caroline,  ch.  xi)  gives  a  more  favourable  verdict  on  her.  See  too  infra,  p.  455. 


GENERAL  ECONOMIC  SITUATION  (END  OF  1811)    381 

to  1812,  his  empire  was  the  only  neutral  State  in  Europe,  and  his  ports 
opened  up  trade  routes,  devious  it  is  true,  into  its  central  plain. 
Austria,  southern  Germany,  even  France,  received  the  costly  trickles 
that  found  their  way  in,  via  Salonica,  Belgrade  and  up  the  course  of  the 
Danube.  The  hostilities  between  Russia  and  Turkey  never  stopped  this 
traffic.  And  so,  from  the  Balkan  Peninsula,  Sicily,  Malta,  Gibraltar, 
the  Channel  Islands,  Heligoland  and  Anholt,  the  Continental  System 
received  constant  punctures  which  rendered  it  largely  inoperative. 
The  United  Kingdom  suffered,  but  on  the  whole  less  than  the  States 
subject  to  Napoleon ;  so  that  a  French  Royalist  lampoon  of  the  year 
1810  thus  pictured  the  result — 

Votre  blocus  ne  bloque  point, 
Et,  grace  a  votre  heureuse  adresse, 
Ceux  que  vous  affamez  sans  cesse 
Ne  periront  que  d 'embonpoint. 

The  general  situation  towards  the  end  of  1811  was  one  of  extra- 
ordinary interest.  The  Continental  System,  stretched  to  its  utmost, 
showed  signs  of  cracking.  Yet  Napoleon's  power  seemed  boundless. 
Central  and  southern  Europe  obeyed  his  behests.  Only  Portugal  and 
a  few  outlying  parts  of  Spain  defied  the  Imperial  eagles.  The  Tsar 
had  as  yet  given  no  clear  sign  of  political  alienation  from  Napoleon, 
who  swayed  Europe  from  Seville  to  Tilsit.  Moreover,  the  United 
Kingdom  suffered  seriously  from  the  severer  measures  imposed  by 
Napoleon  on  his  States  late  in  1810.  The  value  of  our  exports  of 
manufactures  fell  from  £34,061,901  in  1810  to  £22,681,400  in  1811 ; 
and  that  of  foreign  and  colonial  merchandise  reexported,  from 
£9,357,435  in  1810  to  £6,117,720  in  iSn1.  This  serious  decline, 
together  with  the  increase  in  the  cost  of  the  Peninsular  War,  and  the 
outbreak  of  serious  outrages  known  as  the  Luddite  Riots,  gave  cause 
for  grave  concern.  Yet  there  was  little  thought  of  surrender.  The  Tsar, 
while  remaining  outwardly  friendly  to  Napoleon,  had ,  in  January , 1 8 1 1 , 
imposed  taxes  on  certain  French  products,  and  so  far  relaxed  the 
Continental  System  in  Russia  and  Finland,  as  to  throw  open  his  ports 
to  all  vessels  sailing  under  a  neutral  flag.  This  sign  of  economic  in- 
dependence not  only  annoyed  Napoleon,  but  offered  the  means  of 
surreptitiously  introducing  British  and  colonial  produce,  of  which 
Russia  stood  in  dire  need.  Equally  pressing  was  her  need  of  the  export 
trade  to  the  British  Isles,  which  had  taken  her  corn,  timber,  hemp, 
tar  and  similar  products.  She  and  Sweden  stood  in  vital  relations  to 
1  Porter,  Progress  of  the  Nation,  357. 


382  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

Great  Britain,  who,  besides  being  their  best  customer,  could  then 
alone  supply  the  silks,  cotton,  dyes,  fruits,  sugar,  tobacco  and  other 
tropical  products,  without  which  life  was  a  long  drawn-out  discomfort. 
Subtropical  lands  such  as  Italy  and  the  southern  parts  of  France  and 
Austria  could  furnish  some  of  these  products.  The  northerners  sulked, 
and  meditated  rebellion  against  the  Continental  System.  There  it  was, 
accordingly,  that  Napoleon's  vast  experiment  of  pitting  the  land 
against  the  sea  first  showed  signs  of  collapse. 

A  perception  of  this  economic  truth  probably  influenced  Marquis 
Wellesley  in  seeking  a  reconciliation  with  Sweden.  On  October 
9th,  1811,  he  issued  instructions  to  Edward  Thornton  [1766-1852] 
(previously  our  representative  at  Hamburg  and  then  at  Stock- 
holm) to  proceed  to  H.M.S.  Victory,  flying  the  flag  of  Vice-admiral 
Saumarez  off  the  coast  of  Sweden,  and  seek  to  enter  into  relations  with 
that  Government.  He  was  to  point  out  that  the  present  state  of 
nominal  hostility  between  the  two  countries  could  not  continue  in- 
definitely, and  Sweden  must  choose  between  war  and  peace.  We  offered 
peace,  together  with  naval  support  and  a  good  commercial  treaty,  and 
expressed  a  hope  for  Swedish  cooperation  with  any  Baltic  Power  that 
broke  with  Napoleon;  also,  more  immediately,  for  Sweden's  help  in 
reducing  the  Danish  island  of  Bornholm — another  sign  of  the  British 
policy  of  securing  commercial  bases  opposite  hostile  coasts.  The  ardent 
desire  of  Prince  Bernadotte  (lately  acknowledged  by  Charles  XIII  as 
heir  to  the  Swedish  Crown)  to  aggrandise  his  adopted  country  by 
wresting  Norway  from  Denmark,  was  an  open  secret.  Consequently, 
the  Instructions  proceeded :  "  The  Prince  Regent  is  aware  of  the  views 
of  Sweden  towards  Norway;  but  H.R.H.  cannot  authorise  any  en- 
couragement of  hose  views,  until  the  conduct  and  intentions  of 
Denmark  shall  be  ascertained.  If,  however,  any  proposition  should 
be  made  to  you  on  the  subject  of  Norway  you  will  not  reject  it. ...If 
any  proposition  should  be  opened  to  you  for  the  eventual  cession  of 
any  West  Indian  colony  or  possession  to  Sweden,  you  will  not  reject 
the  proposal,  but  will  receive  it  amicably  for  future  discussion1." 
Reaching  H.M.S.  Victory  in  Wingo  Sound  in  mid-October,  Thornton 
soon  procured  a  secret  interview  on  shore  with  the  Swedish  Minister, 
Count  Rosen,  and  found  that  the  Prince  Royal  and  he  were  resolved 
to  secure  Norway ;  but  Thornton  suggested  as  preferable  the  liberation 
of  Norway  from  the  Danes  and  her  future  independence.  It  soon 
appeared  that  Sweden  shrank  from  a  rupture  with  Napoleon  until  she 

1  P.O.  Sweden,  70. 


CASTLEREAGH  AND  FOREIGN  AFFAIRS         383 

had  sounded  the  Russian  Court;  and,  on  November  2Oth,  the  British 
overture  was  rejected,  first,  because  the  Prince  Royal  regarded  it  as 
almost  a  threat,  secondly,  because  he  feared  an  attack  from  France, 
Russia  and  Denmark.  The  veiled  menace  in  the  Instructions  was, 
indeed,  gratuitous  and  unwise,  unless  Wellesley  made  a  definite  offer 
of  effective  protection,  which  he  did  not.  The  overture  therefore 
deserved  to  fail.  Thornton  expected  success  only  from  a  definite  offer 
made  directly  to  the  Prince  Royal1.  Proceeding  to  London  for  con- 
sultation with  Wellesley,  he  remained  there  until  March,  1812,  when 
a  far  abler  man  took  command  at  the  Foreign  Office. 

Robert  Stewart,  better  known  as  Viscount  Castlereagh,  afterwards  / 
second  Marquis  of  Londonderry  [1769-1822]  had  long  displayed 
firmness  of  will  and  skill  in  the  management  of  men  and  affairs,  first 
in  Ireland  in  1797-1801,  then  as  President  of  the  India  Board  of 
Control  under  Addington.  and  afterwards  as  War  Minister  in  the  Pitt, 
Grenville  and  Portland  Administrations.  He  must  bear  his  share  of 
responsibility  for  the  errors  of  judgment  then  committed ;  and  that 
costly  fiasco,  the  Walcheren  expedition,  was  peculiarly  his  own,  alike  in 
the  original  design  and  in  the  choice  of  Chatham  as  commander.  Yet — 
strange  psychological  contradiction — the  same  man  who  carefully 
selected  that  portentous  misfit,  also  placed  Wellington  in  the  sphere 
peculiarly  suited  to  his  indomitable  will  and  consummate  prudence. 
To  Wellington  Castlereagh  accorded  loyal  and  wholehearted  support, 
both  while  in  office  and  afterwards  by  vindicating  the  general  policy 
of  the  Perceval  Cabinet.  He  was  not  a  good  speaker.  His  circum- 
locutions bored  the  House,  though  occasionally  a  Hibernian  pursuit 
of  conflicting  metaphors  afforded  passing  relief.  But  his  full  powers 
were  revealed  only  in  his  Office  and  in  interviews  with  Generals  or 
Ambassadors.  There,  he  inspired  confidence  in  the  Allied  cause  and 
in  himself  as  its  steadfast  champion.  A  pupil  of  Pitt,  he  carried  on  the  . 
traditions  of  the  European  settlement  set  forth  in  1795, 1798  and  1805 ; 
and  to  the  serene  hopefulness  of  the  master  he  added  a  physical 
strength  and  a  capacity  for  managing  men,  which,  thanks  to  the  belated 
access  of  wisdom  brought  about  by  two  decades  of  defeats,  enabled 
him  to  build  up  and  maintain  a  compact  Coalition. 

Such  was  the  Minister  who  now  took  in  hand  the  negotiation  with 
Sweden.  Fortunately,  that  Power,  annoyed  by  the  French  invasion 
of  its  Pomeranian  Province,  had  sent  to  London  a  proposal,  first, 
for  peace,  and,  secondly,  for  alliance  with  Great  Britain ;  provided  that 

1  P.O.  Sweden,  70.  Thornton  to  Wellesley,  November  2Oth,  1811. 


384  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

we  accorded  naval,  military  and  financial  succour,  transferred  a  West 
India  island  to  her,  and  assured  her  territorial  extension,  especially 
on  the  side  of  Norway.  On  March  i3th,  1812,  Castlereagh  wrote  to 
Thornton  (then  on  his  way  to  Sweden  via  Leith),  welcoming  the 
proposal  of  peace  and  alliance.  He  stated  that  we  did  not  require 
Sweden  to  declare  war  on  Napoleon,  but  (subject  to  the  demands  of 
the  Peninsular  War  which  was  our  chief  concern)  we  would  defend 
her  by  a  fleet  in  case  of  a  Russian  invasion  or  a  Franco-Danish  attack 
through  Norway.  We  would  consider  her  request  for  a  West  India 
island,  and,  while  deferring  a  decision  respecting  Norway,  would 
endeavour  to  meet  her  wishes  for  compensation  for  the  loss  of  Finland 
and  Swedish  Pomerania.  In  separate  and  " secret"  letters,  he  in- 
structed Thornton  to  see  the  Prince  Royal  and  sound  his  intentions ; 
and  he  added  that  Mr  Listen  would  at  once  proceed  to  Constantinople 
to  seek  to  promote  peace  between  the  Sultan  and  Russia1. 

These  despatches  reveal  the  combination  of  foresight  and  prudence 
characteristic  of  a  statesman.  Avoiding  the  veiled  threats  that  had 
lately  given  offence,  Castlereagh  now  displays  full  consideration  for 
Sweden  in  her  difficulties,  promises  to  help  her  if  she  is  attacked  by 
France  and  Denmark,  but  holds  out  no  unreal  hopes  either  of  assistance 
from  us  or  of  aggrandisement  for  her.  Thus,  the  affair  was  placed  on 
a  sound  footing.  A  fortnight  later,  he  promises  that,  when  Sweden 
makes  peace,  the  Orders  in  Council  of  January,  1807,  so  far  as  they 
concern  her,  will  be  revoked  (a  proof  that  those  Orders  were  in  part 
designed  to  exert  diplomatic  pressure  and  that  Ministers  were  begin- 
ning to  consider  the  question  of  abrogating  them).  He  also  points  out 
that  her  ports  will  then  become  the  depots  for  British  trade  in  the 
Baltic,  and  he  adds  the  significant  statement  that,  on  the  conclusion 
of  the  hoped-for  Russo- Swedish  peace,  a  British  officer  will  be  sent  to 
discuss  the  operations  to  be  carried  on  against  the  enemy ;  and  he  notes 
Sweden's  present  proposal  "that  measures  should  be  adopted  to  in- 
duce Denmark  to  join  the  confederacy  against  France,  and  [that]  in 
exchange  for  Norway,  to  be  ceded  to  Sweden,  an  extension  of  territory 
should  be  given  to  Denmark  on  the  side  of  Germany."  As  to  this, 
the  Prince  Regent  declares  that  such  extension  must  not  be  at  the 
expense  of  Hanover.  It  is  clear  that  Castlereagh,  remembering  the 
flash  of  Danish  pride  in  August,  1807,  had  little  hope  of  inducing  that 
people  by  threats  of  coercion  and  invasion  to  side  against  France ;  for, 
on  April  I4th,  he  writes  to  Thornton  suggesting  the  offer  to  Denmark 

1  P.O.  Sweden,  71.   (See  Appendix  for  extracts.) 


CASTLEREAGH'S  NEGOTIATIONS  WITH  SWEDEN  385 

of  Swedish  Pomerania  and  some  other  German  land  as  a  friendly 
exchange  for  Norway.  On  April  24th,  he  charges  Thornton  to  inform 
the  Swedish  Government  that  the  Prince  Regent  had  resolutely 
declined  Napoleon's  offer  of  recent  peace  on  the  basis  of  the  recognition 
of  Joseph  Bonaparte  as  King  of  Spain.  As  this  implied  the  abandon- 
ment of  the  Spanish  patriots,  the  British  answer  could  not  be  doubtful1. 
Though  Napoleon's  peace  overture  to  Great  Britain  implied  a 
desire  to  dissolve  the  nascent  Coalition,  and  was  so  regarded  by  the 
negotiators,  yet  the  Anglo- Swedish  accord  progressed  very  slowly. 
Sweden  required  the  restoration  of  peace  with  Great  Britain  to  be 
accompanied  by  the  framing  of  a  joint  concert  with  Russia.  Castle- 
reagh  demurred  to  this  proviso,  especially  since  Russia  was  preparing 
with  Sweden  a  compact,  the  purport  of  which  she  withheld.  On  the 
ground  of  our  responsibilities  to  the  Spaniards  and  Portuguese,  he 
declined  as  excessive  the  Swedish  requests  for  a  subsidy  of  £i  ,200,000 ; 
and,  as  for  the  acquisition  of  Norway,  he  suggested  that,  preferably, 
Denmark  should  join  the  future  League  and  obtain  the  compensation 
for  the  surrender  of  Norway,  as  noted  above.  While  welcoming  the  news 
of  a  Russo- Swedish  understanding,  Castlereagh  was  evidently  puzzled 
by  the  aloofness  of  Russia,  but,  on  May  8th,  expressed  his  willingness 
to  meet  her  advances  when  proffered.  It  came  to  this,  then:  that 
Sweden  expected  from  us  a  large  subsidy  and  an  assumption  of  wide 
and  vague  responsibilities,  she  herself  offering  nothing  very  tangible 
in  return,  but  the  hitch  in  the  Swedish  negotiation  was  clearly  due  to 
Bernadotte's  resolve  not  to  move  against  France  unless  the  Allies 
guaranteed  Norway  to  him.  This  fact,  and  others  of  curious  import, 
are  set  forth  in  the  Castlereagh-Thornton  despatches2,  which  throw 
light  on  the  schemes  of  the  Prince  Royal  and  Napoleon,  proving  inter 
alia,  that  the  latter  was  bidding  high  for  Swedish  support.  Hence, 
perhaps,  the  delay  on  the  Swedish  side.  At  Petrograd,  the  Tsar  seems 
to  have  wished  for  a  speedy  peace  with  Great  Britain.  As  will  soon 
appear,  she  was  working  at  Constantinople  on  his  behalf,  and  the 
desire  to  propitiate  him,  as  well  as  the  United  States,  explains  the 
sudden  (though  belated)  abrogation  of  the  Orders  in  Council  on  June 
1 6th,  1812.  Nevertheless,  up  to  the  end  of  June  his  desire  for  union 
with  her  was  thwarted  by  his  Francophil  Minister,  Romanzoff,  who, 
by  various  dilatory  devices,  staved  off  a  decision. 

1  F.  O.Sweden,  71.  Castlereagh  to  Thornton,  March  25th,  27th;  April  i4th, 
1812.  Nap.  Corr.  no.  18652.  Fain,  Manuscrit  de  1812,1.  98-102,  with  Castlereagh's 
reply. 

*  See  Appendix  H. 

W.&G.I.  2$ 


386  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

Meanwhile,  as  so  often  happened,  Napoleon  put  an  end  to  these 
lengthy  chaff erings  by  a  sudden  attack.  But  he  had  occupied  Vilna 
during  three  weeks  and  was  advancing  on  Vitebsk,  before  Russia  and 
Sweden  signed  a  Treaty  of  Peace  with  Great  Britain  at  Orebro  in 
Sweden  (July  i7th).  Thornton  at  once  warned  Saumarez  to  do  all 
he  could  to  help  our  new  Allies ;  but  the  delays  just  noticed  prevented 
the  timely  direction  of  British  naval  power  against  the  French  heavy 
transport,  which  was  largely  carried  on  by  sea  from  Danzig  to  their 
line  of  operations  in  Lithuania.  Later,  Saumarez  and  his  captains 
did  much  to  harass  that  service ;  but  far  more  would  have  been  done 
but  for  the  protracted  delays  in  signing  the  Treaties  of  Orebro.  The 
Russian  force,  designed  to  cooperate  with  Sweden  in  an  attack  on 
Copenhagen  (now  that  the  Danes  remained  obdurate)  was,  also,  not 
ready  in  time.  Consequently,  that  part  of  the  Allied  plans  of  1812  was 
postponed ;  and  not  until  the  end  of  the  year  did  Thornton  announce 
a  definite  rupture  between  Sweden  and  France1.  Meanwhile,  General 
Lord  Cathcart  had  been  deputed  by  Liverpool  (Prime- Minister 
since  the  assassination  of  Perceval)  to  proceed  as  Ambassador  to 
Petrograd.  On  his  arrival  early  in  September,  Alexander  intimated 
his  resolve  to  place  in  deposit  with  Great  Britain  the  Russian  Baltic 
fleet,  lest,  when  frozen  in  at  Cronstadt,  it  should  fall  into  the  enemy's 
hands.  It  is  one  of  the  ironies  of  history  that  the  deposition  of  the 
Russian  fleet  for  safe  keeping  with  the  British  Government  should 
have  been  arranged  by  Cathcart,  who  took  over  the  Danish  fleet  in 
1807,  with  the  Sovereign  who  had  fulminated  against  that  measure 
as  an  act  of  unpardonable  perfidy2. 

It  is  now  time  to  return  to  our  relations  with  Turkey,  which  were 
destined  largely  to  influence  the  course  of  events  near  the  close  of  the 
Moscow  Campaign.  The  Alliance  of  Alexander  with  Napoleon  at 
Tilsit,  renewed  with  some  modifications  at  Erfurt,  had  involved  Russia 
in  hostilities,  not  only  with  Sweden  but  with  the  Turks;  and,  early 
in  1810,  she  had  captured  nearly  the  whole  of  the  Danubian  Provinces. 
The  Porte,  however,  refused  to  cede  them,  doubtless  relying  on  the 
probability  that  plans  for  the  partition  of  Turkey  would  lead  to 
friction  between  the  two  potentates  as  to  the  apportionment  of  the 
spoils.  Adair,  British  Ambassador  at  Constantinople  in  1808-1 1 ,  pro- 
posed various  means  for  restoring  peace  between  Russia  and  the  Turks, 

1  Castlereagh  Memoirs,  vm.  283. 

2  Ibid.  Thornton  to  Castlereagh,  July  i8th;  Cathcart,  War  in  Russia  and  Ger- 
many, ch.  i ;  Letters  of  Sir  T.  Byam  Martin,  u.  311 ;  Life  of  Saumarez,  n.  281-9. 


STRATFORD  CANNING  387 

even  suggesting  to  Wellesley,  in  March,  1810,  the  cession  to  her  of  one 
of  our  West  India  Islands,  in  order  to  bring  about  a  conjoint  settle- 
ment and  an  eventual  Anglo-Russo-Turkish  Union.  Nothing  resulted 
from  his  proposals,  except  that  the  Porte  became  convinced  of  our 
goodwill1.  Adair,  therefore,  recommended  the  adoption  of  a  vigorous 
Mediterranean  policy,  involving  the  occupation  of  Corfu,  Cattaro  and 
Elba,  so  as  to  enclose  and  throttle  the  Continental  System  from  the 
south.  With  that  aim  in  view,  the  islands  of  Zante,  Cephalonia,  and 
Cerigo  had  been  captured  from  the  French  in  1809;  Sta.  Maura  was 
taken  in  1810;  but  the  French  in  Corfu  held  out  until  after  the  first 
abdication  of  Napoleon.  It  is  clear,  then  (despite  the  denial  of  Sir 
Henry  Bunbury2)  that  the  British  Government  had  a  definite  Medi- 
terranean policy.  From  the  Ionian  Islands,  it  threatened  the  Napoleonic 
States  on  the  Adriatic  and  also  screened  Turkey  from  the  attacks, 
which,  at  and  after  Tilsit,  the  French  Emperor  meditated  against  her 
from  those  islands,  from  Cattaro  and  from  Dalmatia.  His  inability  to 
push  on  the  schemes  of  partition  foremost  in  his  thoughts ,  also ,  fomented 
a  feeling  of  annoyance  with  the  Tsar,  who,  after  the  conquest  of  the 
Danubian  provinces,  was  in  a  position  easily  to  overrun  Serbia  (then 
in  a  state  of  ferment)  and  even  to  threaten  Roumelia  and  Constan- 
tinople. This  feeling  of  jealousy  played  its  part  in  bringing  about  the 
rupture  of  1812. 

Adair  being  compelled  by  illness  to  return  home  in  June,  1810, 
the  honour  of  furthering  British,  Turkish,  and  eventually  Russian, 
interests  in  the  impending  world-crisis  devolved  upon  his  young 
secretary  of  legation,  Stratford  Canning,  the  ambition  of  whose  life  it 
had  been  to  serve  England  in  England.  Fate  willed  that  he  should  serve 
her  at  Constantinople.  Before  he  took  his  degree  at  Cambridge,  he 
was  reluctantly  pressed  into  the  diplomatic  service,  of  which  he  be- 
came the  most  distinguished  ornament  during  the  igth  century.  Owing 
to  the  precarious  health  of  Adair,  George  Canning  in  July,  1809, 
appointed  his  young  cousin,  provisionally,  Minister-plenipotentiary 
in  case  of  the  collapse  of  the  Ambassador ;  and  this  duty  devolved  upon 
him  at  Midsummer,  1810.  French  influence  was  then  unbounded  and 
the  Porte,  bowed  before  it.  This  youth  of  twenty-three  had  to  fight 
against  it  single-handed :  for  he  very  rarely  received  instructions  or 
advice  from  the  next  Foreign  Minister,  Marquis  Wellesley.  Probably 
the  negligence  of  the  chief  developed  the  resourcefulness  and  resolu- 


1  Sir  R.  Adair,  The  Peace  of  the  Dardanelles,  n.  10-21 ,  95,  270. 

2  The  Great  War  tmth  France,  p.  327. 


-5- 


388  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

tion  of  the  young  Envoy.  Confronted  by  intrigues  at  the  French 
Embassy  and  corruption  and  apathy  at  the  Porte,  he  did  not  lose  heart. 
From  Consul-general  David  Morier  (father  of  sons  destined  to  high 
repute  in  the  public  service),  he  gained  good  advice  as  to  dealing  with 
orientals:  but  his  native  shrewdness  and  force  of  character  utilised 
every  opportunity.  He  continued  Adair's  policy  of  supporting  the 
Anglophil  Ali  Pacha,  of  Jannina  (' '  the  Lion  of  Epirus  ")  whose  masterful 
and  cruel  nature  inspired  terror  among  the  Greeks  and  apprehension 
at  the  Porte.  He  also  seconded  the  efforts  of  Sir  Gore  Ouseley,  British 
Envoy  at  Teheran,  to  thwart  the  efforts  for  a  Franco-Persian  alliance 
which  Napoleon  had  begun  in  the  spring  of  1807.  In  short,  it  fell  to 
him,  without  advice  or  help  from  Downing  Street,  to  try  to  foil 
Napoleon's  enterprises  from  the  Adriatic  to  the  borders  of  Afghanistan1. 

It  is  difficult  to  account  for  Wellesley's  neglect  of  the  Constanti- 
nople embassy ;  for,  besides  being  the  only  important  British  mission 
on  the  Continent,  it  offered  a  ready  means  of  influencing  Levantine, 
Austrian  and  Russian  politics.  Furthermore,  if  (as  Adair  and  Stratford 
Canning  urged)  a  powerful  British  squadron  could  have  been  spared 
for  the  Black  Sea  to  join  the  Turks  in  an  attack  on  Sevastopol,  the  Tsar 
would,  probably,  have  consented  to  negotiate  for  peace  with  both 
Powers.  But,  the  strain  on  the  British  navy  being  very  great,  the  young 
Minister  had  .to  rely  on  diplomatic  means.  Here,  circumstances 
favoured  him.  By  the  autumn  of  181 1 ,  the  young  Sultan,  Mahmoud  II, 
and  his  Ministers  expressed  a  desire  for  the  good  services  of  Great 
Britain  to  end  their  conflict  with  Russia,  and  they  declined  the  media- 
tion of  any  other  Power,  although  that  of  France  would  have  been 
more  in  accord  with  custom,  she  being  an  Ally  of  the  Tsar,  while  we 
were  at  war  with  him.  After  further  Russian  successes,  an  Armistice 
was  concluded  in  November;  and  at  the  end  of  the  year  the  Tsar 
despatched  a  Plenipotentiary,  Italinski,  to  negotiate  for  peace  with 
Turkey — a  sign  that  he  expected  a  rupture  with  Napoleon  and  desired 
to  concentrate  all  his  resources  upon  that  struggle.  Negotiations, 
accordingly,  began  at  Bukharest. 

Naturally  enough,  the  French  sought  to  thwart  them.  They 
pointed  out  that,  with  the  help  of  the  French,  Turkey  might  hope  to 
reconquer  not  only  the  Danubian  Provinces,  but  also  part  of  the 
Ukraine,  and  thus  renew  the  glories  of  Suleiman  the  Magnificent. 
Ambition  and  the  promptings  of  Napoleon  spurred  her  on  to  this 

1  Nap.  Corr.  no.  12563  ;  Gardane,  La  Mission  du  Gen.  Gardane  en  Perse ;  S.  Lane- 
Poole,  Life  of  Stratford  Canning,  I.  105,  128-39. 


RUSSO-TURKISH  PEACE  NEGOTIATIONS         389 

adventurous  course.  Prudence  and  the  advice  of  Canning  counselled 
otherwise.  The  chaotic  condition  of  the  Ottoman  realms,  the  penury 
of  their  finances,  the  bad  discipline  of  their  troops,  the  rebellions  of 
their  Pachas  and  the  restiveness  of  the  native  Christians,  called  aloud 
for  a  speedy  peace  as  the  only  means  of  averting  disintegration  and 
ruin.  On  one  point,  the  Divan  was  irrevocably  pledged.  "Not  an  inch 
of  land  "  was  the  maxim  which  it  opposed  to  the  land-hunger  of  the 
Muscovites.  At  times,  the  clash  of  Turkish  pride  and  Russian  per- 
sistence seemed  irremediable.  On  February  6th,  Canning  wrote  to 
Wellesley  that  the  French  Embassy  deemed  the  negotiation  at  an  end. 
Such  was  the  general  impression,  and  it  induced  in  Napoleon,  even 
at  the  end  of  March,  the  confident  belief  that  a  renewal  of  the  Russo- 
Turkish  War  would  embarrass  the  Tsar  and  prevent  him  braving  the 
power  of  France1.  Meanwhile,  on  February  iQth,  Stratford  Canning 
had  taken  the  unusual  step  of  writing  (with  the  approval  of  the  Sultan) 
to  the  Neapolitan  Minister  at  Petrograd,  asking  him  to  use  his  good 
offices  at  that  Court  and  to  represent  the  need  of  moderation  in  the 
Russian  demands  and  the  danger  of  exasperating  the  Turks  so  highly  as 
to  drive  them  into  the  arms  of  France.  On  the  same  day,  he  wrote  to 
the  Turkish  and  Russian  negotiators  at  Bukharest,  ending  his  letter 
to  Italinski  with  these  words:  "The  conclusion  of  peace  between 
Russia  and  the  Porte  would  be  one  obstacle  the  less  to  peace  between 
Russia  and  England,  and  consequently  to  that  peace  which  alone  can 
secure  the  true  repose  of  the  universe."  To  the  Turkish  negotiator, 
he  explained  the  course  of  French  intrigues  for  the  prolongation  of  the 
Russo-Turkish  War,  and  in  cautious  terms  he  offered  the  services  of 
Great  Britain  for  its  settlement2.  But  this  was  not  all.  On  hearing 
that  the  Divan  was  strongly  inclined  to  reject  Russia's  terms,  he  (to 
quote  his  words),  "sent  to  tell  the  Reis  Effendi  that  I  trusted  every 
effort  consistent  with  the  dignity,  and  every  concession  not  incom- 
patible with  the  safety,  of  the  Empire  would  be  made  for  the  restoration 
of  peace  at  the  present  crisis,  and  that,  in  order  to  give  a  striking  proof 
of  H.M.'s  sincere  regard  for  the  Porte,  I  was  ready  to  lend  every 
assistance  in  my  power  towards  the  accomplishment  of  so  desirable 
an  object3." 

How  far  the  actions  of  Stratford  Canning  influenced  the  final  issue 
is  uncertain.  The  belligerents  knew  that  his  actions  were  not  authorised 

1  Nap.  Corr.  no.  18622.    See  Zinkeisen,  Geschichte  des  Osmanischen  Reichs,  vii. 
718-29. 

2  Lane-Poole,  I.  161-3. 

3  P.O.  Turkey  (1812).   Stratford  Canning  to  Wellesley,  February  2ist. 


390  THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

from  Downing  Street.  Indeed,  on  March  i  ith,  he  wrote  to  Wellesley, 
pointing  out  the  unfortunate  results  of  his  long  silence  on  eastern 
affairs,  which  contrasted  with  the  activity  of  the  French  Embassy.  But, 
six  days  later,  he  reported  that  the  Grand  Vizier  had  now  received 
full  powers  to  conclude  peace  with  Russia  on  the  best  terms  possible — 
a  decision  due  to  fear  lest  Napoleon  and  Alexander  should  come  to 
an  understanding  and  recur  to  their  policy  of  partitioning  Turkey1. 
Moreover,  at  the  end  of  April,  the  Tsar,  through  the  medium  of  the 
Prince  Royal  of  Sweden,  had  informed  the  British  Government  that 
he  "  had  given  instructions  to  make  peace  at  all  events  with  the  Porte 
and  on  any  concession  of  his  pretensions,  provided  only  that  they 
[i.e.  the  Turks]  would  enter  into  the  alliance  with  England,  Russia  and 
Sweden2."  The  Turks  declined  an  offer  of  offensive  alliance  which 
would  involve  hostilities  with  Napoleon.  Indeed,  they  feared  that 
even  a  peace  with  Russia  might  bring  on  them  an  attack  from  his 
Illyrian  and  Dalmatian  Provinces3.  Their  apprehensions  wefe  not 
unreal;  for  he  was  about  to  send  as  Special  Ambassador  General 
Andreossi,  with  offers  of  alliance  rich  in  allurements  but  not  devoid 
of  threats.  The  attitude  of  his  Ally,  Austria,  was  also  menacing4.  On 
the  other  hand,  Sweden  sent  a  mission  to  reassure  the  Sultan  of  her 
support. 

Against  diverse  difficulties,  Stratford  Canning  struggled  manfully. 
Unfortunately,  the  accession  of  Castlereagh  to  the  Foreign  Secretary- 
ship took  place  too  late  to  afford  official  support  at  Constantinople. 
Liston  [1742-1836]  was  appointed  Ambassador  at  that  court;  but  he 
arrived  too  late  to  influence  the  negotiations  at  Bukharest.  Meanwhile, 
Stratford  Canning  worked  with  equal  diligence  and  success  to  persuade 
Russia  to  reduce  her  claims  and  the  Turks  to  abate  their  pride  and  their 
suspicion.  Finally  the  Tsar's  dread  of  Napoleon  and  the  Turkish 
fear  of  a  union  of  Russia,  Austria  and  France  for  the  partition  of  the 
Ottoman  Empire,  brought  about  a  settlement  in  the  Peace  of  Bukharest 
(May  28th,  1812).  Turkey  thereby  ceded  Bessarabia  to  Russia,  but 
retained  her  former  frontier  in  Asia  Minor  and  her  military  hold  on 
Serbia.  The  Treaty  was  ratified  too  late  to  enable  the  Russian  forces 
in  the  Danubian  Provinces  to  help  in  resisting  Napoleon's  march  to 
Moscow ;  but  that  delay  contributed  to  the  completion  of  his  mad  enter- 
prise, and,  at  the  Beresina,  those  forces  very  nearly  cut  off  his  retreat. 

1  F.O.Turkey  (1812).  Stratford  Canning  to  Wellesley,  March  nth,  1 7th,  1812. 

2  P.O.  Sweden,  72.   Thornton  to  Castlereagh,  May  2nd,  1812. 

3  P.O.  Turkey  (1812).   Stratford  Canning's  despatch  of  April  25th. 

4  Zinkeisen,  vii.  726;  Lane-Poole,  i.  165,  166. 


THE  CONSTANCY  OF  BRITISH  FOREIGN  POLICY (3^) 

Thenceforth,  the  retreat  became  a  pitiable  rout  which  encouraged  the 
rally  of  the  Prussian  army  of  General  Yorck  to  the  Allied  cause. 

On  the  surface  of  these  events,  the  eye  beholds  a  vast  efflux  and 
reflux  of  armies,  whose  fate  is  decided  less  by  the  puny  efforts  of  man 
than  by  the  resistless  powers  of  nature.  But  the  trained  imagination 
sees  far  more.  It  beholds  the  westward  undertow  of  the  Peninsular 
War,  the  weakening  effect  of  the  British  naval  blockade  on  all  parts  of 
Napoleon's  empire  and  the  thwarting  of  his  attempts  to  capture  Riga. 
It  notes  the  efforts  of  British  diplomacy  to  disengage  Russia  from  the 
troublesome  hostilities  on  her  flanks  and  to  convert  Sweden  and  Turkey 
into  Allies.  Further,  it  recalls  the  unswerving  efforts  of  Pitt,  Grenville, 
Hawkesbury,  Canning,  Wellesley  and  Castlereagh  to  resist  the  terri- 
torial predominance  of  the  French  Revolution  and  of  its  heir, 
Napoleon.  Those  efforts  were  often  unskilful,  diffuse  and  wasteful. 
Their  plans  of  European  reconstruction  were,  also,  in  large  measure 
artificial;  for,  in  general,  they  were  prompted  by  military  considera- 
tions, and  often  erred  in  neglecting  the  interests  of  the  peoples 
concerned.  Yet  Great  Britain's  Foreign  Policy  was  honest  and  dis- 
interested, when  compared  with  that  of  her  great  antagonist  and  of 
her  Allies.  Externally  imposing,  his  policy  was  marred  by  an  un- 
bounded selfishness.  The  conduct  of  the  Central  Powers  was  impaired 
by  a  petty  egoism,  a  paralysing  jealousy,  and  by  half-heartedness  that 
faltered  at  the  first  great  reverse.  Hers  were  at  least  the  virtues  of 
constancy  and  doggedness.  Her  work  was  slow  but  it  was  sure. 
Finally,  her  efforts,  often  failing  but  ever  renewed,  enabled  the  Con- 
tinental monarchs  to  gain  wisdom  from  bitter  experience,  and,  after 
Napoleon's  ambition  had  overreached  itself,  to  enter  into  a  close  union 
such  as  had  formerly  been  impracticable.  As  they  gathered  together 
in  the  year  1813,  they  might  have  ascribed  to  her  the  lofty  praise  with 
which  the  shade  of  Anchises  hailed  the  spirit  of  him  who  foiled  the 
fiery  genius  of  Hannibal : 

Tu  Maximus  ilk  es, 
Unus  qui  nobis  cunctando  restituis  rent. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

I.    FROM  THE  TREATY  OF  KALISCH  TO  THE  END. 
OF  THE  YEAR  1813 

DURING  the  year  1812,  Great  Britain  had  been  able  to  do  little 
to  influence  the  course  of  the  struggle  that  was  taking  place  on 
the  Continent.  What  she  could  do  she  had,  under  the  guidance  of 
the  new  Cabinet,  on  the  whole  done  promptly  and  well.  The  unre- 
mitting pressure  of  the  Blockade  had  been  continued  unrelaxed  de- 
spite the  opening  of  the  American  War.  The  assistance  which  had 
been  given  to  Russia  in  money  and  material  had  shown  that  such 
aid  was  always  at  the  command  of  any  Power  which  would  attempt 
to  throw  off  Napoleon's  ascendancy.  British  diplomacy  had  been, 
also,  employed  to  some  effect  in  relieving  Russia  from  the  pressure 
of  both  Turkey  and  Sweden,  and  the  latter  Power  was  now  ready  to 
become  an  active  foe  of  Napoleon.  At  the  extremities  of  Europe, 
where  sea  power  could  give  her  a  footing,  Great  Britain  had  main- 
tained her  position.  The  steady  improvement  in  the  British  and 
Portuguese  armies  had  given  solidity  to  the  national  resistance 
in  the  Peninsula,  where  greater  success  had  been  obtained  than 
in  any  previous  year.  Sicily  had,  also,  been  kept  free  to  serve 
as  a  base  for  attacks  on  Italy.  But  the  main  current  of  events  was 
entirely  outside  the  control  of  Great  Britain;  and  she  remained  a 
mere  spectator  of  the  clash  of  forces  on  the  Continent. 

To  some  extent,  this  position  is  further  maintained  during  the  year 
1813.  In  the  great  series  of  military  and  diplomatic  events  which 
changed  Europe  from  an  inert  congeries  of  French  vassals  into  a 
hostile  Alliance  whose  armies  were  assembled  on  the  French  fron- 
tiers, British  policy  played  only  a  subordinate  part.  She  was,  indeed, 
the  paymaster  of  the  Coalition.  But  a  real  voice  in  strategy  or  diplo- 
macy could  not  be  purchased  by  money  alone.  It  needed  military 
prestige  and  diplomatic  ability  of  the  first  order  to  make  use  of  the 
position  which  finance  and  sea  power  gave  to  her  statesmen,  and  these 
she  was  only  just  beginning  to  command  after  long  years  of  fatal 
blundering.  Moreover,  for  most  of  the  year  the  centre  of  operations 


THE  NEW  COALITION  AND  THE  NEW  CABINET    393 

was  too  far  away  for  her  statesmen  to  obtain  any  control  over  the  be- 
wilderingly  rapid  changes  of  situation  on  the  Continent.  It  was  not 
until  1814,  when  France  itself  became  the  scene  of  action,  that  the 
skilful  diplomacy  of  Castlereagh  was  able  to  secure  the  position  which 
her  statesmen  and  people  felt  to  be  due  to  her  proved  power  of  resist- 
ance. Even  in  1813,  however,  she  played  a  more  important  and  more 
successful  part  than  in  any  previous  Coalition  against  Napoleon,  and, 
though  she  did  not  fully  secure  her  objects,  she  prepared  the  way  for 
the  overwhelming  success  of  the  next  year. 

That  this  was  so,  was  due  to  the  fact  that  her  statesmen  had,  at 
last,  in  some  measure  learnt  by  bitter  experiences  how  to  fight  the 
Napoleonic  Empire.  The  situation  was,  indeed,  changed  by  the  fact 
(which  her  Foreign  Minister  from  the  first  perceived)  that  a  national 
resistance  was  now  being  offered  to  Napoleon  in  the  north  of  Europe. 
But  his  position  was  still  far  stronger  than  it  had  been  in  1801  or  in 
1805,  and  if  the  forces  arrayed  against  him  were  not  more  skilfully 
utilised  than  on  previous  occasions,  it  might  be  once  more  the  fate  of 
Great  Britain  to  see  the  new  Coalition  dissolve  as  others  had  dissolved 
before.  If  British  strength  was  again  frittered  away  in  useless  ex- 
peditions and  British  diplomacy  unable  to  secure  the  Coalition  against 
the  insidious  methods  which  Napoleon  knew  so  well  how  to  employ, 
the  result  might  yet  be  an  Austerlitz  and  a  Friedland,  followed  by 
a  Peace  as  disastrous  as  that  of  Pressburg  or  Tilsit. 

But  the  new  Cabinet  which  had  come  into  existence  in  1810 
contained  men,  mainly  the  pupils  of  Pitt,  who,  while  lacking  the 
ability  or  prestige  of  their  master,  had  yet  learnt  much  from  his  mis- 
takes and  proved  themselves  far  more  capable  than  their  prede- 
cessors. Liverpool,  who  had  become  Prime-Minister  after  Perceval's 
assassination  in  June  1812,  was  a  man  of  only  moderate  ability;  but 
he  possessed  two  great  characteristics — a  large  experience,  including 
nearly  every  Cabinet  office,  and  an  unfailing  tact,  which  kept  his 
Cabinet  together  and  left  the  Opposition  powerless.  Castlereagh,  the 
Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs,  who  had  succeeded  Wellesley 
in  1812,  not  only  led  the  House  of  Commons  with  notable  skill,  but 
filled  the  most  important  office  in  the  Cabinet  as  a  pupil  of  Pitt, 
not  less  courageous  than  he  was  cautious  and  self-restrained.  For 
this  position  Canning  had  been  designed  by  Liverpool;  and  he 
could  have  secured  it  by  a  very  slight  exercise  of  self-subordination. 
But,  though  Canning  would  have  brought  to  the  Ministry  imagina- 
tion and  brilliance,  he  would  almost  certainly  have  impaired  its  unity 


394      THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

and  hence  its  efficiency.  Bathurst,  the  Secretary  of  State  for  War, 
was  completely  conversant  with  his  colleague's  ideas,  and  was  an  ex- 
perienced and  energetic  administrator.  Both  Vansittart,  the  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer,  and  Sidmouth,  at  the  Home  Office,  were 
dull  and  self-opinionated ;  but  they  served  their  turn  as  strenuous  sup- 
porters of  the  policy  of  their  abler  colleagues.  Almost  all  the  rest  of 
the  Cabinet,  which  included  Lords  Harrowby  as  Privy  Seal,  Eldon 
as  Chancellor  and  Mulgrave  at  the  Ordnance,  were  men  of  experience 
who,  however  mediocre  in  political  ability,  not  merely  gave  the 
Ministry  weight,  but  were  Ministers  who  could  be  trusted  to  follow 
loyally  where  they  could  not  lead.  There  were,  also,  in  the  minor 
offices  several  men  of  high  ability,  among  them  Huskisson  and  Palmer- 
ston,  and  the  Earl  of  Clancarty.  Certainly,  Pitt  had  never  been 
fortunate  enough  to  possess  a  staff  so  competent  and  experienced, 
and,  though  his  commanding  genius  was  lacking,  the  triumvirate  of 
Liverpool,  Bathurst  and  Castlereagh,  who  controlled  the  main  lines  of 
foreign  and  military  policy,  included  among  them  some  gifts  which 
Pitt  lacked,  while  they  had  learnt  from  the  faults  as  well  as  from  the 
good  qualities  of  their  master1.  They  were  thus  able  to  put  Pitt's 
ideas  into  force  only  too  successfully,  when  at  last  the  opportunity 
came. 

Of  these  three,  Castlereagh  was  by  far  the  ablest  and,  from  1814 
onwards  until  his  death,  he  obtained  over  British  Foreign  Policy  a 
supremacy  which  he  shared  only  with  Wellington,  who  was  to  be  so 
much  by  his  side  during  the  settlement  of  1814-15.  He  won  it  not 
only  by  sheer  hard  work  and  force  of  character,  but  also  by  a  sense  of 
reality  and  a  certain  broadness  of  view  which  few  of  his  Tory  con- 
temporaries possessed.  He  was,  of  course,  blind  to  many  things — as 
blind  as  Pitt.  He  accepted  all  the  articles  of  the  Tory  creed  for  which 
the  War  had  secured  the  active  support  of  three-quarters  of  the  upper 
classes  of  Great  Britain.  But  he  applied  it  with  caution  and  self- 
restraint  to  Continental  affairs.  The  ideas  which  he  had  inherited 
from  Pitt  he  endeavoured  to  apply  to  this  new  phase  of  the  struggle, 
and  he  added  to  them  a  few  expedients  of  his  own.  These  we  shall 
see  appearing  in  the  course  of  this  year,  and  carried  into  some  sort 
of  fruition  in  the  settlement  that  followed  in  1814-15. 

The  influence  of  the  Prince  Regent  himself  was  not  negligible. 

1  All  three  had  held  the  offices  both  of  Foreign  Minister  and  of  Secretary  of  State 
for  War,  and  the  unity  of  political  and  military  strategy  obtained  was  doubtless 
partly  due  to  this  fact. 


CASTLEREAGH  AND  HIS  SUBORDINATES        395 

He  gradually  obtained  a  considerable  knowledge  of  men  and  events, 
and  his  personal  relations  with  the  Sovereigns  had  some  influence 
on  events  in  1814  and  1815.  On  the  whole,  he  was  entirely  amenable 
to  the  advice  of  his  Cabinet  at  this  period ;  but  the  personal  wishes  of 
himself  and  some  of  his  royal  brothers  on  minor  points  were  apt  to 
cause  inconvenience.  The  Prince  Regent  was,  also,  Sovereign  of 
Hanover,  and  the  interests  of  that  country,  which  had  proved  so  fatal 
to  Pitt's  schemes  in  1805,  were  still  an  embarrassing  charge  upon  his 
Ministers.  Fortunately,  Count  Munster,  who  represented  him  in 
Hanoverian  affairs,  was  shrewd  and  moderate  in  action,  though  im- 
bued with  the  most  intense  reactionary  views .  He  could  always,  in  the 
last  resort,  be  controlled  by  Castlereagh,  who,  at  the  same  time,  left 
him  so  far  as  possible  the  last  word  on  such  matters  as  the  German 
Constitution,  in  which  British  Ministers  were  only  indirectly  in- 
terested. From  Munster  and  other  Hanoverian  Ministers,  such  as 
Count  Hardenberg  at  Vienna  and  L.  von  Ompteda,  Castlereagh  un- 
doubtedly learnt  much  about  Continental  affairs  which  was  of  great 
use  to  him. 

Castlereagh  was  but  imperfectly  served  by  his  diplomatic  sub- 
ordinates. The  curse  of  jobbery  still  lay  heavy  on  all  appointments. 
Castlereagh  obeyed  the  natural  instinct  of  the  British  aristocracy  in 
putting  his  relations,  friends  and  the  friends  of  his  political  associates 
into  all  the  good  jobs  that  lay  in  his  patronage.  Seniority  counted  for 
something,  good  men  might  possibly  be  rewarded  after  many  years, 
and  actual  incompetence  was  not  tolerated;  but  far  too  many  of 
Castlereagh's  subordinates  were  connexions  of  himself  and  his  col- 
leagues, who  had  obtained  their  position  for  this  reason.  Further, 
as  always  at  the  close  of  a  great  war,  military  and  diplomatic  functions 
were  not  clearly  distinguished.  Castlereagh's  representatives  were 
sometimes  soldiers  who  combined  a  dual  function — and  soldiers, 
unless  they  are  exceptional  men,  do  not  often  make  good  diplomatists. 
From  this  cause,  also,  it  resulted  that  Castlereagh  was  represented 
in  Italy  at  a  most  critical  period  of  our  relations,  by  a  fierce  Whig 
like  Lord  William  Bentinck.  For  years,  of  course,  the  profession  of 
English  diplomacy  in  Europe  had  almost  been  suspended,  since 
diplomatic  relations  had  practically  ceased  to  exist  with  the  majority 
of  European  States.  Inferior  agents,  half-diplomatists,  half-spies, 
like  King  or  Horn,  were  the  only  links  connecting  the  British  Govern- 
ment with  Continental  Courts.  Castlereagh  was  lucky  enough  to  find 
Sir  Henry  Wellesley  at  Cadiz,  and  Stratford  Canning  temporarily 


396       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

in  charge  at  Constantinople.  For  the  rest,  until  Clancarty  came  to 
help  him  at  Vienna,  he  had  no  one  but  untrained  mediocrities  in  his 
principal  missions.  Over  these  he  had,  however,  so  far  as  time  and 
distance  allowed,  a  complete  control.  He  had  moreover  their  loyal 
support  and  complete  confidence,  and  to  many  of  them  he  could 
write  with  great  intimacy,  though  he  rarely  revealed  all  he  was  aiming 
at.  He  handled  a  difficult  team,  half-amateurs,  with  great  tact.  He 
praised  freely  and,  when  he  had  to  censure,  he  generally  knew  how  to 
gild  the  pill.  On  the  whole,  he  was  too  kind  to  them;  but  they  repaid 
him  with  a  real  devotion  which  made  them  sometimes  better  instru- 
ments of  his  policy  than  abler  men  would  have  been.  At  the  outset, 
Castlereagh  lacked,  like  all  British  statesmen,  any  real  knowledge  of 
the  statesmen  of  other  countries.  He  and  his  colleagues  had  been  cut 
off  from  the  Continent,  and  the  new  men  that  were  now  rising  to 
power  were  known  to  them  only  by  gossip  and  very  imperfect  reports. 
Aberdeen,  so  late  as  the  autumn  of  1813,  had  to  explain  to  Castlereagh 
that  Metternich  was  not  an  old  man1.  It  was  only  because,  in  1814 
and  1815,  Castlereagh  went  himself  to  the  Continent  and  became 
acquainted  with  all  the  principal  figures  in  European  diplomacy,  that 
he  was  able  to  attain  to  that  intimate  touch  with  affairs  which  he 
afterwards  displayed. 

The  new  situation,  brought  about  by  the  complete  destruction  of 
Napoleon's  army  in  Russia,  was  only  gradually  understood  in  England, 
and  the  events  that  immediately  succeeded  were  not  anticipated. 
British  diplomacy,  while  securing  Sweden  for  an  active  participation 
in  the  War  on  the  Continent,  had  then  concentrated  on  Austria  rather 
than  Prussia,  though  little  had  been  expected  from  what  Liverpool 
described  as  the  imperial  Government's  "  abject  "policy2 !  Nor  had  the 
secret  mission  of  Lord  Walpole,  Cathcart's  Secretary  of  Embassy  at 
Petrograd,  to  Vienna  (December  i8i2-January  1813)  produced  any 
result  but  vague  assurances  from  Metternich ;  and  the  British  Ambas- 
sador had  to  withdraw  to  the  country  on  Napoleon's  discovery  of  his 
presence  there.  The  Treaty  of  Kalisch  between  Russia  and  Prussia, 
which  bound  them  to  prosecute  the  War  until  the  latter  Power  was 
restored  to  a  position  at  least  equivalent  to  that  which  she  had  held  in 
1805,  was  made  without  reference  to  Great  Britain;  though  Prussia, 
of  course,  once  the  die  was  cast,  appealed  for  pecuniary  assistance  in 

1  Lord  Stanmore,  Life  of  Lord  Aberdeen,  p.  35. 

2  December  22nd,  1812.    Liverpool  to  Wellington,  Supplementary  Despatches, 
vn.  503. 


BRITISH  COLONIAL  AND  MARITIME  SUPREMACY   397 

money  and  material,  in  both  of  which  she  was  sorely  lacking.  The  news 
of  her  action,  however,  at  once  opened  a  prospect  of  an  entire  change  in 
the  European  situation;  and  Castlereagh  had,  for  the  first  time  since 
his  acceptance  of  office  in  June,  to  formulate  his  principles  of  action. 

The  main  lines  of  policy  which  he  was  to  follow  in  these  years 
were  laid  down  for  him  by  history  and  tradition.  They  comprised, 
first  of  all,  the  maintenance  of  the  colonial  and  maritime  supremacy 
of  Great  Britain  which,  despite  the  unexpected  rebuffs  received  by 
her  in  the  American  War,  was  now  absolutely  established.  Not  only 
were  all  the  French  Colonies  now  hers,  but  also  the  Dutch  and 
Danish.  In  fact,  the  only  overseas  possessions  not  under  her  control 
were  the  South-American  Coloniesof  her  Allies,  Spain  and  Portugal,  and 
with  those  of  the  former  now  in  revolt  against  the  mother-country,  she 
was  rapidly  establishing  commercial  relations — a  far  wiser  and  more 
lucrative  policy  than  the  schemes,  at  one  time  seriously  considered,  of 
bringing  them  under  her  own  rule.  She  thus  had  in  her  hands  an 
immense  dominion,  which  she  could  keep  as  pledge  for  the  Continental 
settlement.  It  was  already  clear  that  those  portions  of  it  which  were 
regarded  as  vital  to  her  maritime  strategy  she  intended  to  retain ;  but 
the  rest  remained  as  a  means  at  her  disposal  for  securing  such  a 
Continental  peace  as  she  desired,  and  provided  her  with  a  diplomatic 
weapon  of  great  value.  Even  more  sensitive  were  British  statesmen 
as  to  the  "Maritime  Rights"  of  Great  Britain.  For  these,  she  was, 
even  now  at  the  height  of  her  struggle  with  Napoleon,  waging  war 
with  the  United  States.  The  principal  champion  of  Neutral  Rights  on 
the  Continent  had  been  Russia,  now  her  Ally,  and  it  was  not  difficult 
to  see  that  Napoleon  would,  if  he  could,  try  to  bring  this  matter  under 
discussion.  It  was,  therefore,  always  a  cardinal  point  of  British  policy 
to  exclude  any  discussion  of  British  rights  on  this  head  from  the 
negotiations  as  to  the  European  settlement,  and  this  point  was  easily 
gained. 

Secondly,  Great  Britain  had  obligations  to  Allies  on  which  she 
must  insist  if  she  was  to  obtain  an  honourable  peace.  Most  important 
of  these  were  her  promises  to  restore  complete  freedom  to  Spain  as 
well  as  to  Portugal.  Sicily  had  also  been  guaranteed  to  the  Neapolitan 
Bourbons,  who  confidently  expected  to  be  restored  to  Naples  by 
British  help,  and  Sweden  had  received  the  promise  of  Norway  in 
return  for  active  assistance  on  the  Continent.  Throughout  the  negotia- 
tions of  1813,  these  obligations  were  made  a  sine  qua  non  of  peace 
with  France. 


398        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

Thirdly,  Great  Britain  had  to  consider  the  political  arrangement 
of  the  Continent.  It  had  been  her  consistent  policy  to  try  to  erect  a 
barrier  to  the  overwhelming  power  of  France.  How  far  the  de- 
struction of  the  Napoleonic  empire  would  proceed,  it  was  impossible 
to  say.  Even  at  this  moment  in  England,  there  were  some  who  hoped 
to  reduce  France  to  her  ancient  limits1.  But  such  a  result  must  depend 
on  the  resolution  and  skill  of  the  European  Powers,  and  few  hoped 
that  they  would  succeed  so  far.  On  this  point,  therefore,  Great 
Britain  depended  on  her  Allies.  She  could  not  force  them  to  go  further 
than  they  wished.  But,  throughout,  she  encouraged  them  to  go  as 
far  as  possible,  hoping  to  use  her  Colonial  conquests  as  a  means  to 
drive  back  the  power  of  France  from  the  centre  of  Europe. 

Lastly,  when  the  final  settlement  came  to  be  made,  much  of 
Castlereagh's  energy  was  to  be  expended  in  endeavouring  to  force 
on  the  rest  of  the  world  the  great  reform  that  had  been  carried  in 
Great  Britain  by  the  short-lived  Whig  Ministry — the  Abolition  of  the 
Slave-trade,  devotion  to  which  public  opinion,  inspired  by  the  efforts 
of  Wilberforce  and  Clarkson,  now  made  essential  to  the  popularity, 
and  even  to  the  existence  of  a  British  Cabinet. 

Bound  by  these  considerations,  which  were  imposed  by  the 
necessity  of  the  case  on  all  British  Cabinets,  Castlereagh  drew  up  his 
Instructions  at  the  beginning  of  April  1813,  on  the  news  of  the  Treaty 
of  Kalisch.  They  were  addressed  to  Earl  Cathcart,  special  British 
representative  at  Alexander's  headquarters,  who  had  been  sent  to 
Russia  in  1812.  A  soldier  turned  diplomatist,  he  was  entirely  un- 
fitted for  the  important  position  which  he  now  held.  Even  in  military 
matters,  he  was  unable  to  obtain  satisfactory  intelligence,  while  he 
never  understood  clearly  the  political  and  financial  affairs  which  he 
had  to  handle.  Already  over  middle  age,  "  le  vieux  general  diplomate" 
as  George  Jackson  called  him,  lacked  energy  as  well  as  ability.  He 
fell  under  Alexander's  influence,  and  no  one  could  have  been  more 
unsuited  to  the  task  of  interpreting  the  subtle  and  rapidly  shifting 
diplomacy  of  1813  to  his  distant  chief.  His  rank  and  courage,  and  the 
confidence  of  his  bearing,  alone  enabled  him  to  maintain  his  position. 
In  April,  Castlereagh  sent  out  in  a  similar  capacity  to  Prussian  head- 
quarters Lord  Stewart,  his  own  half-brother.  Like  Cathcart,  he  was  a 
soldier  and  had  been  Wellington's  Adjutant-general.  But  the  Duke, 
while  very  friendly  to  him,  was  far  too  shrewd  a  judge  of  men  to  accede 
to  his  fervent  wish  to  command  a  cavalry  division.  Stewart  had  some 

1  Bath  Archives,  n.  54. 


THE  BRITISH  DIPLOMATIC  STAFF  399 

fine  qualities.  Brave  to  a  fault,  he  succeeded  in  being  in  the  thick  of 
most  of  the  great  actions  of  1813,  and  was  wounded  at  Kulm.  He  had 
plenty  of  energy  and  sent  home  military  intelligence  of  great  value. 
He  established  close  relations  with  the  Prussian  military  commanders 
and  learnt  much  from  them;  while  his  surveillance  of  the  Swedish 
army,  which  was  also  one  of  his  duties,  was  of  real  importance  at 
critical  stages  in  the  struggle.  But  he  was  pompous,  vain  and  wrong- 
headed,  and  as  he  often  confessed,  without  any  knowledge  of  diplo- 
macy. He  had  been  originally  intended  to  be  subordinate  to  Cathcart ; 
but,  though  Castlereagh's  affection  (which  was  very  strong,  and 
was  returned  with  real  devotion  and  respect)  secured  for  him  an 
independent  position,  he  was  quite  incapable  of  taking  advantage  of 
these  favours.  Thus,  although  intimate  with  the  Sovereigns  and 
statesmen,  and  present  on  all  great  diplomatic  occasions,  his  vanity 
and  love  of  display  made  him  one  of  the  standing  jests  of  the  Con- 
tinent at  the  Congress  of  Vienna.  His  subordinate  G.  Jackson,  who 
had  been  attached  to  his  brother  in  1807  in  a  mission  to  the  Prussian 
Court,  was  a  professional  diplomatist  of  skill  and  knowledge.  But  he 
was  not  adequate  to  supplying  the  defects  of  his  chief.  With  the  two 
Ambassadors  Extraordinary  were,  also,  a  number  of  British  officers 
commissioned  to  act  as  intelligence  officers.  Notable  among  these 
was  Sir  Robert  Wilson,  who  enjoyed  a  high  reputation  at  Russian, 
and  subsequently  at  Austrian,  headquarters — an  astonishingly  brave 
and  foolish  man.  He  had  a  sort  of  roving  commission,  which  he  had 
made  for  himself  in  the  War  of  1812;  and  Cathcart's  intense  distrust 
and  suspicion  of  him  were  not  unjustified,  if  it  is  remembered  that  he 
was  a  violent  Whig  and  in  correspondence  with  Grenville  and  Grey 
on  the  faults  of  the  Tory  Government.  The  diplomatic  staff,  which 
gradually  increased  in  numbers  as  the  year  went  on,  was  largely 
composed  of  young  relations  and  friends  of  the  Tory  Ministers,  some 
of  whom,  as  well  as  some  of  the  Intelligence  officers,  were  not  without 
ability. 

To  Cathcart  and  Stewart  Castlereagh  addressed  his  Instructions, 
dated  April  9th,  I8I31.  They  were  empowered  to  conclude  new  Treaties 
with  Russia  and  Prussia,  granting  to  both  considerable  financial 
assistance.  Subsidies  up  to  2\  millions  were  promised,  of  which  sum 
Russia  was  to  have  three-quarters;  and,  further,  Great  Britain  was 
also  prepared  to  guarantee  half  of  a  common  issue  of  paper-money  of 

1  Castlereagh  to  Cathcart,  April  9th,  1813;  Oncken,  Oest.  u.  Preussen  im  Be- 
freiungskriege,  u,  687. 


4oo        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

five  millions,  not  to  be  redeemed  before  July  ist,  1815,  or  six  months 
after  a  treaty  of  peace  had  been  signed.  In  return,  Russia  was  to  be 
asked  to  supply  200,000,  and  Prussia  100,000,  men.  Political  con- 
siderations were  only  mentioned  in  so  far  as  the  whole  scheme  was 
to  depend  on  concessions  to  Hanover,  to  which,  owing  to  the  pressure 
from  the  Prince  Regent  and  Miinster,  Prussia  was  now  called  upon 
to  cede  the  enclaves  of  Hildesheim,  Minden  and  Ravensberg,  as  she 
had  promised  in  I8O21.  The  connexion  between  Hanover  and  Great 
Britain,  which  had  ruined  Pitt's  diplomacy  in  the  Third  Coalition, 
was  still  to  cause  great  inconvenience ;  but,  as  will  be  seen,  Castlereagh 
was  successful  in  relegating  it  to  a  subordinate  place,  and  even 
derived  some  advantages  from  it.  Far  more  anxious  was  he  to  obtain 
in  the  Treaty  an  Alliance  which  should  be  able  to  withstand  the  arms 
and  diplomacy  of  Napoleon.  "The  official  assurances,"  he  wrote  in 
the  Instructions,  "already  interchanged  between  Great  Britain  and 
Russia  not  to  treat  for  peace  except  in  concert  should  be  reduced  into 
a  formal  shape,  Prussia  being  included,  and  the  three  Powers  should 
engage  to  unite  their  arms  and  their  councils  with  a  view  to  such 
arrangements  as  may  be  best  calculated  to  secure  the  independency  of 
Europe2."  Castlereagh  did  not  enter  into  the  details  of  these  arrange- 
ments. We  are  in  no  doubt,  however,  as  to  the  principles  on  which  he 
intended  to  found  his  policy  for  the  reconstruction  of  Europe.  In  a 
y  private  letter  to  Cathcart  accompanying  the  despatch,  he  referred  the 

Emperor  to  Pitt's  reply  to  the  Instructions  of  NovossiltsofT  on  which 

u »  *•  j  ^ — -»____-— •*—~~~  — —~ — -~_ 

the  Third  Coalition  was  founded.  The  important  paper  in  which 
Pitt  had  then  replied  to  Alexander's  grandiose  schemes  for  a  new 
Europe,  in  which  a  reestablished  Balance  of  Power  should  be  pro- 
tected by  a  specially  constructed  alliance,  was  the  basis  of  the  policy 
which  Castlereagh  was  now  to  endeavour  to  pursue3.  But  he  did  not 
yet  wish  to  commit  himself. 

"The  political  arrangement  of  Europe,"  he  wrote,  "in  a  larger  sense 
is  more  difficult  at  this  early  moment  to  decide  on.  So  much  depends  on 
events,  that  it  is  perhaps  better  not  to  be  too  prompt  in  encountering  liti- 
gated questions.  The  main  features  we  are  agreed  upon — that,  to  keep 
France  in  order,  we  require  great  masses — that  Prussia,  Austria  and  Russia 
ought  to  be  as  great  and  powerful  as  they  have  ever  been — and  that  the 

1  Castlereagh  to  Cathcart,  April  gth,  1813;  Oncken,  op.  cit.  II.  691;  Webster, 
British  Diplomacy,  1813-15,  p.  2. 

2  Oncken,  op.  cit.  n.  690. 

3  Castlereagh  to  Cathcart,  April  8th,  1813.  Castlereagh  Correspondence,  vm.  356. 
Pitt's  despatch  is  given  in  the  Appendix  to  British  Diplomacy.    See  also  supra, 
Chapter  m.  pp.  335-37. 


TREATIES  OF  REICHENBACH  401 

inferior  States  must  be  summoned  to  assist  or  pay  the  forfeit  of  resistance. 
I  see  many  inconveniences  in  premature  conclusions,  but  we  ought  not 
to  be  unprepared." 

Castlereagh  was  right  in  not  expecting  too  much  on  these  questions. 
Through  the  whole  of  1813,  he  was  to  press  for  a  comprehensive 
alliance,  which  should  give  him  such  a  peace  as  Pitt  had  outlined  in 
1805,  and  at  the  same  time  contain  some  permanent  guarantee  as  to 
its  continuance.  To  Castlereagh  mere  subsidy  treaties,  negotiated 
with  the  Powers  separately,  were  not  enough.  He  wished  for  a  treaty 
combining  all  the  Powers  at  war  in  a  bond  which  Napoleon  would 
be  unable  to  break  by  a  sweeping  victory  or  a  subtle  piece  of  diplomacy. 
But,  though  the  Allied  armies  and  the  diplomacy  of  Metternich 
secured  the  triumph  of  his  cause,  throughout  1813  the  British 
Ambassadors  proved  quite  unable  to  secure  such  a  treaty.  And,  when 
the  Allied  forces  were  assembled  on  the  Rhine,  the  "  federal  bond,"  as 
Castlereagh  conceived  it,  was  still  lacking. 

These  Instructions,  with  which  Lord  Stewart  reached  Allied  Head- 
quarters in  April,  resulted  in  the  Treaties  of  Reichenbach,  which 
were  not  concluded  until  June  i4th,  by  which  time  they  were  already 
out  of  date.  Only  three  meetings  could  be  held  in  the  days  from  May 
5th  to  24th  between  the  two  Ambassadors  and  the  Prussian  and 
Russian  statesmen,  though  Lord  Stewart,  to  his  great  mortification, 
missed  the  battle  of  Liitzen  by  his  endeavour  to  transact  a  little 
business.  Prussia  was  very  stiffnecked  as  to  the  cessions  to  Hanover, 
and  it  was  with  great  difficulty  that  Stewart  obtained  a  promise  of  the 
cession  of  Hildesheim.  Hardenberg  had  even  the  audacity  to  hint 
that  he  would  appeal  to  public  opinion  in  England,  always  jealous  of 
using  British  money  to  promote  Hanoverian  interests.  Prussia,  also, 
insisted  on  a  clause  guaranteeing  her  restoration  to  a  position 
equivalent  to  that  which  she  occupied  in  1806,  such  as  she  had 
already  obtained  from  Russia  in  the  Treaty  of  Kalisch.  There  were 
great  difficulties  in  arranging  the  methods  of  payment,  both  of  the 
subsidies  and  the  " Federative  paper"  (specially  guaranteed  paper 
money) ;  and  the  exact  quota  of  men  each  Power  should  be  required 
to  furnish  caused  considerable  discussion.  Thus,  though  the  two 
Powers  were  eager  to  get  their  money,  the  Treaties  were  not  signed 
till  June  1 4th.  With  the  exception  of  a  clause  that  no  separate 
negotiations  should  be  entered  into  with  the  enemy  the  stipulations 
as  to  Prussia  and  Hanover  were  the  only  political  points  contained 
in  them. 

W.&G.I.  26 


402       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

Before  this,  however,  the  diplomatic  situation  had  completely 
changed.  Beaten,  but  not  overwhelmingly  so,  at  Liitzen  and  Bautzen, 
the  Allies  had  accepted  Napoleon's  offer  of  an  armistice  and  secured 
favourable  terms  at  Plaswitz  (June  4th,  1813).  In  concluding  this 
Armistice,  no  reference  had  been  made  to  the  British  Ambassadors, and 
no  stipulation  had  been  added  as  to  the  Spanish  War.  More  serious, 
however,  were  the  negotiations  with  Austria.  Metternich  had  now 
completed  his  plans  for  the  offer  of  armed  mediation,  which  was 
accepted  by  the  Allies  as  soon  as  the  armistice  was  signed.  The  tortuous 
negotiations  by  which  Metternich  accomplished  the  transition  from 
Alliance  with  Napoleon  to  Alliance  with  his  enemies  still  remain 
difficult  to  follow,  and  their  various  stages  have  been  much  a  matter  of 
dispute  among  historians.  They  were  certainly  only  very  imperfectly 
understood  by  the  British  Ambassadors,  who  were  only  partially 
informed  as  to  events.  So  soon  as  it  was  clear  that  Russia  intended 
to  prosecute  the  War  in  the  centre  of  Europe,  Metternich  had  perforce 
to  choose  his  line  of  action.  With  wonderful  skill,  he  maintained 
negotiations  both  with  Napoleon  and  the  Allies  for  over  six  months, 
before  he  finally  declared  himself,  and  so  subtly  did  he  ring  the  changes 
that  Napoleon  never  completely  penetrated  his  designs,  while  the  Allies 
were  not  sure  of  him  until  almost  at  the  moment  when  the  Austrian 
armies  joined  them.  In  a  sense,  Austrian  policy  remained  undecided 
to  the  last  moment,  and,  though  Metternich  himself  may,  as  he  after- 
wards claimed,  have  seen  clearly  that  his  negotiations  could  have  but 
one  end,  there  is  much  to  be  said  for  the  view  that  he  really  desired 
a  peace,  which,  while  strengthening  Austria  and  Prussia,  would  leave 
neither  France  nor  Russia,  whose  designs  on  Poland  he  soon  dis- 
covered, in  a  position  to  overawe  the  Austrian  dominions. 

In  any  case,  it  was  his  policy  to  elude  the  proposals  of  Russia 
and  Prussia  by  proffering  his  good  offices  to  effect  a  peace  between 
them  and  Napoleon.  This  offer  he  also  made  to  Great  Britain,  whither 
he  despatched  Wessenberg  in  the  early  months  of  1813.  The  Austrian 
Envoy  was,  however,  coldly  received  by  the  Government,  and  the 
Press,  in  publishing  the  news  of  his  mission,  was  vehement  in  its  de- 
nunciation of  a  Power  regarded  as  entirely  subservient  to  Napoleon. 
The  Austrian  overture  which  suggested  that  the  British  Ministers 
might  help  to  make  a  Continental  peace  by  offering  to  give  up  the 
maritime  conquests,  though  it  made  no  specific  proposals  as  to  the  main 
lines  of  such  a  peace,  was,  therefore,  naturally  rejected  by  them. 
The  rejection  was  made  even  more  certain  by  a  passage  in  Napoleon's 


THE  AUSTRIAN  POSITION  403 

speech  in  the  Legislative  Assembly,  which  was  intentionally  inserted 
for  that  purpose.  The  overture  was,  accordingly,  not  merely  rejected ; 
it  was  refused  with  indignation1. 

This  rebuff  was  however  used  by  Metternich  with  great  adroit- 
ness. Instead  of,  as  Napoleon  had  hoped,  forcing  him  to  take  the 
French  side,  he  used  it  as  an  excuse  to  substitute  a  policy  of  armed 
mediation  instead  of  mere  peaceful  good  offices.  If  Austria  was  dis- 
regarded, it  was  necessary  for  her  to  make  herself  respected,  to  in- 
crease her  armaments  and  to  insist  upon  peace  by  a  threat  of  force. 
It  was  difficult  for  Napoleon,  when  about  to  enter  on  a  struggle  with 
the  joint  Prussian  and  Russian  armies,  to  resent  this  policy  as  he 
would  have  liked  to  have  done.  Metternich  was,  therefore,  free  to 
increase  his  military  preparations  without  concealment,  while,  at  the 
same  time,  he  renewed  his  secret  negotiations  with  Alexander.  These 
went  so  far,  under  the  influence  of  Stadion,  who  was  head  of  the  anti- 
French  party,  that  on  May  i6th  he  obtained  from  Alexander,  through 
that  Envoy,  his  terms  for  the  settlement  of  Europe,  which  insisted  on 
French  withdrawal,  not  merely  from  Germany,  but  from  Italy  also. 

The  battle  of  Bautzen  (May  22nd)  and  the  acceptance  of  Napoleon's 
offer  of  the  Armistice  (June  4th)  made  Austria  hesitate.  The  moment 
had  now  come  when  she  must  declare  her  terms;  but  she  was  not 
prepared  to  go  so  far  as  Alexander  desired.  In  the  early  days  of  June, 
Metternich  and  Francis  went  to  Gitschin  in  Bohemia,  to  be  near  the 
Allied  headquarters;  and  here  Nesselrode  obtained  a  statement  of 
Austria's  position.  She  was  prepared  to  go  to  war  against  Napoleon, 
unless  he  granted  four  conditions:  (i)  the  dissolution  of  the  Duchy 
of  Warsaw;  (2)  the  enlargement  of  Prussia,  including  the  restoration 
to  her  of  Danzig ;  (3)  the  return  of  the  Illyrian  provinces  to  Austria, 
and  (4)  the  freeing  of  the  Hanseatic  Towns.  Two  other  points  Metter- 
nich was  prepared  to  state  that  he  regarded  as  of  high  importance,  viz. 
the  restoration  of  Prussia,  as  far  as  possible,  to  her  position  in  1805, and 
the  dissolution  of  the  Confederation  of  the  Rhine.  But  he  would  not 
promise  to  make  these  last  two  conditions  absolute.  Nevertheless, 
Alexander  was  so  convinced  that  Austria  really  meant  to  come  in  on 
the  Allied  side  that,  on  June  i4th,  he  agreed  to  the  Austrian  conditions, 
and  Metternich  was  allowed,  if  he  chose,  to  propose  a  Mediation  to 
Napoleon  on  these  terms. 

Meanwhile,  the  British  Ambassadors  had  been  almost  entirely 
ignored  in  these  negotiations.  Their  Subsidy  Treaties  had  been  signed 

1  Castlereagh  to  Cathcart,  April  gth,  1813.  Castlereagh  Correspondence,  vm.  359- 

26—2 


4o4       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

in  draft  before  they  were  told  of  the  Armistice,  and,  though  the 
Emperor  informed  them  before  the  formal  completion  of  the  Treaty, 
it  was  too  late  for  them  to  express  an  opinion.  Cathcart  accepted  this 
position  easily  enough ;  but  Stewart,  though  he  considered  the  Armis- 
tice as  justifiable,  was  soon  rendered  suspicious  and  indignant  at 
the  practical  exclusion  of  the  British  Plenipotentiaries  from  the  im- 
portant negotiations  which  were  in  progress.  Hardenberg  defended  the 
negotiation  on  the  ground  that,  while  Prussia  had  bound  herself  not 
to  make  peace  except  in  concert  with  her  Ally,  yet  she  remained  at 
liberty  to  communicate  with  a  neutral  the  grounds  on  which  she 
would  be  prepared  to  sign  peace1 ;  and  he  justified  the  whole  trans- 
action on  the  ground  that  Prussia  and  Russia  had  no  option  but  to 
accede  to  Austria's  terms.  On  June  2  ist,  Hardenberg  informed  Stewart 
that  Austria  and  Prussia  had  consented  to  send  negotiators  to  Prague, 
who  were  however  not  to  deal  direct  with  the  French  Plenipoten- 
tiaries, but  only  through  Metternich,  and  tried  to  reassure  him  by 
explaining  that  Metternich's  policy  was  only  to  lure  Napoleon  on  to 
expose  himself,  and  that  there  was  no  prospect  of  peace.  But,  in  all 
these  transactions,  there  was  no  mention  of  those  points  to  which 
Britain  attached  the  greatest  importance;  while,  though  information 
was  given  to  the  British  representatives  after  the  transaction,  no  com- 
munication was  made  in  time  for  any  influence  on  affairs  to  be  exerted 
by  them2.  Stewart,  however,  despite  his  pessimism,  had  no  love  for 
so  tedious  a  business  as  the  negotiations.  He  went  off  to  the  north, 
to  inspect  the  Swedish  troops,  leaving  Jackson  with  Cathcart  to 
survey  and  report  the  course  of  events.  None  of  the  British  Envoys 
were,  however,  informed  that  the  arrangements  between  Austria  and 
the  Allies  had  been  put  into  treaty  form  by  the  Treaty  of  Reichen- 
bach,  signed  on  June  ayth  after  Metternich's  departure.  This  step 
was  kept  secret  from  them  at  the  express  desire  of  Metternich,  prob- 
ably because  he  was  anxious  that  no  news  of  it  should  leak  out,  until 
his  negotiations  with  Napoleon  were  completed. 

1  Stewart  to  Castlereagh,  June  i6th,  1813.  P.O.  Prussia,  87.   British  Diplomacy, 
p.  67 .  Information  was  sent  to  Castlereagh  also  in  a  despatch  to  Jacobi  dated  June  i4th. 

2  Cathcart  was,  however,  informed  of  Nesselrode's  mission  to  Gitschin,  and 
he  offered  to  supply  the  money  necessary  for  any  bribes  that  would  help  the  negotia- 
tions. Cathcart  to  Castlereagh,  June  ist,  1813  ;  "  Being  well  assured  that  no  endea- 
vour would  be  spared  by  B.  P.  to  draw  the  councils  of  Austria  to  his  interest,  I 
advised  H.I.M.  to  have  recourse  to  every  expedient;  and  knowing  the  absolute  want 
of  means  in  the  Department  of  Secret  Service,  I  thought  it  right  in  giving  this 
advice  to  offer  to  make  good  any  engagement  in  that  way  by  which  a  determination 
to  act  in  concert  might  be  obtained  and  Count  Nesselrode  is  authorised  and  in- 
structed accordingly."   P.O.  Supplementary,  343  ;  British  Diplomacy,  p.  4. 


CASTLEREAGH'S  NEW  INSTRUCTIONS          405 

Meanwhile,  on  the  news  of  the  attitude  of  Austria  at  the  end  of 
May  reaching  England,  Castlereagh  had,  for  his  part,  determined  to 
press  her  to  declare  herself.  Cathcart  was  ordered  by  an  Instruction  of 
June  3Oth  to  demand  an  "  explicit  avowal  of  her  sentiments  and  de- 
termination, "  and  to  offer  her  a  credit  of  £500,000  immediately  for 
her  preliminary  preparations,  if  she  determined  to  come  in.  Before 
this  Instruction  reached  Cathcart,  however,  Metternich  was  hurrying 
off  to  Dresden  to  meet  Napoleon,  so  that  it  exercised  but  little  in- 
fluence on  the  course  of  events1.  The  news  of  the  Armistice  and  the 
basis  agreed  upon  by  the  Allied  Powers  produced  at  first  no  fresh 
Instruction  from  Castlereagh ;  for,  as  he  confessed,  he  was  powerless 
to  say  anything  when  Spain  was  deliberately  left  out  of  the  negotia- 
tions. At  the  beginning  of  July,  however,  news  came  both  to  London 
and  to  the  negotiating  Powers  of  the  battle  of  Vittoria  and  the 
virtual  destruction  of  Napoleon's  power  in  Spain.  The  news,  as 
will  be  seen,  had  an  important  effect  on  'the  negotiations  at  Prague 
and  Reichenbach;  but  it  also  produced  a  fresh  set  of  Instructions 
from  Castlereagh,  dated  July  5th2.  In  these,  while  promising  that 
Wellington's  army  would  not  relax  its  efforts,  he  stated  that  the 
British  Government  would  leave  to  the  Continental  Powers  the  initia- 
tive in  arranging  the  Continental  Peace.  On  Four  Points,  however, 
he  declared,  Great  Britain  could  not  compromise  because  bound  by 
Treaty,  viz.  the  independence  of  Spain,  Portugal  and  Sicily,  and  the 
British  engagements  to  Sweden.  Further,  Great  Britain  was  ready, 
"in  conjunction  with  her  Allies,"  to  insist  "as  absolutely  necessary 
to  lay  the  foundation  of  some  counterpoise  in  the  centre  of  Europe," 
on  "the  restoration  of  the  Austrian  and  Prussian  Monarchies  to  such 
an  extent  of  power  and  consequence  as  may  enable  them  to  maintain 
such  a  counterpoise  " ;  while  the  independence  of  Holland  and  Han- 
over was  regarded  as  equally  necessary.  Lastly,  Castlereagh  urged  as  a 
demand,  in  his  view  important,  but  on  which  the  Allies  must  decide, 
"the  restoration  of  the  rest  of  Germany,  including  Switzerland  and 
Italy,  to  an  order  of  things  more  consonant  to  the  common  safety." 
He  admitted  that  the  extent  to  which  these  matters  could  be  pressed 
depended  on  whether  Austria  joined  the  Alliance,  but  promised  the 
full  support  of  Great  Britain  to  Russia  and  Prussia,  "so  long  as  they 
would  stand  by  each  other  and  the  cause  of  the  Continent  against 
France." 

1  Castlereagh  to  Cathcart,  June  30, 1813.  F.O.Russia,  83  ;  British  Diplomacy,  p. 5. 

2  Oncken,  op.  cit.  n.  702. 


406        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

This  statement  was  followed,  eight  days  later,  by  two  other  In- 
structions1 which  were  undoubtedly  meant  to  conciliate  Austria.  In 
the  first  place,  the  Armed  Mediation  was  formally  accepted,  and, 
secondly,  a  statement  was  made,  though  in  general  terms  only,  of  the 
principles  on  which  Great  Britain  was  prepared  to  surrender  her 
Colonial  conquests.  Of  these,  Castlereagh  said,  some  must  be  kept, 
and,  while  the  Dutch  Colonies  might  be  restored,  if  Holland  regained 
her  independence,  and  the  Danish  used  to  facilitate  the  Swedish 
arrangements,  the  French  Colonies  would  only  be  returned  if  a  satis- 
factory Continental  peace  was  secured,  on  conditions  which,  it  was 
indicated  quite  clearly,  must  be  more  consonant  with  British  ideas 
than  the  Four  Points  which  Metternich  had  consented  to  make  his 
test  for  declaring  war.  Castlereagh  thus  still  reserved  some  control 
over  the  negotiations ;  for  he  could  still  refuse  to  make  concessions  on 
the  Colonial  conditions,  if  an  unsatisfactory  peace  was  proposed,  while 
Metternich  still  lacked  one  weapon  indispensable  for  his  becoming 
complete  master  of  the  situation,  if  Napoleon  showed  himself  really 
inclined  to  treat  for  peace2. 

It  is  now  known  that  Napoleon  had  not  the  slightest  intention  of 
treating  for  peace  on  any  terms  that  could  be  accepted  by  the  Allies; 
but,  for  six  weeks  longer,  the  issue  appeared  to  hang  in  the  balance, 
and  more  than  once  Austrian  policy  veered  towards  a  pacific  settle- 
ment. Metternich  had  set  out  for  the  famous  interview  at  Dresden 
on  June  24th,  leaving  Stadion  to  sign,  on  the  2yth,  the  Treaty  of 
Reichenbach  between  Russia  and  Prussia,  which  put  in  treaty  form 
the  arrangements  already  agreed  upon  by  the  three  Powers.  At 
Dresden,  Metternich  produced  no  terms  of  peace,  but  succeeded, 
after  two  stormy  interviews,  in  inducing  Napoleon  to  accept  a  meeting 
between  French  and  Allied  negotiators  at  Prague  under  his  mediation 
(June  30th).  At  the  same  time,  an  extension  of  the  Armistice  to 
August  loth  was  agreed  upon — an  interval  which  both  Metternich 
and  Napoleon  desired,  in  order  to  complete  their  military  prepara- 
tions, and  which  Russia  and  Prussia  had,  therefore,  perforce  to  accept. 

No  sooner  had  this  been  settled  than  the  news  of  Vittoria  reached 
Dresden  and,  in  a  few  days,  Reichenbach.  It  did  nothing  to  shake  the 
Emperor's  resolution;  but  its  effect  on  Austrian  policy  was,  no  doubt, 

1  Castlereagh  to  Cathcart  (nos.  45  and  46),  July  i3th,  1813.   F.O.  Russia,  83; 
British  Diplomacy,  pp.  12-13. 

2  As  a  further  concession  to  Russia,  Castlereagh  was,  also,  now  ready,  though  still 
persisting  in  refusing  Russian  mediation,  to  negotiate  for  peace  directly  with  the 
United  States,  and  Russia  was  asked  to  support  this  offer.   See  p.  532. 


METTERNICH'S  ULTIMATUM  TO  NAPOLEON     407 

considerable.  Jackson  had  no  hesitation  in  declaring  that  it  was  the 
determining  factor  in  Metternich's  decisions,  while  Stewart  wrote 
from  Stralsund:  "  Wellington  will  save  Europe  yet."  They  exag- 
gerated. Even  after  the  receipt  of  this  news,  it  is  clear  that  there  still 
existed  a  large  Austrian  peace  party  and  that  Metternich  was  not 
uninfluenced  by  it.  He  was,  perhaps,  more  moved  by  the  offers  which 
Cathcart,  after  the  receipt  of  Castlereagh's  Instructions  of  July  5th, 
made  to  him  of  an  immediate  sum  of  money ;  for  the  Austrian  finances 
were  in  a  deplorable  state.  At  any  rate,  by  the  end  of  July  all  reports 
tended  to  show  that  Austria  would  fight,  unless  Napoleon  made  im- 
mense concessions.  At  Trachenberg,  as  early  as  July  i2th,  the  Russian 
and  Prussian  military  leaders  had  already,  with  the  assistance  of 
Bernadotte,  drawn  up  a  plan  of  campaign,  which  involved  the  co- 
operation of  the  Austrian  army  in  Bohemia.  The  so-called  Congress 
of  Prague,  meanwhile,  for  which  the  French  Envoys,  after  serious 
delay  in  arriving,  were  unable  to  obtain  any  Instructions  at  all  from 
their  master,  gradually  revealed  the  fact  that  Napoleon  had  no  in- 
tention of  treating.  On  August  yth  Metternich  put  an  end  to  the 
farce  by  at  last  producing  his  peace  terms  in  the  form  of  an  ultimatum 
to  Napoleon.  The  fact  that  he  included  all  the  six  points  agreed  upon, 
and  not  merely  the  Four  Points  sine  quibus  non  of  the  Reichenbach  Treaty , 
showed  that  he  had  now  fully  determined  on  war  Napoleon  was  not 
prepared  to  reply  in  time ;  and,  on  August  izth,  the  news  was  signalled 
to  the  waiting  armies  on  the  Bohemian  frontier,  that  Austria  had 
declared  war.  Yet,  even  now,  Metternich's  reply  (August  21  st)  to 
Maret's  insulting  Note  of  August  i8th,  which  repeated  the  offer  of  a 
Congress,  was  studiously  moderate  and  left  him  with  the  oppor- 
tunity of  reopening  negotiations  with  Napoleon  at  any  time  that 
suited  his  own  diplomacy.  He  avoided  any  specific  refusal  by  pleading 
the  necessity  of  referring  to  his  Allies ;  and  a  copy  of  the  Note  was 
sent  to  London. 

The  fact,  therefore,  that,  in  this  long  series  of  negotiations,  British 
interests  had  played  an  entirely  subordinate  part,  made  no  difference 
to  the  ultimate  settlement.  How  far  there  was  a  danger  of  a  "  Con- 
tinental" peace,  leaving  Great  Britain  to  accept  the  situation,  may 
be  doubted.  The  suspicion,  certainly,  occurred  to  her  representatives 
and  was  duly  reported1.  Undoubtedly,  if  Napoleon  had  possessed 
any  sense  of  the  reality  of  the  situation  he  might  have  obtained  terms 

1  E.g.  Jackson  to  Stewart,  August  2nd,  1813 .  P.O.  Prussia,  88  ;  British  Diplomacy , 
p.  74. 


408        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

far  more  favourable  than  British  statesmen,  or  even  Alexander,  de- 
sired. It  is  true  that  Russia  and  Prussia  were  bound  by  Treaties  to 
Great  Britain;  but  Metternich  was  free,  except  for  the  Four  Points, 
and  it  cannot  be  gainsaid  that  the  Allies  were  in  no  position  to  with- 
stand the  threat  of  his  intervention  against  them,  while  even  Austrian 
neutrality  left  them  in  a  very  dangerous  position.  Castlereagh  could 
indeed  fall  back  upon  the  Colonial  conquests ;  but  he  would  have  found 
it  difficult  to  resist  a  peace,  if  Metternich  had  declared  it  to  be  one 
which  Austria  would  support.  Even  now  that  Austria  had  joined  the 
Alliance,  was  it  so  welded  together  that  it  could  withstand  defeat  in 
one  big  battle  ?  And  what  guarantee  was  there  that,  if  Napoleon  was 
forced  to  conclude  a  peace,  it  would  not  be,  once  more,  merely  a 
truce  until  he  had  recovered  his  power,  and  until  some  incident  had 
divided  the  Eastern  Powers  ?  These  were  the  questions  which  Castle- 
reagh was  asking  himself,  when  he  received  news,  four  weeks  old, 
of  the  negotiations  at  Reichenbach,  Prague  and  Trachenberg.  He 
hoped  that,  at  least,  the  points  which  he  had  urged  in  his  despatches 
of  July  5th  and  i3th  would  have  been  taken  into  consideration  by  the 
Allies,  and  he  pressed  urgently  that  Spain  should  not  be  left  out  of 
sight  in  laying  down  the  preliminary  basis1. 

It  was,  however,  now  indispensable  to  come  into  closer  touch 
with  Austria.  Whether  the  negotiations  continued  or  hostilities  were 
resumed,  it  was  obvious  that  the  key  to  the  position  lay  at  Vienna. 
Accordingly,  at  the  beginning  of  August,  it  was  determined  to  send  out 
a  special  Mission  to  the  Austrian  Court;  and  to  this  important  post 
Castlereagh  nominated  the  young  Earl  of  Aberdeen,  to  whom  for 
some  time  the  Tory  Ministry  had  been  anxious  to  give  official  em- 
ployment. His  Instructions,  dated  August  6th,  show  how  far  Castle- 
reagh was  prepared  to  go  to  win  Austria  over.  As  to  his  general 
attitude  towards  Continental  affairs,  Aberdeen  was  to  follow  the  In- 
structions already  sent  to  Stewart  and  Cathcart ;  but  Austria's  special 
interests  in  Italy  were  dealt  with  in  two  separate  despatches.  In  the 
first  of  these,  the  importance  of  concluding  a  convention  with  Murat, 
whom  Castlereagh  thought  to  be  still  in  Italy,  was  emphasised,  and 
reference  was  made  to  the  fact  that  he  had  already  made  overtures 
both  to  Austria  and  to  Great  Britain.  In  this  despatch,  it  was  sug- 
gested that  Murat  should  be  given  compensation  in  the  centre  of 
Italy,  so  that  Ferdinand  might  be  restored  to  his  kingdom.  In  a 
separate  despatch,  however,  Castlereagh  agreed  that  Murat  might 

1  Castlereagh  to  Cathcart,  August  7th,  1813.  Castlereagh  Correspondence,  ix.  39. 


CASTLEREAGH'S  NEW  IDEA  OF  ALLIANCE      409 

retain  Naples,  if  he  made  it  a  sine  qua  non,  compensation  being  found 
for  Ferdinand,  and  Aberdeen  was  authorised  to  sign  a  convention  to 
that  effect  sub  spe  rati.  As  will  be  seen,  this  second  Instruction,  which 
Castlereagh  only  intended  to  be  used  in  the  last  resort,  was  to  have 
important  consequences.  On  the  more  general  question,  likewise, 
Castlereagh  made  no  secret  of  his  anxiety  to  see  Austria  "resume  its 
preponderance  in  the  North  of  Italy"  including  the  territory  of 
Venice1. 

For  the  rest,  Castlereagh  let  events  take  their  course,  until  he 
received  definite  information  early  in  September,  that  Austria  had 
joined  the  Allies.  The  risks  British  interests  had  run  during  the  recent 
negotiations  now  determined  him  to  take  a  step  which  appears  to  have 
been  in  his  mind  throughout  the  year,  and  for  which  he  now  thought 
the  time  was  ripe.  On  September  i8th  he  forwarded  new  Instructions 
to  the  Continent,  which  went  deeply  into  the  main  issues  of  the  conflict 
and  put  forward  an  entirely  new  view  of  the  Alliance  against  Napoleon. 
They  opened  with  a  review  of  the  nature  of  the  Confederacy  arrayed 
against  France,  which  Castlereagh  claimed  was  distinguished  from 
all  previous  combinations,  "by  the  number  and  magnitude  of  the 
Powers  engaged"  not  less  than  "by  the  national  character  which 
the  war  has  assumed  throughout  the  respective  states.  On  former 
occasions  it  was  a  contest  of  Sovereigns  in  some  instances  perhaps 
against  the  prevailing  sentiment  of  their  subjects.  It  is  now  a 
struggle  dictated  by  the  feelings  of  the  people  of  all  ranks  as  well 
as  by  the  necessity  of  the  case."  The  Sovereigns  of  Europe,  having 
at  last  learnt  the  dangers  of  isolation,  were  now  bound  together,  for 
the  first  time,  by  a  consciousness  of  common  danger.  Their  only 
chance  of  safety  was  not  to  allow  any  offer  of  the  enemy  to  divide 
them.  The  War  in  Spain  and  the  War  in  Germany  were  one,  and,  if 
the  Allies  held  together  and  persevered,  they  must  in  the  long  run 
triumph.  But,  though  the  Powers  had  concluded  a  number  of  separate 
Treaties  with  one  another,  there  was  as  yet  no  common  Instrument, 
and  even  so  essential  a  point  as  the  independence  of  Spain  had  not  yet 
been  agreed  to  by  the  Allies  as  a  whole,  though  Russia  and  Prussia 
were  morally  bound  to  support  that  claim,  and  Austria  now  pre- 
sumably also,  since  she  had  agreed  to  fight  for  the  objects  laid  down 
on  May  i6th,  among  which  Spanish  independence  was  expressly  stipu- 

1  Castlereagh  to  Aberdeen  (nos.  2,  3  and  separate),  August  6th,  1813.  P.O. 
Austria,  101 ;  British  Diplomacy,  pp.  94-97.  The  "most  secret  and  separate"  despatch 
appears  to  have  been  unknown  to  historians,  and  has  caused  much  confusion  in 
dealing  with  the  later  policy  towards  Murat. 


4io        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

lated.  Castlereagh,  also,  indicated  quite  clearly  that  the  Congress  of 
Prague  had  occasioned  great  uneasiness  to  the  British  Cabinet,  and, 
while  professing  the  fullest  confidence  that  Russia  and  Prussia  had 
not  contemplated  signing  a  separate  peace,  pointed  out  that,  sup- 
posing Napoleon  had  accepted  the  Austrian  basis,  the  Armistice  must 
have  been  prolonged,  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  the  views  of  the 
British  Cabinet,  with  perhaps  disastrous  results  in  the  Peninsula. 
Castlereagh  therefore  pressed  for  a  new  Public  Treaty,  in  which  the 
Powers  bound  themselves  not  to  make  peace  or  to  conclude  any  con- 
vention except  in  common.  The  Spanish  Cortes,  Portugal  and  Sicily, 
the  principal  Allies  of  Great  Britain,  were  to  be  invited  to  accede  to 
it.  The  ideas  of  the  State  Paper  of  1805  are,  however,  specially  per- 
ceptible in  two  clauses  designed  to  make  the  Treaty  a  permanent  part 
of  the  Public  Law  of  Europe.  They  stipulate 

That,  after  Peace  shall  be  concluded  by  common  consent,  there  shall 
continue  between  the  said  High  Contracting  Parties  a  perpetual  Defensive 
Alliance  for  the  maintenance  of  such  Peace  and  for  the  mutual  Protection 
of  their  respective  States ; 

and 

That  in  case  of  attack  hereafter  by  France  or  any  one  of  the  said  High 
Contracting  Parties,  the  several  Powers  will  support  the  Party  so  attacked 
with  all  their  forces  if  necessary,  and  see  justice  done1. 

This  was  the  first  statement  of  the  policy  which  Castlereagh  was  to 
carry  through,  six  months  later,  at  Chaumont.  He  was  aware  that 
such  a  measure  necessitated  an  agreement  among  the  Powers  on 
the  general  principles  of  the  Peace  which  it  was  intended  to  secure. 
He  suggested,  therefore,  that  Secret  Articles  should  be  attached  to 
the  Treaty,  in  which  the  objects  of  the  Allies  should  be  clearly  speci- 
fied, and  a  suggested  draft  of  these  Articles  was  also  enclosed.  They 
were  based  on  the  Russo-Prussian  demands  of  May  i6th,  which 
Castlereagh  assumed  Austria  to  be  now  ready  to  sign;  but  he  made 
additions  to  them  specially  safeguarding  the  points  in  which  Gi*eat 
Britain  had  a  special  interest,  but  which  had  hitherto  been  neglected. 
Of  these,  Norway,  Naples  (or  compensation  to  Sicily)  and  the 
restoration  of  the  House  of  Brunswick  were  in  the  zone  of  the 
demands.  But  Castlereagh,  also,  added  the  provision  of  an  "  adequate 
Barrier'*  for  Holland,  which  meant  abandoning  the  Rhine  frontier. 

1  Castlereagh  to  Cathcart,  September  i8th,  1813.    F.O.  Russia,  83;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  19. 


ALLIED  SECRET  AGREEMENTS  411 

Otherwise,  the  Treaty  would  have  left  France  with  her  "natural 
limits  "  of  the  Rhine,  the  Alps  and  the  Pyrenees1. 

He  seems  scarcely  to  have  been  aware  of  the  difficulty  of  carrying 
out  these  Instructions  and  of  the  inadequacy  of  his  subordinates  for 
securing  so  important  an  Instrument.  In  private  letters  to  Cathcart2, 
he  urged  the  importance  of  pressing  the  matter  forward,  so  that  Parlia- 
ment, which  was  to  meet  on  November  4th,  could  be  informed  and 
the  Cabinet  take  the  Treaty  into  consideration  in  planning  the  cam- 
paign of  1814.  He  anticipated  that  Austria  would  be  the  most  likely 
Power  to  offer  opposition,  and  he  devoted  a  special  letter  to  arguments 
likely  to  convince  Metternich  that  no  adequate  peace  could  be  made, 
unless  his  policy  was  accepted.  Before  the  Instructions  arrived,  how- 
ever— and  it  was  two  days  after  the  battle  of  Leipzig  that  Cathcart 
received  them — further  negotiations  had  taken  place  among  the  Allied 
Powers.  At  the  headquarters  of  the  main  Allied  army  in  Bohemia, 
the  two  Emperors  and  the  Prussian  King,  with  their  Ministers,  were 
now  assembled,  and  in  the  intervals  of  discussing  the  Allied  strategy 
they  drew  up  new  Treaties  to  regulate  their  political  conduct.  They 
were  accompanied  by  Cathcart  and  Stewart.  When  the  latter  returned 
from  his  northern  journey,  he  discovered  the  existence  of  the  Treaty 
of  Reichenbach  of  June  ayth,  and  wrote  off  furious  protests  to  his 
Court.  Hardenberg  made  a  great  favour  of  even  showing  it  him, 
and  justified  the  breach  of  faith  by  the  absolute  necessity  of  agreeing 
to  Metternich's  conditions  at  this  stage.  Jackson  was  not  slow  to 
point  out  that  he  had  suspected  the  Treaty,  but  that  Hardenberg  had 
positively  denied  it.  Stewart  drew  from  the  whole  transaction  con- 
firmation of  the  suspicions  he  had  repeatedly  expressed  of  Austria's 
conduct  during  the  course  of  the  Armistice,  and  maintained  his  con- 
viction that,  had  Napoleon  accepted  the  Four  Points,  Austria  would 
have  brought  about  a  peace  substantially  on  those  terms3. 

Metternich,  who  was  now  the  arbiter  of  the  Allied  diplomacy, 
nevertheless  took  pains  to  put  himself  on  the  best  terms  with  the 
British  Envoys.  In  interviews  with  Stewart  and  Cathcart,  he  said 
that  he  knew  himself  to  be  distrusted  by  the  British  Cabinet ;  but  that 
throughout  the  period  of  his  subserviency  to  France  he  had  always 

1  Castlereagh  to  Cathcart,  September  i8th,  1813.    P.O.  Russia,  83;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  25. 

2  Castlereagh  to  Cathcart,  September  1 8th  and  2ist,  1813.   P.O.  Supplementary, 
343 ;  British  Diplomacy,  pp.  27,  29. 

8  Stewart  to  Castlereagh,  August  i2th  and  August  2oth,  1813;  Jackson  to 
Stewart,  August  i2th;  Hardenberg  to  Stewart,  August  2Oth.  P.O.  Prussia,  89; 
British  Diplomacy,  pp.  76-78. 


4i2        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

had  in  view  the  situation  in  which  he  now  found  himself.  These 
efforts  still  left  Stewart  suspicious,  though  Cathcart  (as  ever)  was 
fully  satisfied.  It  was  for  Lord  Aberdeen,  however,  that  Metternich 
reserved  his  greatest  efforts,  and  in  a  short  time  he  had  established  a 
commanding  influence  over  the  British  Plenipotentiary.  Aberdeen, 
then  only  twenty-nine  years  of  age,  had  been  the  ward  of  Dundas  and 
of  Pitt,  in  whose  house  he  had  often  lived.  He  was  a  far  more  able 
and  cultured  man  than  either  of  his  colleagues,  and  the  favour  that  Pitt 
had  shown  him,  as  well  as  his  own  good  qualities  and  high  rank,  had 
caused  him  at  a  very  early  age  to  be  marked  out  by  the  Tory  Ministry 
for  office.  He  had,  more  than  once,  refused  high  diplomatic  appoint- 
ments. At  last,  doubtless  partly  owing  to  the  death  of  his  wife  in 
1812,  he  acceded  to  the  urgent  requests  of  Castlereagh  and  other 
Ministers  to  undertake  the  mission  to  the  Austrian  Court.  His  shy 
and  reserved  character,  his  moderation  and  breadth  of  view  and  the 
Liberal  principles  and  peace-loving  disposition  which  distinguished 
him  always  from  his  partisan  colleagues  and  made  him  at  a  later  stage 
the  valued  confidant  of  Peel,  might  have  exercised  considerable  in- 
fluence on  the  course  of  events,  had  he  known  more  of  the  pitfalls  of 
diplomatic  intercourse.  But  he  was  absolutely  without  experience, 
and,  though  not  without  knowledge  of  European  politics,  he  was  far 
too  academic  and  unskilled  to  penetrate  the  complicated  situation 
presented  to  him.  Castlereagh  treated  him  with  studied  courtesy, 
and  kept  him  by  his  side  till  Peace  was  made.  But  Aberdeen  was  ill 
at  ease  with  men  like  Cathcart  and  Stewart,  and  never  gave  them  his 
full  confidence.  In  a  very  short  space  of  time,  admitted  daily  to  the 
Imperial  table,  and  treated  with  infinite  tact  by  the  Austrian  Minister, 
he  saw  only  with  the  eyes  of  Metternich.  Another  disturbing  factor 
was,  that  he  also  fell  under  the  influence  of  Sir  Robert  Wilson,  who 
was  aiming  at  establishing  himself  as  Military  Representative  at 
Austrian  headquarters,  and  saw  in  Aberdeen  a  means  of  overthrowing 
the  determined  hostility  of  Cathcart.  Wilson  was,  also,  flattered  by 
the  Austrians,  and,  as  he  upheld  views  of  a  speedy  peace  which,  what- 
ever their  ultimate  intention,  were  in  direct  opposition  to  those  of 
the  British  Cabinet,  the  result  was  to  make  Aberdeen's  arrival  a 
source  of  weakness  rather  than  strength  to  British  diplomacy,  and  to 
increase  the  ascendancy  of  Metternich  over  the  whole  course  of  the 
negotiations.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  Aberdeen 
was  specially  instructed  to  pursue  a  line  of  close  confidence  in  Metter- 
nich. 


METTERNICH  AND  ABERDEEN  413 

"  I  am  inclined  to  think,"  wrote  Castlereagh,  "it  is  best  to  make  a  Hero 
of  him  and  by  giving  him  a  reputation  to  excite  him  to  sustain  it.. .  .If 
you  deem  it  useful  you  may  tell  him  from  me,  I  am  perfectly  ready  to 
adopt  him  upon  his  own  avowal,  and  to  meet  vigorous  exertion  on  his  part 
with  perfect  goodwill  and  confidence  on  mine — and  that,  as  long  as  he 
will  wield  the  great  Machine  in  his  hands  with  determination  and  spirit, 
I  will  support  him  as  zealously  as  I  have  done  the  Prince  Royal  against 
all  his  calumniators,  and  I  hope  not  less  successfully1." 

One  of  Aberdeen's  first  tasks  was  to  communicate  to  Metternich 
the  fact  that,  during  the  course  of  the  Armistice,  Great  Britain  had 
accepted  Austrian  mediation.  This  had  hitherto  been  studiously  con- 
cealed from  Austria  at  the  urgent  request  of  Alexander,  and  the  dis- 
closure was  now  made  with  sufficient  tact  to  relegate  the  incident  to 
oblivion.  Aberdeen's  communication  of  the  points  of  interest  to  Great 
Britain, in  which  besides  making  Spain  an  absolute  condition  of  policy, 
he  urged  the  independence  of  Holland  and  Hanover  as  absolutely 
necessary,  and  the  freeing  of  Germany  and  Italy  as  very  desirable,  came 
too  late  to  produce  any  effect  on  the  Treaty  of  Toplitz  between 
Austria,  Russia  and  Prussia,  which  was  signed  four  days  after  his 
arrival  at  headquarters. 

As  to  Murat,  Aberdeen  was  surprised  to  find  that  he  was  at 
Dresden  in  an  important  command.  After  Bautzen  and  Liitzen, 
Murat  had,  indeed,  felt  himself  no  longer  able  to  resist  Napoleon's 
summons.  But  his  troops  remained  in  his  kingdom  and  gave  no 
assistance  to  the  Viceroy,  while  neither  he  nor  his  Queen  ever 
broke  off  relations  with  the  Austrian  Court.  In  these  circumstances, 
Mettefnich  had  little  difficulty  in  inducing  Aberdeen,  not  only  to 
inform  him  immediately  of  the  whole  of  his  Instructions,  but  also  to 
furnish  him  in  writing  with  a  statement  that  he  was  authorised  to 
treat  with  Murat  on  the  basis  of  Naples  being  retained  by  its  de 
facto  ruler. 

In  the  Treaties  of  Toplitz,  which  were  only  communicated  to  the 
British  Envoys  a  week  after  they  were  signed,  no  mention  was  made 
either  of  Spain,  Holland,  Italy  or  Norway.  The  British  Ambassadors, 
however,  professed  themselves  as  satisfied  with  explanations  that  no 
peace  would  be  made  without  Great  Britain's  claims  being  taken  into 
account.  Metternich  went  no  further  in  his  Subsidy  Treaty  with 
Great  Britain,  signed  on  October  Qth,  which  was  confined  merely  to 
a  promise  not  to  make  peace  except  in  common.  Meanwhile,  though 

1  Castlereagh  to  Aberdeen,  September  2ist,  1813.  P.O.  Austria,  101 ;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  97. 


4i4       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE, 

it  was  apparent  that  negotiations  would  only  be  resumed  when  the 
issue  of  the  autumn  campaign  was  known,  Metternich  was  building 
up  a  diplomatic  basis  by  which  his  own  ascendancy  over  events  could 
be  preserved.  If,  indeed,  Murat  had  for  the  moment  returned  to  his 
old  allegiance,  Metternich  was  now  tempting  Bavaria  to  desert.  This 
"spirit  of  negotiation,"  as  Castlereagh  termed  it,  on  which  Aberdeen's 
colleagues  were  not  slow  in  commenting,  caused  great  uneasiness  in 
London.  The  communication  of  Maret's  note  proposing  a  Congress 
had  already  provoked  a  despatch  from  Castlereagh  to  Aberdeen  on 
September  28th1,  deprecating  the  conclusion  of  any  armistice,  or  the 
entering  into  any  prolonged  discussion,  with  Napoleon,  before  the 
substance  of  the  Allies'  terms  had  been  granted.  "When  Buonaparte 
proposes  a  Congress,"  he  wrote, "  let  him  state  the  principles  on  which 
he  is  ready  to  negotiate,  and  it  will  then  be  in  the  power  of  the  Allies, 
comparing  them  with  the  acknowledged  principles  which  bind  them 
together,  to  judge  whether  discussion  can  be  advisable  on  such  a 
basis."  And,  while  asserting  that  Great  Britain  would  always  be 
ready  to  enter  into  negotiations  in  conjunction  with  her  Allies,  he 
"deprecates  illusory  discussions  which  must  damp  the  ardour  of  the 
Confederacy,  and  conceives  that  no  steps  ought  to  be  taken  to  assemble 
a  Congress,  till  some  satisfactory  basis  is  previously  understood." 
And  such  a  basis  was,  surely,  to  be  found  in  the  Russian  proposals 
of  May  1 6th,  with  Castlereagh's  additions. 

Aberdeen  was,  a  little  later,  instructed  in  a  private  letter  to  urge 
Austria  to  put  more  faith  in  the  sword  and  less  in  diplomacy.  His 
rather  hasty  step  as  regards  Murat  was,  indeed,  immediately  approved 
by  Castlereagh,  though  he  was  cautioned  against  committing  his  Court 
to  any  formal  guarantee  of  Naples  to  its  ruler.  It  was,  moreover, 
to  be  clearly  understood  that  any  engagement  to  Murat  must  be  con- 
tingent on  his  active  participation  in  the  struggle  against  France ;  and 
it  was  assumed  that  Austria  would  find  an  indemnity  for  Ferdinand2. 
In  the  private  letter3  accompanying  the  despatch,  Castlereagh  showed 
that  he  scarcely  hoped  much  from  these  negotiations,  though  he 
admitted  that  the  military  advantages  to  be  obtained  were  worth  the 
sacrifice. 

"  I  lose  no  time,"  he  wrote,  "  in  relieving  you  from  all  anxiety  upon  the 
point  of  Murat.  It  is  a  strong  measure,  but  warranted  by  the  state  of  Italy, 

1  P.O.  Austria,  101 ;  British  Diplomacy,  p.  98. 

2  Castlereagh  to  Aberdeen,  October  1 5th  (no.  2 1)  (Most  Secret).  F.O.Austria,  101. 

3  Castlereagh  to  Aberdeen,  October  1 5th  (Private  and  Confidential).  F.O.Austria, 
101 ;  British  Diplomacy,  p.  102. 


CASTLEREAGH  AND  METTERNICH  415 

of  which  important  portion  of  Europe,  in  a  military  sense,  I  consider  the 
soi-disant  King  of  Naples  to  be  completely  Master,  for  with  his  army  he 
can  at  once  march  uninterruptedly  to  the  Tagliamento,  and,  unless  the 
Viceroy  evacuates  the  whole  of  what  is  called  the  Illyrian  Provinces,  his 
communications  and  his  kingdom  of  Italy  are  in  equal  jeopardy.  I  own, 
however,  I  am  not  sanguine  as  to  the  result  of  the  negotiation,  because  I 
assume  Murat  to  be  a  mere  calculator,  and  there  is  a  spirit  of  negotiation 
about  Metternich  upon  which  such  adventurers  will  always  so  far  speculate 
as  to  endeavour  to  gain  time." 

Perhaps  it  was  this  distrust  of  the  whole  matter  that  prevented  Castle- 
reagh  from  informing  Bentinck  of  the  change  in  British  policy — an 
omission  which  was  to  cause  much  confusion  in  the  ensuing  months. 
Castlereagh  was,  indeed,  far  from  satisfied  with  Metternich 's 
general  attitude  and  the  spirit  in  which  he  was  conducting  the  War. 
The  reply  to  Maret  was  termed  a  "milk-and-water"  answer  to  an 
insulting  letter.  Let  Austria  "imitate  Prussia,"  wrote  Castlereagh, 
"and  make  the  Austrians  an  armed  people,"  if  she  was  desirous  of 
obtaining  peace  from  Napoleon. 

"If  you  ever  mention  to  Mr  de  Metternich  my  individual  sentiments  upon 
these  subjects,"  he  continued,  "you  can  from  your  own  knowledge  assure 
him,  that  I  am  not  one  of  those  who  cannot  reconcile  themselves  to  con- 
template the  possibility  of  peace  even  with  Bonaparte,  but  I  am  satisfied 
it  must  be  a  peace  founded  upon  a  principle  of  authority  and  not  of  sub- 
mission. That  to  obtain  and  still  more  to  preserve  it,  we  must  rouse  and 
arm  the  people  we  have  to  conduct,  and  it  is  in  the  earnest  desire  of  peace 
that  I  wish  to  see  him  employed,  rather  in  preparing  the  nation  for  sacrifices 
and  exertions  than  in  idly  flattering  them  with  the  notion  that  peace  is  at 
hand." 

And  the  role  he  designed  for  Austria  in  Italy  is  clearly  indicated  in 
the  phrase  "Until  a  solid  organisation  of  the  mass  of  the  population 
is  secured,  we  shall  always  find  them  timid  as  to  acquisitions  to  the 
southwards  and  avaricious  of  extensions  on  their  eastern  frontier."  In 
a  postscript,  written  after  perusal  of  Napoleon's  appeals  in  the 
Moniteur  after  the  breaking  of  the  Armistice,  he  added  one  of  those 
passionate  if  uncouth  entreaties  which  moments  of  emergency  some- 
times drew  from  him. 

I  cannot,  I  own,  but  consider  [them]  as  a  serious  and  awful  summons 
to  us  all  for  renewed  vigilance  concert  and  exertion.  It  convinces  me  that 
Bonaparte  has  determined  to  be  numerically  powerful  on  all  points.  This, 
I  think,  he  has  the  means  of  doing  for  a  limited  period,  and  upon  the  con- 
fines of  France.  Having  men  under  arms  in  abundance,  he  can  make  this 
gigantick  array  but  he  cannot  sustain  it.  If  confined  even  for  a  time  to  the 


4i6        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

sphere  within  which  he  now  moves,  it  must  dissolve ;  but  the  whole  military 
history  of  the  Revolution  has  taught  us  to  dread  that  the  monster  once 
engendered  on  French  ground  may  break  loose  to  seek  its  sustenance  else- 
where. This  is  the  true  danger  against  which  the  Continent  and  especially 
Austria  has  to  provide,  and  she  ought  not  to  lose  an  hour  in  appealing 
forcibly  to  the  nation.  The  people  are  now  the  only  barrier.  They  are 
against  France,  and  this  is  the  shield  above  all  others  that  a  State  should 
determine  to  interpose  for  its  protection  which  is  so  wholly  destitute  as 
Austria  of  a  defensible  frontier. 

But  while  Castlereagh  was  penning  these  lines  the  Allies  had 
triumphed.  The  insistence  of  the  German  Generals,  and  the  impetus 
that  Stewart  and  others  had  given  to  the  lagging  steps  of  Bernadotte, 
had  at  last  united  the  three  armies  in  overwhelming  force  against 
Napoleon  at  Leipzig,  and  the  issue  of  the  three  days'  fighting  had 
barely  left  enough  troops  to  win  their  way  to  the  Rhine  past  Wrede's 
Bavarians  at  Hanau.  All  Germany,  except  a  few  northern  fortresses, 
including  Hamburg  was  now  at  the  mercy  of  the  Allied  armies ;  and 
the  petty  States  of  the  Confederation  of  the  Rhine  hastened  to  make 
their  peace  with  Metternich.  To  the  King  of  Saxony  alone  was  it 
denied,  and  his  country  remained  in  military  occupation  of  the  Allies. 
The  others,  by  a  series  of  Treaties,  bought  their  recognition  by  trans- 
ferring their  military  resources  to  swell  the  armies  of  the  Alliance. 

Castlereagh's  despatches  of  September  i8th,  instructing  his  Am- 
bassadors to  form  the  common  Alliance,  reached  Cathcart  on  October 
2oth  amid  the  ruins  of  Napoleon's  army.  The  energetic  Stewart  and 
Jackson  wished  to  press  the  negotiation  at  once;  but  Cathcart  was 
put  off  by  the  Emperor,  and,  as  headquarters  split  up  while  the  Allied 
armies  were  marching  to  Frankfort,  no  opportunity  was  given  to 
broach  the  matter  until  the  26th.  Nor  would  Cathcart  allow  the  other 
Ambassadors  to  approach  their  respective  Sovereigns  until  Alex- 
ander's views  were  known1.  But,  before  the  Tsar's  views  could  be 
ascertained  on  this  subject,  another  negotiation  of  considerable  im- 
portance had  taken  place  with  the  enemy — the  offer  known  as  the 
"Frankfort  Proposals."  During  the  course  of  the  battle  of  Leipzig, 
Napoleon,  having  taken  the  Austrian  General  Count  Merfeldt  prisoner, 
had  seized  the  opportunity  to  attempt  to  use  him  as  an  intermediary 
between  himself  and  the  Allies.  He  had  indicated  to  him,  in  vague 

1  Stewartto  Castlereagh,  October  21  st,  1813.  P.O.  Prussia,  90 ;  British  Diplomacy, 
p.  80;  Cathcart  to  Castlereagh,  October  2ist.  P.O.  Supplementary,  343.  "I  think 
there  is  nothing  proposed  which  will  occasion  much  difficulty  or  delay,  and  if  it  had 
arrived  a  day  sooner  it  might  perhaps  have  been  signed  here.  It  will  be  sent  home 
as  soon  as  possible." 


METTERNICH  AND  THE  EFFECTS  OF  LEIPZIG       417 

terms,  it  is  true,  and  without  committing  himself  in  writing,  that  he  was 
now  prepared  to  make  great  concessions  for  the  sake  of  peace.  He  was 
ready  to  abandon  Germany  and,  in  reply  to  the  skilful  insinuations  of 
Merfeldt,  offered  some  concessions  as  to  Italy  also.  Only  England,  he 
said,  who  wished  to  reduce  the  French  fleet  to  thirty  ships,  was  the 
obstacle  to  negotiation.  This  overture  was  faithfully  reported  to 
Metternich,  while  the  battle  was  still  in  progress;  and  after  the  great 
victory  he  determined  to  make  an  answer  by  a  similar  method, 
choosing  for  that  purpose  St  Aignan,  Napoleon's  representative  at 
Weimar,  who  had  been  taken  prisoner  by  the  Allies  in  the  course  of 
their  advance.  The  idea  was  Metternich's  own.  The  Prussians  dis- 
approved of  it ;  Alexander  acquiesced  half-heartedly.  It  was  in  Aber- 
deen that  Metternich  was  to  find  his  most  eager  collaborator.  On 
October  2Qth  the  English  Ambassador  had  been  informed,  that  "in 
consequence  of  the  British  answer  having  been  received"  (i.e.  Castle- 
reagh's  despatch  on  Maret's  note)  "it  has  been  determined  to  open  a 
communication  with  Bonaparte,  but  in  such  a  manner  as  to  give  rise 
to  as  little  speculation  as  possible,  and  indeed  the  whole  affair  is  to 
be  kept  a  profound  secret."  All  written  communications  were  to  be 
avoided.  Aberdeen's  colleagues  were" not  informed  of  the  transaction. 
The  excuse  was  the  extreme  secrecy  of  the  proceedings ;  but  Me.tter- 
nich  could  not  but  know  that  Stewart  at  least  was  likely  to  adopt  a 
very  different  tone  to  Aberdeen's. 

The  Austrian  Minister  was  anxious  at  the  situation  which  the  over- 
whelming victory  of  Leipzig  had  created  He  had  long  been  doubtful  of 
Russia's  designs  on  Poland.  Now,  Prussia's  claims  were  disturbing  him. 
"Nothing,"  reported  Aberdeen,  "would  induce  Austria  to  agree  to 
the  incorporation  of  Saxony  in  Prussia1."  Metternich  was,  indeed, 
very  doubtful  whether  Austrian  interest  would  be  served  by  a  pro- 
longation of  the  War.  It  might  now  be  hoped  that  a  peace  could  be 
obtained  on  the  basis  of  the  Treaties  signed  at  Toplitz.  The  Allies 
were  ready  to  offer  Napoleon  the  "natural  limits"  of  France — the 
Pyrenees,  the  Alps  and  the  Rhine.  If  he  refused  them,  an  instrument 
would  be  in  the  hands  of  the  Allies  for  undermining  the  national  re- 
sistance of  the  French.  If  he  accepted,  on  the  Throne  of  France  the 
Emperor's  son-in-law  might  then  help  Austria  to  save  Poland  from 
Russia  and  Saxony  from  Prussia.  But  Austria  was  also  bound  to  Great 

1  Aberdeen  to  Castlereagh,  October  29th,  October  soth,  1813.  P.O.  Austria, 
102.  Oncken,  "Aus  den  letzten  Monaten  des  Jahres  1813,"  Historisches  Tatchenbuch, 

VI.  2. 

w.&G.l.  »7 


418        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

Britain,  and,  further,  without  some  countenance  from  Great  Britain  the 
offer  would  be  open  to  the  same  innuendoes  that  Napoleon  had  made 
to  Merfeldt.  Hence,  the  necessity  of  including  among  the  negotiators 
Aberdeen,  who,  like  Metternich  but  for  different  reasons,  was  anxious 
to  bring  about  a  peace. 

The  mise-en-scene  was  skilfully  laid.  Metternich  saw  St  Aignan 
alone  on  the  morning  of  November  8th,  and  prepared  him  for  a 
further  interview.  Then,  in  conjunction  with  Nesselrode,  whom  the 
Tsar  had  with  some  diffidence  allowed  to  act,  and  Aberdeen,  he 
planned  what  should  be  said  to  him.  In  this  interview,  it  was  Aber- 
deen who  combatted  Nesselrode 's  desire  to  place  the  terms  of  peace 
as  high  as  possible  at  the  outset,  and  reduce  them  later  in  negotiation. 
The  protest  he  made  did  credit  to  his  honesty. 

I  told  him  that,  if  the  propositions  were  made  with  the  hope  of  being 
accepted,  common-sense  dictated  that  they  should  be  as  palatable  to  Bona- 
parte as  was  consistent  with  the  fixed  views  of  the  Allies.  If  the  proposi- 
tions were  made  without  any  such  hope,  I  deprecated  the  whole  proceeding 
as  being  most  erroneous  in  principle,  and  calculated  to  produce  the  greatest 
injury  to  the  common  cause.  I  observed  that  it  would  be  much  better  to 
defer  making  any  overture  at  all,  if  it  was  not  thought  that  we  were  in  a 
sufficiently  commanding  situation  to  make  that  which  we  were  determined 
to  press. 

Metternich  acquiesced.  It  was  his  own  policy,  and  the  "natural 
limits"  were  offered  without  restriction,  though  it  was  understood 
by  Aberdeen  that  the  frontiers  of  Holland  and  Piedmont  should 
not  be  considered  as  irrevocably  fixed.  He  urged  the  necessity  of 
secrecy  in  the  strongest  possible  manner,  and  made  Metternich 
promise  that  St  Aignan  should  not  see  the  two  Emperors,  as  had 
been  originally  intended.  In  deference,  also,  to  his  wishes,  the  pro- 
clamation to  the  French  people  which  Metternich  had  intended  to 
issue  simultaneously  with  the  opening  of  the  negotiation  was  deferred 
till  its  result  should  be  known.  The  preparations  for  war  were  to  go 
on  with  undiminished  activity1. 

Next  morning,  when  St  Aignan  again  saw  Metternich  and  Nessel- 
rode, Aberdeen  joined  them  "as  if  by  accident."  But  they  had  to 
deal  with  a  diplomatist.  St  Aignan  immediately,  before  Aberdeen's 
entry2,  reduced  to  writing  the  terms  that  were  indicated.  The  terms 

1  Aberdeen  to  Castlereagh,  November  9th,  1813.    P.O.  Austria,  102;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  107. 

2  According  to  St  Aignan's  account ;  Aberdeen's  despatch  reads  as  if  the  writing 
had  been  done  in  his  presence. 


THE  FRANKFORT  PROPOSALS  419 

of  the  Continental  Powers  were  sufficiently  explicit — the  frontiers  of 
the  Rhine,  the  Pyrenees  and  the  Alps,  and  the  absolute  independence 
of  all  countries  outside  of  them,  except  that  in  Holland  the  form  of 
government  and  the  frontiers  were  to  be  left  open  to  discussion.  But 
Aberdeen  went  on  to  report : 

M.  de  St  Aignan  noted  also  that  England  was  ready  to  make  great 
sacrifices  in  order  to  obtain  peace  for  Europe,  that  she  did  not  interfere 
with  the  freedom  of  commerce  or  with  those  maritime  rights  to  which 
France  could  with  justice  pretend.  I  particularly  cautioned  him  against 
supposing  that  any  possible  consideration  could  induce  Great  Britain  to 
abandon  a  particle  of  what  she  felt  to  belong  to  her  maritime  code,  from 
which  in  no  case  could  she  ever  recede,  but  that  with  this  understanding 
she  had  no  wish  to  interfere  with  the  reasonable  pretensions  of  France. 
I  took  this  opportunity  to  contradict  the  assertion  which  Bonaparte  had 
made  to  General  Merfeldt,  of  the  intention  of  the  British  Government  to 
limit  him  to  thirty  ships  of  the  line,  and  declared  that  so  far  as  I  knew  it 
was  a  prejudice  without  any  foundation. 

All  this  was  sincerely  meant  by  Aberdeen  as  a  way  towards  peace. 
But,  in  the  Note  which  St  Aignan  subsequently  drew  up  of  the  inter- 
view, the  British  Ambassador  found  himself  committed  to  the  propo- 
sition, "que  VAngleterre  etait  pretedfaire  les  plus  grands  sacrifices  pour 
la  paix  fondle  sur  ces  bases,  et  a  reconnattre  la  liberte  du  commerce  et  de 
la  navigation,  a  laquelle  la  France  a  droit  de  pretendre"  This  Note 
he  had  not  received  when  he  drew  up  the  despatch  for  his  Court, 
which,  however,  shows  his  anxiety  to  excuse  the  step  which  he  had 
taken1.  In  this  despatch,  he  emphasised  again  his  object  that  "the 
transaction  should  be  conducted  with  the  utmost  secrecy  and  expe- 
dition." In  order  to  secure  this  secrecy,  Cathcart  was  not  taken  into 
confidence  until  after  Aberdeen's  courier  had  gone,  and  Jackson,  who 
was  acting  for  Stewart,  was  not  informed  officially  of  the  transaction 
until  the  i  ith.  Cathcart,  who  was  rapidly  sinking  to  a  very  subordinate 
position,  acquiesced.  Jackson  had,  however,  learnt,  so  early  as  the 
8th,  what  was  going  on ;  and  he  agreed  with  Hardenberg's  view,  which 
was  openly  expressed  to  him,  that  the  offer  was  a  mistake.  He  warned 
Stewart,  in  letters  which  were  sent  to  London,  that  Austria  and  Russia 
were  anxious  for  peace.  Stewart  shared  his  apprehensions,  and  Berna- 

1  "  I  trust  your  Lordship  will  not  disapprove  of  the  part  which  I  have  taken  in 
this  affair.  My  great  object,  if  any  propositions  were  made,  was  to  frame  them  so 
as  to  afford  the  greatest  probability  of  success,  consistent  with  the  fixed  policy  of 
the  Allies.  I  hope  the  communication  which  has  been  made  will  be  found  to 
embrace  the  most  essential  points  and  to  demand  as  much  as  our  actual  situation 
entitles  us  to  expect."  Aberdeen  to  Castlereagh,  Nov.  gth,  1813.  F.O  Austria,  103  ; 
British  Diplomacy ,  p.  no. 

27—2 


42o       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

dotte  was  irritated  at  having  been  kept  in  the  dark.  It  was  not,  how- 
ever, till  Stewart  returned  to  Frankfort  that  he  learnt  the  contents  of 
the  note. 

By  that  time,  Napoleon's  answer — the  last  penned  by  Maret,  be- 
fore Caulaincourt  superseded  him  as  Foreign  Minister — had  arrived. 
As  Metternich  predicted,  it  contained  no  acceptance  of  the  basis,  but 
merely  declared  a  readiness  to  treat.  St  Aignan's  minute  was,  however, 
skilfully  used  to  insinuate  that  maritime  questions  would  be  discussed 
at  the  Congress.  The  unofficial  and  secret  conversation  had  thus  been 
made  the  basis  of  bringing  into  the  European  settlement  the  question 
of  the  Freedom  of  the  Seas,  which  it  was  a  cardinal  point  in  British 
policy  to  refuse  to  discuss.  Aberdeen  had  no  alternative  but  to  send 
in  a  minute  of  protest  to  Metternich,  who  returned  an  acceptable 
answer,  which,  now  that  Napoleon  had  rejected  his  terms,  he  had  no 
difficulty  in  sending.  His  reply  to  Maret  reiterated  the  necessity  of 
accepting  the  terms  before  any  discussion  could  take  place.  Aberdeen 
was  satisfied  with  these  proceedings.  He  explained  to  Castlereagh  in 
a  despatch  of  November  28th  that  the  basis  was  merely  meant  to 
indicate  the  boundaries  of  France.  Thus,  no  mention  had  been  made 
of  Poland,  Sicily,  Norway  and  other  objects,  some  of  which  were  of 
vital  interest  to  Great  Britain,  and  he  assured  him  that  "both  the 
imperial  Courts  have  framed  their  conduct  on  their  belief  of  what 
would  be  most  approved  of  by  the  British  Government1."  Stewart, 
however,  was  now  alarmed  and  indignant.  It  was  only  from  Maret's 
answer  that  he  learnt  the  contents  of  the  note,  and  both  he  and  Jackson 
were  naturally  angry  at  being  kept  in  the  dark.  A  despatch  was  sent 
to  London  which  criticised  in  the  warmest  language  Aberdeen's  con- 
duct2. This  did  not  make  Stewart  any  more  popular  with  the  Courts 
of  Austria  and  Prussia,  and  it  was  soon  obvious  that  he  and  Aberdeen 
had  no  confidence  in  one  another,  and  the  latter  at  Metternich's  re- 
quest concealed  from  his  fellow  Envoy  everything  concerning  the 
important  negotiations.  Cathcart  in  vain  tried  to  make  peace  between 
them ;  but  the  quarrel  broke  out  openly  on  the  receipt  of  another  reply 
from  Napoleon,  this  time  signed  by  Caulaincourt,  whose  nomination 
to  the  Foreign  Ministry  in  place  of  Maret  was  a  concession  to  the 
growing  peace  party  at  Paris.  The  arrival  of  this  Note  was  concealed 
even  from  Aberdeen,  until  Pozzo  di  Borgo,  who,  as  will  be  seen,  was 

1  Aberdeen  to  Castlereagh,  November  28th,  1813.    P.O.  Austria,  103;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  113. 

2  Stewart  to  Castlereagh,  November  a8th,   1813.    P.O.  Prussia,  91;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  88. 


THE  GRAND  ALLIANCE  PROJECT  AT  A  STANDSTILL  421 

despatched  on  a  special  mission  to  England,  could  take  with  him  a  copy. 
But  Stewart  was  not  so  easily  put  off.  He  succeeded  in  obtaining  a 
copy  of  this  note  through  a  subordinate  in  Metternich's  office,  and 
his  messenger  was  able  to  leave  at  the  same  time  as  the  Russian 
General  with  a  letter  of  protest  against  the  way  in  which  the  British 
Envoys  were  being  treated.  Pozzo's  mission  he  regarded  as  an  insult 
to  himself  and  his  colleagues  and  hoped  that  Castlereagh  would  give 
it  no  countenance.  Neither  Cathcart  nor,  of  course,  Aberdeen  sup- 
ported him.  The  Note  that  caused  so  much  distress  was  an  acceptance 
of  the  Frankfort  basis  and  of  the  suggestion  that  a  Congress  should 
meet  at  Mannheim  as  soon  as  possible.  But  it  was  now  too  late.  Stein's 
arrival  at  Frankfort  had  made  Alexander  far  less  inclined  than  before 
to  stay  his  armies  at  the  frontier.  The  Declaration  of  the  Allies,  drafted 
by  Metternich,  had  been  issued,  which,  while  promising  the  French 
people  the  natural  frontiers,  had  announced  an  invasion,  of  France. 
Reply  was  made  that  the  answer  of  Great  Britain  must  be  awaited 
before  the  negotiation  could  go  forward,  and  meanwhile  all  prepara- 
tions were  made  for  the  invasion. 

Under  such  conditions  it  was  not  likely  that  Castlereagh's  project 
of  a  Grand  Alliance  would  make  much  progress.  No  answer  was  given 
to  Cathcart,  until  the  St  Aignan  negotiation  had  taken  place.  Then, 
to  Cathcart's  surprise, it  came  in  the  form  of  adespatch  to  Lieven  which 
suggested  that  Castlereagh's  project  was  now  out  of  date.  Alexander 
proposed  that  the  new  Treaty  should  be  connected  with  the  British 
Subsidy  engagements  for  the  ensuing  year,  and  he  further  pressed 
that  Great  Britain  should  state  in  it  the  cessions  of  Colonial  conquests 
which  she  was  prepared  to  make  in  the  interests  of  peace.  When 
Cathcart  protested,  Alexander  proposed,  instead,  merely  a  renewal  of 
the  Subsidy  Treaty  with  an  engagement  as  regards  Spain ;  but,  when 
urged  to  add  the  independence  of  Holland,  with  a  "  Barrier,"  Switzer- 
land, and  Sardinia,  he  showed  great  disinclination  to  anything  of 
the  kind,  stating  that  "perhaps  it  was  better  to  avoid  binding  more 
than  was  necessary  by  Treaty,  lest  in  striving  to  do  too  much  we  should 
lose  the  opportunity  of  doing  anything1."  Stewart  won  the  full  assent 
of  the  Prussian  Court2;  but  further  negotiations  on  the  iyth  only 
revealed  the  fact  that  neither  Russia  nor  Austria  had  any  intention  of 
going  so  far  as  Castlereagh  wished.  Aberdeen  had  hopes  that  Metter- 

1  Cathcart  to  Castlereagh,  December  5th,    1813.    P.O.  Russia,  87;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  48. 

2  Stewart  to  Castlereagh,  November  24th,  1813.    P.O.  Prussia,  91;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  88. 


422        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

nich  would  carry  the  matter  through,  and  Cathcart  left  the  negotia- 
tions mainly  to  him — a  device  all  the  more  congenial  to  Austria  and 
Russia,  as  it  left  Stewart  out  of  the  game.  But,  though  Metternich 
was  much  more  encouraging  than  Alexander,  he,  in  a  conference 
with  Aberdeen  and  Nesselrode,  backed  the  Russians  in  demanding 
that  Great  Britain  should  furnish  a  declaration  as  to  her  conquests. 
Aberdeen  offered  to  make  a  general  declaration  in  vague  terms ;  but 
Metternich  used  the  Tsar's  wishes  as  an  excuse  for  insisting. 

"I  see  clearly,"  wrote  Aberdeen,  "that  Prince  Metternich,  although 
perfectly  ready  to  sign  the  Treaty  himself,  is  unwilling  to  follow  the  example 
of  Prussia  in  separating  herself  from  the  Allies,  for  fear  of  giving  umbrage 
to  Russia.  He  therefore  will  endeavour  if  possible  to  draw  Russia  with 
him.  This  may  be  all  very  right,  but  I  could  not  help  observing  to  them 
that  they  appeared  by  their  conduct  almost  as  anxious  to  make  common 
cause  against  us  as  against  France1." 

The  result  was  that  the  negotiation  failed.  Nothing  whatever 
was  signed;  and,  instead,  Pozzo  di  Borgo  was  sent  to  London 
with  special  Instructions  for  himself  and  Lieven  to  conclude  a 
treaty  with  the  British  Government,  in  which  both  next  year's  Sub- 
sidies and  the  cession  of  the  Colonial  conquests  were  to  be  specified. 
In  spite  of  Metternich's  apparent  goodwill,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  insistence  on  this  latter  point  was  mainly  due  to  him; 
for  it  reiterated  the  demand  he  had  made  at  the  beginning  of  the  year. 
Without  it,  indeed,  he  could  not  have  that  complete  mastery  over  the 
issue  of  peace  or  war,  which  it  was  his  settled  purpose  to  obtain 
before  the  Congress,  now  agreed  upon,  met.  Meanwhile,  during  the 
month  of  December,  the  disunion  of  the  British  Ambassadors  was 
reflected  in  the  disputes  that  were  appearing  amongst  the  Allies  on 
all  sides.  Bernadotte,  now  that  Leipzig  had  rendered  him  far 
less  indispensable  to  his  Allies,  was  being  treated  with  much  less 
attention  and  respect  than  before,  even  on  military  questions.  He  was 
clearly  loath  to  invade  French  soil,  preferring  to  attack  Denmark,  and, 
though  Stewart  visited  his  headquarters  in  December  to  urge  the 
importance  of  an  attack  on  Holland,  whither  the  British  Ministry  were 
now  despatching  an  expeditionary  force  and  the  Prince  of  Orange, 
he  remained  sullenly  occupied  with  his  own  projects  of  Swedish 
aggrandisement  and  the  ambitious  design  on  which  he  had  long 
meditated  of  replacing  Napoleon  on  the  Throne  of  France. 

1  Aberdeen  to  Castlereagh,  December  5th,  December  Qth,  1813.  P.O.  Austria, 
103. 


AUSTRO-RUSSIAN  RIVALRY  423 

Far  more  serious  was  the  rivalry  that  began  to  appear  between 
Austria  and  Russia.  The  main  reason,  ostensibly,  was  a  dispute  be- 
tween Alexander  and  the  Austrian  Generals  as  to  the  necessity  of 
passing  through  Switzerland  on  the  march  to  France.  Under  the 
influence  of  La  Harpe  and  Jomini,  Alexander  refused  to  violate  the 
neutrality  of  Switzerland,  which  Napoleon,  who  could  not  but  win 
strategic  advantage  from  it,  had  promised  to  respect.  The  dispute  was 
only  settled  by  Metternich 's  skill  in  arranging  for  a  mild  revolution 
in  Switzerland,  which  ensured  a  welcome  for  the  Allied  armies ;  yet 
the  incident  did  much  to  embitter  his  relations  with  Alexander. 
But  there  were  far  graver  causes  for  the  prevailing  discontent 
among  the  Allied  diplomatists.  The  Powers  were  now  deeply  pre- 
occupied with  the  future  settlement  of  the  territories  which  had 
come  into  their  possession  as  a  result  of  the  break-up  of  the 
Napoleonic  empire.  Metternich  had  resumed  negotiations  with  Murat 
who  had  left  the  remnants  of  the  Grand  Army  and  returned  to 
his  kingdom,  vowing  to  avenge  himself  on  the  Emperor.  Aberdeen, 
hereupon,  tried  to  restrain  Metternich  from  offering  too  much ;  but 
he  had  already  committed  himself,  and  Metternich  had  a  free  hand 
to  offer  him  his  kingdom  in  return  for  military  assistance,  if  Austrian 
armies  found  themselves  unable  to  deal  with  the  French  under 
Eugene,  as  was  soon  seen  to  be  the  case.  By  his  Treaties  with  Bavaria 
and  other  members  of  the  German  Confederation,  Metternich  had 
already  done  much  to  undermine  Stein's  plan  of  a  consolidated 
Germany.  But  he  was  even  more  closely  concerned  with  the  questions 
of  Poland  and  Saxony.  Austria  was  indeed  looking  for  her  own  com- 
pensation in  Italy;  but  she  felt  that  a  revived  national  Poland  under 
Russian  control  would  be  a  terrible  menace  to  her  Eastern  frontier. 
Even  the  entire  absorption  of  Saxony  by  Prussia  would  be  preferable 
to  this.  The  eyes  of  the  Sovereigns  and  statesmen  were  accordingly 
directed  towards  the  Vistula  as  much  as  to  the  Rhine,  which  their 
armies  were  preparing  to  cross.  It  was  only  natural,  therefore,  that 
they  should  wish  to  commit  themselves  as  little  as  possible,  and  they 
were  in  no  mood  to  fall  in  with  Castlereagh's  comprehensive  schemes 
of  Alliance. 

Upon  these  difficult  negotiations  Castlereagh  could  exercise  little 
influence  from  London.  The  advance  of  the  Allied  Armies  had 
brought  headquarters  a  week  nearer  to  him ;  but  contrary  winds  de- 
layed the  packets,  and  it  sometimes  took  six  or  seven  weeks  for  a 
message  to  go  and  return.  Before  the  news  of  Leipzig  reached  him, 


424       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

he  continued  to  press  the  Allies  to  raise  their  demands  as  high  as' 
possible,  and  to  make  the  exertions  necessary  to  enforce  them ;  above 
all  he  pointed  out  again  and  again  the  necessity  of  uniting  their 
counsels  in  a  common  bond.  He  dwelt  persistently  on  the  magnitude 
of  French  preparations  and  the  certainty  that  Bonaparte  would  accept 
no  possible  peace,  unless  resisted  with  perseverance  as  well  as  energy 
— facts  which,  also,  furnished  "unanswerable  arguments  in  support 
of  the  system  of  unqualified  union  amongst  the  Powers  contending 
against  France."  He  was  dissatisfied  with  the  limited  extent  of  the 
Treaties  of  Toplitz,  and  especially  with  the  fact  that  they  made  no 
mention  of  Spain ;  and  he  gave  Cathcart  a  tolerably  strong  hint  that 
the  absence  of  any  recognition  of  this  essential  point  might  affect  the 
Subsidy  arrangements  for  the  next  year1.  His  formal  approval  of 
Aberdeen's  Subsidy  Treaty  with  Austria  at  Toplitz  was  couched  in 
a  similar  strain. 

The  question  of  Holland  and  the  Low  Countries  now  began  to 
form  one  of  the  principal  preoccupations  of  the  British  Government. 
The  result  of  the  battle  of  Leipzig  had  been  to  bring  about  an  in- 
surrection in  Holland,  and,  on  December  2nd,  the  Prince  of  Orange 
was  received  at  Amsterdam  and  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  the 
national  movement.  This  step  had  been  concerted  by  the  British 
Government,  and  troops  were  despatched  under  Sir  Thomas  Graham. 
But  it  was  not  merely  Holland  that  it  was  now  hoped  to  free  from 
French  control.  So  early  as  November  5th,  Castlereagh  informed 
Aberdeen  that  at  this  point  the  Rhine  could  not  be  a  suitable  frontier 
for  France, and  every  argument  was  brought  forward  that  might  induce 
the  Powers  to  see  their  own  interests  in  the  complete  freedom  of  Hol- 
land and  the  necessity  of  a  *  Barrier '  (a  term  inherited  from  the  struggle 
with  Lewis  XIV)  between  Holland  proper  and  France.  The  British 
Cabinet  had  come  to  close  agreement  with  William  of  Orange,  and  the 
project  of  establishing  that  Prince  as  ruler  not  only  of  Holland,  but 
of  a  considerable  portion  at  least  of  Belgium  and  possibly  of  northern 
Germany,  was  being  actively  pursued.  Such  a  kingdom,  in  conjunction 
with  a  restored  and  consolidated  Hanover,  was  regarded  as  the  best 
means  to  keep  French  power  in  check  on  the  north-eastern  frontier2. 

1  Castlereagh  to  Cathcart,  October   i4th,    1813.    F.O.  Supplementary,  343; 
British  Diplomacy,  p.  34.    Castlereagh  to  Cathcart,  October  isth.  F.O.  Russia,  87. 

2  Castlereagh  to  Aberdeen,  November  5th,  1813.    F.O.  Austria,  101 ;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  106.    One  argument  for  Holland's  independence  is  noticeable.  "If 
in  no  other  point  of  view  than  as  the  natural  centre  of  the  money  transactions  of  Europe , 
all  interested  nations  are  interested  in  its  being  again  raised  to  the  rank  of  a  free 
and  independent  state."  Castlereagh  to  Aberdeen,  Nov.  5  th,  1813.  F.O.Austria,  101. 


BRITISH  EFFORTS  FOR  HOLLAND  425 

On  November  3pth,  after  the  receipt  of  the  news  of  the  success  of  the 
insurrection,  this  point  was  again  urged  by  him  in  words  which  have 
been  often  quoted.  "The  destruction  of  that  arsenal  is  essential  to 
our  safety.  To  leave  it  in  the  hands  of  France  is  little  short  of  imposing 
upon  Great  Britain  the  charge  of  a  perpetual  war  establishment1 " ; 
and  he  directed  Aberdeen  in  the  strongest  possible  terms  to  remedy 
the  Frankfort  proposals  on  this  point.  To  Cathcart  he  wrote  "  I  must 
beg  of  you  never  to  lose  sight  of  Antwerp  and  its  noxious  contents, — 
recommend  also  the  Orange  cause  to  the  Emperor's  warmest  pro- 
tection. The  popular  spirit  which  has  shown  itself  there  I  look  upon 
as  amongst  the  most  fortunate  events  of  the  war."  Aberdeen  sent 
agents  and  money  to  the  Low  Countries.  But  Metternich  was  not 
yet  ready  to  agree  that  the  Low  Countries  should  be  taken  from 
France,  and  he  had,  moreover,  not  completely  abandoned  the  idea 
of  creating  an  independent  kingdom  there  under  the  Arch-duke  Charles, 
if  the  French  were  removed.  Stewart  did  his  utmost  to  bring  Berna- 
dotte's  force  into  action  upon  Holland ;  but,  in  spite  of  letters  from  the 
King  of  Prussia  and  Alexander,  the  Prince-Royal  was  not  anxious 
to  use  his  Swedes  at  a  point  where  his  own  interests  would  scarcely 
be  much  served,  and  preferred  instead  to  move  against  Holstein,  so 
that  Denmark  would  be  compelled  by  this  threat  to  her  German 
dominions  to  cede  Norway  to  him. 

Meanwhile,  Castlereagh  had  to  consider  the  greater  questions 
which  were  raised  by  the  news  of  the  Frankfort  proposals  and  the 
failure  of  his  Ambassadors  to  obtain  the  Treaty  of  Alliance.  The 
freeing  of  Germany,  and  especially  the  recovery  of  Holland,  had  acted 
like  wine  on  the  spirits  of  the  Cabinet  and  the  nation.  "  It  has  operated 
here  as  magical,"  wrote  Castlereagh  of  this  latter  event;  "there  is 
nothing  beyond  the  tone  of  this  country  at  this  moment2."  But, 
though  he  was  urgent  to  obtain  the  best  possible  peace,  he  remained 
true  to  his  policy  of  not  pressing  Great  Britain's  Allies  too  far.  He 
approved  Aberdeen's  action  at  Frankfort  on  receipt  of  his  first  des- 
patches, and  accepted  the  basis,  merely  trying  to  interpret  the  term 
"natural  frontiers"  so  as  to  secure  "protection"  for  Holland,  whose 
cause  he  again  warmly  commended.  But  he  indicated,  once  more,  that 
Great  Britain's  attitude  towards  her  Colonial  conquests  would  depend 
on  a  satisfactory  result  on  this  point.  He,  also,  urged  that,  if  the  basis 

1  Castlereagh  to  Aberdeen,  November  soth,  1813.  Castlereagh  Correspondence, 
ix.  35.  The  date  there  given  is  i3th,  but  it  seems  clear  that  3©th  is  more  correct. 
*  Castlereagh  to  Cathcart,  November  3Oth,  1813.   P.O.  Russia,  83. 


426        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

was  not  at  once  accepted,  the  negotiation  should  be  forthwith  termi- 
nated. When,  however,  the  British  Cabinet  had  received  the  text  of 
St  Aignan's  memorandum,  they  were  much  alarmed  at  the  form  which 
the  negotiation  on  "  Maritime  Rights  "  had  now  assumed.  Peremptory 
orders  were  sent  to  Aberdeen  to  make  a  written  protest  against  the 
assumption  that  Great  Britain  could  allow  any  discussion  of  this 
•  question  in  the  Peace  Congress.  The  document  was  also  subjected  to 
further  criticisms.  Exception  was  taken  to  the  word  "  natural "  in  the 
phrase  "natural  limits";  and  it  was  asserted  that,  if  the  enemy  re- 
jected this  basis,  he  could  have  no  claim  to  receive  the  offer  again  at 
a  later  date.  It  was,  also,  held  that  the  reference  in  St  Aignan's 
minute  to  the  "natural  influence"  of  France  over  the  secondary 
States  of  Germany  was  liable  to  misinterpretation,  and  might  be  used 
to  prevent  the  German  States  from  forming  "a  Federal  connexion 
under  a  constitutional  head"  to  the  exclusion  of  foreign  influence. 
Castlereagh  did  not,  however,  agree  with  Stewart's  criticism  that 
Norway  should  have  been  included  in  the  basis,  accepting  Aberdeen's 
explanation  that  only  the  frontiers  of  France  were  relevant ;  and  his 
brother  received  a  snub  for  the  line  which  he  had  taken1. 

But  on  the  question  of  the  Grand  Alliance,  Stewart  found  his 
views  more  readily  accepted,  and  Castlereagh  expressed  himself  in 
strong  terms  to  Cathcart,  when  he  received  the  first  news  of  Alex- 
ander's objections.  He  peremptorily  refused  to  buy  the  Alliance 
at  the  price  of  subsidies  and  Colonial  conquests.  "If  this  species  of 
negotiation  is  persisted  in,  better  at  once  decline  the  measure  alto- 
gether," he  wrote,  "and  I  am  yet  to  learn  why  Great  Britain  is  more 
interested  in  cementing  the  Confederacy  than  Russia."  He  noted 
that  the  principal  point  of  his  proposal  had  obviously  been  missed 
in  these  attempts  of  the  Allies  to  utilise  it  for  their  own  ends.  "The 
main  question  is,"  he  insisted,  "shall  the  Confederates  by  a  common 
treaty  now  identify  their  cause,  and  lay  the  Foundation  of  a  defensive 
alliance  against  France  ? "  He  still  hoped,  therefore,  that  the  Alliance 
would  be  carried  through. 

When,  therefore,  he  learnt  from  Lieven  the  counter-proposals 
of  Alexander,  emphasising  and  expanding  these  demands,  he  showed 
himself  extremely  indignant.  He  refused  even  to  enter  into  an  official 
discussion  with  Lieven  of  such  terms,  but  took  pains  to  impress 

1  Castlereagh  to  Aberdeen,  December  7th,  1813.  F.O .  Austria,  i  o  i ;  British  Diplo- 
macy, p.  116.  Castlereagh  to  Stewart,  December  lyth.  F.O.  Prussia,  86;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  92. 


BRITISH  RESERVATION  AS  TO  THE  PEACE       427 

on  him,  in  an  informal  conversation,  the  feelings  of  his  Government. 
He  was  indignant  at  Alexander's  suggestion  that  the  British  proposal 
seemed  to  indicate  a  distrust  towards  the  Allies.  It  was  not  because  the 
particular  interests  of  Great  Britain  stood  most  in  need  of  the  Alliance 
that  it  had  been  put  forward.  Great  Britain,  he  intimated,  could  look 
after  herself  better  than  any  Continental  Power,  and  she  had  ap- 
proached Russia  first,  as  being  all  but  equally  invulnerable.  The  Con- 
federacy, he  pointed  out,  was  designed  to  restrain  France — the  France 
of  Napoleon  or  the  Revolution — in  the  future  as  well  as  up  to  the 
termination  of  the  War — "  not  only  to  procure  but  to  preserve  peace." 

"The  terms  of  peace,"  he  said  to  Lieven,  "are  no  doubt  of  essential 
moment,  and  the  arrangement  of  limits  indispensable  to  the  common  safety. 
Nothing,  however,  but  a  defensive  League  is  likely  to  deter  France  from 
returning  to  the  old  system  of  progressive  encroachment.  The  proposition 
for  such  a  League,  it  was  conceived,  would  come  with  most  propriety  from 
Great  Britain  and  from  Russia,  as  the  Powers  least  exposed  in  the  first 
instance  to  French  encroachments.  It  appeared  that  the  example  of  two 
such  leading  Powers,  ready  to  lend  themselves  to  a  system  of  common  pro- 
tection, would  give  confidence  to  the  more  exposed  States,  and  encourage 
them  to  lean  on  such  alliance  for  security,  rather  than  attempt  to  fall  back 
within  the  circle  of  French  influence.  That,  whatever  might  be  the  hazards 
of  a  system  of  this  nature,  upon  every  enlarged  view  of  policy  it  became 
Great  Britain  and  Russia,  even  with  a  view  to  their  own  separate  interests, 
not  to  shrink  from  bearing  their  share  in  it1." 

He  was  prepared  to  make  some  modifications  in  his  first  pro- 
posals, to  restrict  the  Treaty  in  the  first  instance  to  the  Great  Powers — 
Spain,  however,  being  included — and  to  stipulate  precisely  the  amount 
of  force  each  should  contribute  to  the  Alliance.  But  he  made  the 
position  quite  clear  as  regards  the  Colonial  conquests  of  Great  Britain. 
She  was  ready  to  make,  as  she  had  already  made,  a  general  promise 
to  restore  conquests,  if  a  satisfactory  Continental  peace  was  assured. 
But  she  was  not  ready  to  bind  herself  to  details  and  simply  hand  over 
all  the  negotiations  to  her  Allies.  "The  British  Government  never 
once  conceived,"  he  wrote,  "that  it  could  be  expected  that  Great 
Britain  would  by  treaty  pass  this  discretion  into  other  hands,  and 
confide  to  its  Allies  the  trust  of  negotiating  for  her  at  a  general  peace." 
He  pointed  out  that  the  Allies  had  not  said  what  they  intended  to 
do  with  their  conquests,  and  Great  Britain  meant  to  preserve  the 
same  liberty  of  action.  Finally,  he  added  an  appeal  which  showed 
how  far  he  was  removed  from  the  insular  position  traditional  to 

1  Castlereagh  to  Cathcart,  December  i8th,  1813.  P.O.  Russia,  83;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  59. 


428       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

British  statesmen,  and  how  deeply  he  had  been  impressed  by  the 
necessity  of  her  maintaining  her  role  of  the  protector  of  the  Continent 
against  France. 

"Amongst  the  fluctuating  policy  of  States,"  he  wrote,  "which  too  fre- 
quently varied  with  the  predominance  of  particular  statesmen,  it  appeared 
to  me  not  less  an  act  of  wisdom  than  of  duty  to  the  world,  that  Great 
Britain  and  Russia  should  take  this  occasion  of  solemnly  binding  them- 
selves in  conjunction  with  the  more  exposed  States  of  the  Continent  to 
oppose  a  Barrier  hereafter  to  the  oppression  of  France.  The  determination 
to  take  upon  themselves  this  generous  and  provident  task  could  afford  to 
Europe  the  best,  perhaps  the  only  prospect  of  a  durable  peace ;  and  when 
the  experience  of  latter  times  was  examined  with  respect  to  the  policy  of 
indifference  to  the  fate  of  neighbouring  States,  the  most  anxious  and 
interested  politicians  would  find  little  to  give  countenance  to  an  abstracted 
and  selfish  line  of  policy." 

While  Castlereagh  held  these  views,  it  was  not  likely  that  Pozzo 
di  Borgo  could  add  much  to  Lieven's  arguments;  and  Castlereagh 
refused  to  carry  the  negotiation  further.  It  was,  at  first,  his  intention 
to  request  the  Allies  to  send  full  powers  to  their  Ambassadors  at 
London  for  signing  a  Treaty  of  Alliance  on  the  terms  he  had  indicated. 
But  the  news  from  the  Continent  finally  decided  the  Cabinet  to  take 
a  more  important  step.  The  dissensions  between  the  Allies  were 
growing,  and  the  British  Ambassadors,  so  far  from  being  able  to 
prevent  them,  were  themselves  at  issue  and  concealing  their  pro- 
ceedings from  one  another.  Jackson,  who  had  been  sent  home  for 
the  purpose  by  Stewart  after  the  Frankfort  proposals,  brought  news, 
on  the  1 5th,  of  Stewart's  growing  alarms  and  suspicions.  Austria 
and  Russia  were  now  reported  as  on  the  verge  of  a  rupture,  and  Berna- 
dotte's  conduct  was  arousing  the  gravest  doubts.  In  spite  of  the 
favourable  military  situation,  there  appeared  to  be  a  real  danger  that 
a  Treaty  might  be  made  without  obtaining  those  securities  which 
British  statesmen  thought  necessary  to  the  peace  of  the  Continent. 
In  these  circumstances,  it  was  decided  that  a  member  of  the  Cabinet 
should  proceed  to  the  Continent,  furnished  with  specific  and  com- 
prehensive Instructions,  so  that  he  could  make  decisions  on  the  spot. 
Castlereagh  at  first  thought  of  sending  Harrowby ,  who  had  been  Pitt's 
agent  in  the  unfortunate  negotiations  of  1805.  But  it  was  clear  to  his 
colleagues  that  the  Foreign  Minister  must  go  himself.  If  he  remained 
in  London,  as  had  been  proved,  affairs  changed  so  rapidly  that  he 
could  obtain  no  control  over  events,  and  he  was  too  far  away  to  judge 
accurately  between  his  rival  Ambassadors. 


CASTLEREAGH'S  PEACE  INSTRUCTIONS      429 

"You  have  passed  from  operations  so  rapidly  to  negotiations,"  he  wrote 
to  Cathcart,  "that  my  arrangements  have  not  kept  pace  with  you.  Had  I 
foreseen  that  you  were  likely  to  open  an  intercourse  at  Paris,  I  should 
have  deemed  some  central  authority  indispensable  and  should  have  at 
least  required  the  three  Ministers  at  Head  Quarters  to  deliberate  and  decide 
on  matters  of  general  interest  collectively.  As  it  is,  I  hope  no  real  mischief 
has  occurred  and  I  rely  upon  finding  you  all  drawing  cordially  together1." 

II.  THE  FALL  OF  NAPOLEON  AND  THE  FIRST  PEACE 
OF  PARIS 

The  Instructions  which  Castlereagh  took  with  him  to  the  Con- 
tinent were  drawn  up  in  the  form  of  a  Cabinet  Memorandum2.  This 
important  document  was  prepared  by  his  own  hand  and  approved  at 
a  full  Cabinet  meeting,  from  which  Camden  was  the  only  Minister 
absent.  Before  submitting  his  views  to  his  colleagues,  Castlereagh 
had  obtained  from  the  Ambassadors  of  the  three  Allied  Powers 
Memoranda  on  the  wishes  of  their  Governments,  and  this  informa- 
tion had  been  supplemented  by  unofficial  discussions  with  Lieven 
and  Pozzo  di  Borgo.  Jackson,  on  his  return  from  Frankfort,  must 
also  have  furnished  him  with  a  good  deal  of  that  kind  of  information 
which  cannot  be  conveyed  in  writing.  He  was  thus  fairly  well  ac- 
quainted with  even  the  less  obvious  aspects  of  the  situation.  The 
effect  of  the  recent  discussions  at  Frankfort  can,  therefore,  be  clearly 
discerned  in  the  Cabinet  Memorandum;  but  the  document  is  singu- 
larly moderate  in  tone,  and  evades  some  of  the  most  controversial 
points.  It  was  intended  to  deal  in  detail  with  only  those  questions  in 
which  Great  Britain  was  specially  interested,  and  the  general  Con- 
tinental settlement  is  only  very  briefly  considered.  Designed  as  it 
was  to  enable  Castlereagh  to  make  decisions  on  the  spot  and  so  avoid 
the  delay  and  consequent  lack  of  influence  which  frequent  reference  to 
his  Cabinet  would  entail,  a  very  great  deal  was  left  to  his  discretion, 
revealing  the  fact  that  his  colleagues  had  already  great  confidence  in 
his  ability  and  judgment,  though  he  had  not  yet  completed  his  second 
year  as  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs. 

Castlereagh  had  already  received  from  the  three  Ambassadors 
satisfactory  assurances  on  the  question  of  Maritime  Rights,  which  the 
Frankfort  proposals  had  brought  under  discussion.  There  could  be 
no  question  of  compromise  on  this  point,  and  one  of  his  first  tasks 

1  Castlereagh  to  Cathcart,  December  22nd,  1813.  F.O.  Supplementary,  343; 
British  Diplomacy,  p.  62. 

*  Dated  December  26th,  1813.  F.O.  Continent.  Archives,  i ;  British  Diplomacy, 
p.  123. 


430       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

when  he  arrived  at  headquarters  was  to  secure  a  further  declaration 
from  the  principal  Ministers  to  the  same  effect.  But  the  question  of 
the  restoration  of  the  Colonial  conquests  still  remained  an  open  one, 
and  how  much  importance  was  attached  by  the  Allies  to  an  explicit 
declaration  on  the  subject  had  been  seen  in  the  course  of  the  recent 
negotiations  concerning  the  Alliance.  This  question,  therefore,  occu- 
pied the  principal  place  in  his  instructions.  Once  more  it  was  laid 
down  that  British  concessions  were  to  depend  upon  the  nature  of  the 
Continental  Peace.  So  far  as  this  fell  short  of  what  was  considered 
necessary  to  the  security  of  Holland,  Italy  and  the  Peninsula,  a  greater 
share  of  the  conquests  must  be  retained  by  Great  Britain.  Since  it 
was  now  known  that  the  Allies  would  be  prepared  to  insist  at  least 
on  the  "natural  limits "  of  the  Alps,  the  Rhine  and  the  Pyrenees,  it 
was  really  the  protection  of  Holland  with  which  the  Cabinet  was 
mainly  concerned ;  and  to  this  point  the  Instructions  recur  more  than 
once.  Antwerp  itself  and  "the  absolute  exclusion  of  France  from 
any  naval  establishment  on  the  Scheldt"  were  made  conditions  sine 
qua  non  of  any  material  concessions  by  Great  Britain.  But  it  was 
hoped  that  more  than  this  would  be  obtained,  and  that  the  whole  of 
the  Low  Countries  would  be  made  into  a  "Barrier"  against  France. 
Only  in  that  case  would  the  majority  of  the  Dutch  and  French 
Colonies  be  returned  to  Holland  and  France.  It  should  be  noticed 
that  the  actual  union  of  the  Low  Countries  and  Holland  was  not  yet 
finally  decided.  Metternich*s  hint  that  he  might,  after  all,  desire  to 
set  up  an  Austrian  prince  there  was  taken  into  account,  and  was  to 
be  accepted  if  pressed.  It  was  also  understood  that  part  of  Belgium 
might  have  to  be  left  in  French  hands,  if  the  Allies  were  not  suffi- 
ciently successful,  and  the  extension  of  the  Prince  of  Orange's 
dominions  into  Germany  was  to  depend  on  their  consent.  But  the 
negotiations  that  Castlereagh  had  been  carrying  on  with  the  Prince 
show  that  he  had  a  clear  policy,  though  he  did  not  wish  to  bind  him- 
self too  strictly  in  his  Instructions;  and,  since  the  marriage  of  the 
Prince  of  Orange  with  the  Princess  Charlotte  was  expressly  suggested, 
there  could  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  intention  at  this  moment  to  make 
Holland  as  large  as  possible,  though  Castlereagh  modified  his  views 
on  this  head  after  his  first  interviews  with  the  Allied  Ministers. 

If  Holland  were  restored  in  this  way,  the  conquests,  except  for 
those  which  were  to  be  considered  as  absolutely  necessary  to  her 
maritime  strategy,  were  to  be  regarded  as  objects  of  negotiation.  But, 
since  it  was  not  possible  to  lay  down  express  conditions  as  to  how  many 


CASTLEREAGH'S  INSTRUCTIONS  AS  TO  COLONIES    43 1 

Colonies  would  be  returned,  the  number  was  to  depend  on  the  kind 
of  peace  secured,  and  was  therefore  susceptible  to  many  variations. 
In  Castlereagh's1 "  Memorandum  on  a  Maritime  Peace  "  (an  unsigned 
and  unfinished  document  which  accompanies  the  Instructions,  and 
may  be  considered  as  part  of  them),  the  principle  on  which  Britain 
was  acting  is  clearly  laid  down : 

Her  object  is  to  see  a  maritime  as  well  as  a  military  Balance  of  Power 
established  among  the  Powers  of  Europe,  and  as  the  basis  of  this  arrange- 
ment she  desires  to  see  the  independence  of  Spain  and  Holland  as  maritime 
Powers  effectually  provided  for.  Upon  the  supposition  that  these  two 
objects  shall  be  obtained  in  the  proposed  arrangements,  that  the  limits  of 
France  shall  be  reduced  within  proper  bounds,  and  that  the  peace  of  the 
Continent  shall  be  secured  by  an  amicable  understanding  between  the 
Allies,  Great  Britain  will  then  be  prepared  also  to  return  within  correspon- 
ding limits  and  to  throw  her  acquisitions  into  the  scale  of  the  general 
interests.  As  nothing  is  yet  defined  with  precision  either  as  to  the  state  of 
the  enemy's  limits  or  as  to  that  of  the  Allies,  it  is  impossible  to  do  more 
than  state  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain  the  nature  and  extent  of  concession 
she  would  be  prepared  to  make  upon  given  data  as  to  the  continental 
arrangements.  The  object  will  best  be  effected  by  stating  what  the  maximum 
of  concession  might  be  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain  upon  assuming  the 
reduction  of  France  within  her  ancient  limits,  and  the  Allies  having  amic- 
ably arranged  their  own  state  of  possession . . .  (the  British  Government) 
do  not  desire  to  retain  any  of  these  Colonies  for  their  mere  commercial 
value — too  happy  if  by  their  restoration  they  can  give  other  states  an  addi- 
tional motive  to  cultivate  the  arts  of  peace.  The  only  objects  to  which  they 
desire  to  adhere  are  those  which  effect  essentially  the  engagement  and 
security  of  their  own  dominion. 

It  was  thus  left  to  Castlereagh's  discretion  to  restore  all  or  none 
of  the  Colonies  placed  at  his  disposal,  according  as  he  was  satisfied 
or  not  with  the  proposals  of  the  Allies ;  arid  it  will  be  seen  that  this 
power  was  of  great  importance  to  him  at  moments  of  crisis.  The 
conquests  which  were  to  be  retained  on  the  plea  of  strategical  ne- 
cessity were  few  in  number.  Malta,  of  course,  and  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  were  included,  Holland  being  compensated  with  £2,000,000 
for  the  latter  possession,  which  were  to  be  spent  in  fortifying  the 
Barrier.  Mauritius,  the  Isle  of  Bourbon  and  Les  Saintes  were  also 
considered  necessary  to  the  protection  of  the  route  to  India.  Guade- 
loupe was  considered  as  in  pledge  to  Sweden ;  but,  if  France  insisted 
on  its  return,  Bourbon  could  be  assigned  to  Sweden  (or  some  Dutch 
Colony  for  which  Bourbon  could  be  exchanged)  in  its  place.  All  the 

1  P.O.  Continent.  Archives,  I  (undated);  British  Diplomacy,  p.  126. 


432       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

remaining  West  and  East  Indian  Islands  that  had  belonged  to  France 
or  Holland  Great  Britain  was  prepared  to  surrender. 

The  Cabinet's  views  on  the  Continental  settlement,  apart  from 
Holland,  were  only  briefly  indicated.  Spain  and  Portugal  were  to  be 
free,  and,  it  was  hoped,  guaranteed  against  attack  by  the  Continental 
Powers.  In  Italy,  it  was  suggested  that  the  King  of  Sardinia  should 
receive  Genoa  in  exchange  for  Savoy,  as  well  as  the  control  of  the 
new  routes  over  the  Alps  which  the  War  had  opened  up.  The  Pope 
was  to  be  restored ;  the  centre  of  Italy  left  open  for  discussion.  Lastly, 
if  Austria  made  peace  with  Murat,  the  Sicilian  Bourbons  were  to 
receive  as  a  compensation  Tuscany  or  Elba.  All  that  was  said  as  to 
Germany  was  that  Great  Britain  was  to  offer  her  mediation.  Any  con- 
cession to  Denmark  was  to  be  discussed  with  Sweden.  Castlereagh 
had  thus  almost  complete  freedom  of  action  in  all  the  great  questions 
that  were  dividing  his  Allies. 

He  was  empowered  to  offer  £5,000,000  in  subsidies  for  the  coming 
year  to  the  Continental  Powers,  if  they  signed  satisfactory  engage- 
ments as  to  the  Peninsula  and  Holland.  Only  a  single  short  clause  was 
inserted  on  the  project  of  the  Treaty  of  Alliance,  which  "was  not  to 
terminate  with  the  War,  but  to  comprise  defensive  arrangements 
with  mutual  obligations  to  support  the  Powers  attacked  by  France 
with  a  certain  amount  of  stipulated  succours."  The  casus  foederis  was 
to  be  an  attack  by  France  on  the  European  dominions  of  any  of  the 
Contracting  Parties.  Castlereagh  had  thus  slightly  modified  his  scheme 
in  view  of  the  criticisms  of  the  Allies.  The  obligations  to  the  Alliance 
were  to  be  definite,  instead  of  the  vague  phrase  in  the  Instructions  of 
September  1 8th,  and  the  scope  of  the  Alliance  was  to  be  restricted  to 
Europe.  Further,  though  Spain  and  Holland  were  to  be  contracting 
parties,  it  was  now  suggested,  in  view  of  the  objections  raised  by 
Alexander  and  the  dubious  conduct  of  Bernadotte  himself,  that 
Sweden  should  not  be  an  original  signatory  of  the  Treaty. 

Doubtless,  this  short  document  was  merely  a  resumt  of  a  long  dis- 
cussion in  the  Cabinet,  and  Castlereagh  had  verbally  gone  into  matters 
with  his  colleagues  more  fully  than  the  Instructions  record.  The 
omissions  cannot  be  accidental.  Already,  public  opinion  in  England 
was  discussing  the  policy  of  "no  peace  with  Bonaparte"  and  the 
Bourbon  Princes  were  making  ready  to  act.  There  is  nothing  in  the 
Instructions  on  this  head.  Castlereagh's  own  views,  however,  were 
clearly  revealed  in  his  discussions  at  headquarters.  He  was  prepared 
to  make  peace  with  Napoleon,  if  a  peace  such  as  was  implied  in  the 


CASTLEREAGH  AND  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  EUROPE  433 

Instructions  could  be  obtained.  Like  all  the  British  Ministers,  he 
wished  the  Bourbons  to  be  restored  if  possible.  But  to  avow  such  a 
policy  was  impossible  for  a  Minister  of  the  House  of  Hanover,  and 
Castlereagh  was  convinced  of  the  folly  of  attempting  to  impose  the 
Bourbons  on  France  by  force  of  arms.  To  this  policy  he  adhered,  in 
spite  of  public  clamour  and  opposition  in  the  Cabinet,  until  the  last 
chance  of  signing  peace  with  Napoleon  had  vanished. 

Even  more  significant  is  the  absence  in  the  Memorandum  of  any 
direction  as  to  the  disposition  of  the  conquered  territories  of  Poland 
and  Germany.  Castlereagh  was  well  aware  of  the  jealousies  which 
had  already  arisen  among  the  Allies  on  these  points.  That  he  con- 
sidered an  amicable  termination  of  them  of  the  highest  importance 
is  seen  in  the  clause  quoted  above,  which  makes  the  Colonial  con- 
cessions depend  on  "the  Allies  having  amicably  arranged  their  own 
state  of  possession."  But  he  was  apparently  desirous  of  having  a 
completely  free  hand  on  this  point,  so  that  he  could  make  his  decisions 
only  after  personal  examination  of  the  situation  at  headquarters.  This 
was  an  important  omission,  for  it  is  doubtful  whether  Castlereagh 
could  have  taken  with  him  Instructions  to  pursue  the  line  of  policy 
which  he  followed  during  the  next  few  months. 

Castlereagh  had  no  illusions  as  to  the  difficulty  of  the  task  before 
him,  and  he  had  already  conceived  the  role  he  was  to  play  in  the 
great  problem  of  the  reconstruction  of  Europe.  To  F.  J.  Robinson 
(later  Viscount  Goderich  and  Earl  of  Ripon)  whom  he  took  with  him 
as  assistant,  he  stated  in  the  course  of  the  journey  some  of  his  ideas 
as  to  the  situation  he  was  about  to  meet,  and  the  methods  he  meant 
to  apply  to  it. 

"  In  the  course  of  our  journey  from  Frankfort  to  Basle/'  wrote  Ripon 
in  a  letter  to  Castlereagh's  brother  in  1839,  "he  stated  to  me  that  one  of 
the  great  difficulties  which  he  expected  to  encounter  in  the  approaching 
negotiations  would  arise  from  the  want  of  an  habitual,  confidential  and  free 
intercourse  between  the  ministers  of  the  great  Powers  as  a  body ;  and  that 
many  pretensions  might  be  modified,  asperities  removed,  and  causes  of 
irritation  anticipated  and  met,  by  bringing  the  respective  parties  into  un- 
restricted communications  common  to  them  all,  and  embracing  in  con- 
fidential and  united  discussions,  all  the  great  points  in  which  they  were 
severally  interested1." 

He  had  thus  already  taken  upon  himself  something  more  than  the 
duties  of  a  British  Minister  anxious  to  defend  British  interests.  He 

1  The  Earl  of  Ripon  to  the  Marquess  of  Londonderry,  July  6th,  1839.  Castle- 
reagh Correspondence,  i,  128. 

w.&o.l.  28 


434       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

was  prepared  to  play  the  part  of  Mediator  between  the  statesmen  and 
Sovereigns  of  the  Allies  whose  decisions  already  threatened  to  break 
up  the  Alliance  and  to  wreck  the  European  settlement.  It  is  this 
wide  conception  of  his  activities  that  marks  out  Castlereagh  as  the 
most  European  and  the  least  insular  of  all  British  Foreign  Ministers 
and,  despite  his  limitations  and  his  failures  to  appreciate  the  growing 
strength  of  the  new  forces  of  Liberalism  and  Nationality  on  the 
Continent,  he  had  many  of  the  qualities  necessary  for  the  task  which 
he  had  set  himself.  Lord  Ripon's  comments,  though  designed  to  be 
read  by  an  affectionate  brother  engaged  in  defending  Castlereagh 's 
reputation,  have  been  justified  by  the  researches  of  historians. 

No  man  was  ever  better  calculated  so  to  transact  business  himself,  and 
to  bring  others  to  act  with  him  in  such  a  manner,  than  Lord  Londonderry. 
The  suavity  and  dignity  of  his  manners,  his  habitual  patience  and  self- 
command,  his  considerate  tolerance  of  difference  of  opinion  in  others,  all 
fitted  him  for  such  a  task:  whilst  his  firmness,  when  he  knew  he  was 
right,  in  no  degree  detracted  from  the  influence  of  his  conciliatory  de- 
meanour1. 

Thanks  to  these  qualities,  he  was  able  to  give  to  the  Alliance  a  unity 
of  view  and  a  firmness  of  purpose  which  it  sorely  lacked,  and  ulti- 
mately to  effect  a  European  settlement  which  at  least  brought  peace 
for  a  generation.  In  so  doing  he  also  laid  the  foundations  for  a  new 
experiment  in  International  Government,  which,  though  it  failed  for 
the  moment,  was  not  the  least  of  the  stepping-stones  in  Europe's  pro- 
gress towards  International  Peace. 

Castlereagh  left  England  on  the  evening  of  the  New  Year,  and 
arrived  at  Bale  on  January  i8th.  He  passed  through  the  Hague  and 
there  opened  to  the  Prince  of  Orange  his  views  on  the  "  Barrier,"  the 
Dutch  Colonies  and  the  marriage  with  the  Princess  Charlotte,  and 
pressed  him  to  expedite  the  siege  of  Antwerp,  which  Carnot  was  de- 
fending with  all  his  old  skill.  At  Bale  he  found  Metternich,  Stadion 
and  Hardenberg,  but  not  Alexander,  who  had  departed  for  the  head- 
quarters of  the  Allied  armies  at  Langres.  He  was  impatiently  expected 
by  all.  Alexander  had  left  a  message  with  Cathcart,  entreating  Castle- 
reagh to  see  him  first  before  any  of  the  statesmen,  so  much  did  he 
dread  the  impression  that  Metternich  might  produce  in  his  absence. 
Metternich,  as  his  intimate  letters  to  Hudelist  show,  built  many  hopes 
on  the  effect  Castlereagh Js  arrival  would  produce  both  on  Napoleon 
and  on  his  own  colleagues.  It  was  indeed  time  that  some  new  factor 

1  The  Earl  of  Ripon  to  the  Marquess  of  Londonderry,  July  6th,  1839.  Castle- 
reagh Correspondence,  I,  128. 


THE  QUESTION  OF  A  BOURBON  RESTORATION    435 

was  introduced  into  the  Allied  Councils.  For,  as  Metternich  com- 
plained, though  the  armies  had  marched  beyond  the  Rhine  to  the 
confines  of  the  Vosges  the  Alliance  had  now  no  definite  object.  All 
the  agreements  that  had  been  made  in  1813  had  been  by  this  time 
fulfilled.  Napoleon  had  accepted  the  proposals  put  forward  at  Frank- 
fort, and  Caulaincourt  was  impatiently  waiting  to  begin  discussions 
with  the  Allies,  who  had,  however,  spent  the  interval  in  mutual  re- 
crimination instead  of  preparing  terms  with  which  to  meet  him.  The 
difficulty  with  regard  to  Switzerland  had  caused  the  first  rupture 
between  the  Tsar  and  the  Austrians.  But  a  more  important  difference 
had  now  added  to  the  prevailing  dissensions.  Alexander  had  openly 
announced  his  intention  of  dethroning  Bonaparte,  and  it  was  Berna- 
dotte  he  was  suspected  of  wishing  to  put  in  his  place.  This  was  the 
first  news  which  Castlereagh  heard,  not  merely  from  Metternich  but 
from  his  own  Ambassadors  and  many  other  channels.  It  was  thus 
necessaiy  to  deal  at  the  outset  with  this  question  rather  than  the  terms 
of  Peace,  for  Metternich  threatened  to  withdraw  the  Austrian  forces 
unless  the  project  was  abandoned.  Castlereagh  found  little  difficulty 
in  coming  to  an  agreement  with  Metternich.  By  warmly  supporting 
his  objections  to  Bernadotte,  Castlereagh  obtained  from  the  Austrian 
minister  an  admission  that  a  Regency  under  the  Empress  (which  Austria 
was  suspected  of  favouring)  was  equally  undesirable.  He  pressed  on 
him  the  view  that,  if  Bonaparte  fell,  the  Bourbons  were  the  only  alter- 
native, but  that  the  issue  must  depend  upon  the  French  themselves. 

"  I  left  the  question  there,"  he  reported  on  the  22nd,  "  having  I  thought 
done  enough  when  I  brought  him  to  admit  that  there  were  only  two  alter- 
natives in  fact,  Bonaparte  or  the  Bourbons,  and  that  the  latter  was  the  most 
desirable,  if  France  took  that  tone  upon  it  which  could  alone  lead  to  its 
successful  accomplishment  accompanied  with  the  good  will  and  favourable 
sentiments  of  the  nation1." 

Thus  early  was  the  issue  stated  which  had  as  yet  occurred  to  few  on 
the  Continent — though  among  these  were  Talleyrand  and  Napoleon 
himself. 

Once  agreement  had  been  reached  on  this  question,  Castlereagh 
and  Metternich  could  discuss  the  question  of  peace  terms.  They  went 
over  the  whole  field  of  settlement.  Castlereagh  found  Metternich  still 
inclined  to  offer  the  Frankfort  basis,  but  was  able  to  report  that  "his 
geographical  notions  are  improved,"  and  that  on  the  northern  frontier 
he  was  ready  to  make  concessions  to  the  British  point  of  view. 

1  Wellington,  Supplementary  Despatches,  vili.  535. 

28—2 


436       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

Metternich  had  now  finally  determined  to  abandon  the  Austrian 
claims  on  the  Netherlands,  and  he  was,  also,  prepared  to  insist  on 
depriving  France  of  a  portion  of  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine.  Castle- 
reagh  suggested  that  the  Prussian  dominions  might  be  made  to  in- 
clude territory  to  the  left  bank,  remembering  that  "it  was  a  favourite 
scheme  of  Mr  Pitt,"  and  doubting  the  expediency  of  extending  the 
frontier  of  Holland  too  far — a  policy  in  which  he  was  to  some  extent 
influenced  by  Munster,  who  had  no  wish  to  see  Holland  overshadow 
Hanover  and  also  absorb  those  compensations  by  which  he  hoped  to 
improve  the  Hanoverian  frontiers. 

It  was,  also,  necessary  to  enter  into  the  questions  of  Poland  and 
Saxony  and  "other  questions  of  delicacy."  For  Castlereagh  was 
strongly  opposed  to  the  policy  which  he  found  prevailing  and  which 
Alexander  especially  was  urging,  of  excluding  France  from  all  know- 
ledge of  these  plans  of  the  Allies,  and  simply  informing  Caulaincourt 
of  the  frontier  which  the  Allies  offered  to  France.  Castlereagh  saw 
clearly,  that  France  had  interests  in  the  disposition  of  the  rest  of  Europe 
and  therefore  a  right  to  be  informed,  at  least  in  outline,  of  the  plans  of 
the  Allies  before  Peace  was  signed.  Moreover,he  could  not  but  be  aware 
that  the  former  course  would  postpone  the  Continental  settlement, 
which  he  was  anxious  to  arrange  as  soon  as  possible,  and  in  which  he 
thought  the  interests  of  his  own  country  were  involved  as  well  as  those 
of  France.  He  had  hopes  that  the  Polish  and  Saxon  questions  were 
susceptible  of  an  immediate  solution.  Metternich  had  already  given 
Hardenberg  a  verbal  promise  to  support  his  Saxon  plans,  and  Cath- 
cart  had  reported  that  Alexander  was  prepared  to  make  the  Vistula 
his  frontier1.  In  this  Cathcart  was  completely  mistaken ;  but  Castle- 
reagh's  first  impression  was  so  favourable  that  he  hoped  to  be  able 
to  draw  up  a  complete  outline  of  the  new  Europe  to  submit  to  Cau- 
laincourt. His  knowledge  and  moderation  made  a  great  impression 
on  Metternich.  He  had  expected  to  find  Castlereagh  far  more  in- 
transigeant,  and  he  flattered  himself  he  had  made  a  good  impression. 
Herein  he  was  not  mistaken,  for,  though  Castlereagh  was  not  blind  to 
Metternich's  faults,  he  found  his  Austrian  colleague  by  far  the  most 
congenial  personality  at  headquarters,  and  alone  possessed  of  that 
spirit  of  compromise  and  readiness  to  face  the  facts  which  animated 
himself.  He  objected  to  Metternich's  timidity  and  procrastination; 
but  his  other  merits  stood  out  in  contrast  to  the  impetuous  and 

1  Cathcart  to  Castlereagh,  January  i6th,  1814.  Casllereagh  Correspondence,  IX. 
169. 


COUNCIL  OF  MINISTERS  FORMED  AT  LANGRES    437 

emotional  character  of  the  Tsar,  with  whom  Castlereagh  was  soon  to 
have  some  stormy  interviews. 

The  Ministers  joined  the  Tsar  at  Langres  on  January  25th,  and 
by  February  ist  the  Alliance  had  compassed  its  object,  and  the  In- 
structions were  drafted  for  the  Conference  at  Chatillon.  Agreement 
was  only  reached,  however,  after  prolonged  discussions.  The  Austrians, 
both  soldiers  and  diplomatists,  were  anxious  to  obtain  peace  as  quickly 
as  possible.  Alexander,  on  the  other  hand,  was  determined  to  march 
on  Paris  and  to  refuse  to  treat  with  Napoleon.  He  denied,  indeed, 
that  he  favoured  Bernadotte ;  but  he  would  not  listen  to  any  idea  of 
the  Bourbons,  and  talked  vaguely  of  allowing  the  French  nation  to 
choose  a  ruler  for  themselves  after  Paris  had  been  taken.  Castlereagh, 
hereupon,  suggested  that  the  Ministers  of  the  Four  Powers  had  better 
discuss  all  the  questions  in  dispute,  and  thus  a  Council  was  formally  set 
up,  in  which  during  three  days  the  whole  policy  of  the  Alliance  was 
reviewed.  Castlereagh,  from  the  first,  took  a  leading  part  in  the  dis- 
cussions, and  was  eventually  able  to  harmonise  the  conflicting  views 
of  Metternich  and  the  Tsar.  The  Austrians  he  persuaded  that  military 
operations  must  go  on  unchecked,  while  the  negotiations  proceeded; 
the  Tsar,  or  at  least  his  Ministers,  that  terms  must  be  offered  to 
Napoleon  and  peace  made  with  him,  if  he  accepted  them.  As  to  the 
terms  themselves,  he  succeeded  in  persuading  Metternich  to  abandon 
formally  the  Frankfort  basis,  which,  as  he  claimed,  the  military  suc- 
cesses of  the  Allies  and  the  Peace  recently  concluded  with  Murat  had 
now  rendered  obsolete,  and  to  substitute  for  them  a  project  which 
practically  reduced  France  to  her  ancient  limits,,  with  some  con- 
cessions in  Savoy  and  possibly  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine.  All  the 
Powers  further  agreed  to  his  demand  that  Caulaincourt  should  be 
informed  at  the  outset  that  the  "Maritime  Rights"  must  be  left 
entirely  out  of  the  discussion.  Less  satisfactory  were  the  consultations 
as  to  the  outlines  of  the  new  Europe  to  be  communicated  to  Caulain- 
court. Here,  only  the  vaguest  formulae  could  be  drawn  up,  and  no 
mention  was  made  of  Saxony  or  Poland.  On  these  points,  Castlereagh 
found  the  Powers  full  of  suspicion  and  the  hopes  he  had  formed  at 
Bale  quite  illusory.  Nevertheless,  he  insisted  that  France  must  be 
given  some  information  on  this  head,  and  that,  Great  Britain  having 
declared  her  readiness  to  conclude  peace  with  Napoleon,  the  offer 
must  be  made  in  such  a  shape  as  to  render  its  acceptance  possible1. 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  January  29th,  1814.  P.O.  Continent.  2;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  141.  See  Oncken,  "Lord  Castlereagh  und  die  Ministerconferenz  zu 
Langres,"  Historisches  Taschenbuch,  vi.  4.  p.  5. 


438       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

These  conclusions  were  drawn  up  in  the  form  of  a  Protocol,  and 
embodied  in  Instructions  to  the  Allied  Plenipotentiaries  at  Chatillon. 
Here,  Russia,  Austria  and  Prussia  were  represented  merely  by  one 
subordinate  each,  the  principal  Ministers  remaining  at  Schwarzen- 
berg's  headquarters  with  their  Sovereigns.  Castlereagh  sent,  not  only 
Aberdeen,  but  also  Cathcart  and  Stewart,  apparently  in  order  not  to 
offend  any  one  of  them  or  the  Powers  to  which  they  were  severally 
accredited;  but  he  also  appeared  in  person,  to  keep  watch  over  the 
proceedings.  That  he  should  leave  headquarters  at  this  period,  showed 
how  much  importance  he  attached  to  the  way  in  which  the  negotia- 
tions were  conducted.  It  was  not  that  he  expected  Napoleon  to 
accept  the  terms  offered;  but  he  felt  that  the  cause  of  the  Allies,  and 
even  more  the  restoration  of  the  Bourbons,  depended  on  the  im- 
pression which  the  transaction  was  to  make  on  the  public  opinion  of 
France  and  Europe;  and,  with  some  reason,  he  distrusted  the  capacity 
of  the  diplomatists  sent  to  Chatillon  to  carry  out  their  Instructions  in 
the  spirit  in  which  he  at  least  had  drawn  them  up. 

Events  were  soon  to  show  how  well  founded  these  doubts  were. 
At  Chatillon,  Caulaincourt  revealed  himself  as  a  sincere  patriot  and 
eager  to  obtain  peace,  for  he  had  no  illusions  as  to  the  situation.  But, 
when  confronted  with  the  offer  of  the  "ancient  limits,"  he  quite 
naturally  pressed  for  information  as  to  the  intentions  of  the  Powers 
with  regard  to  such  territories  as  Saxony  and  Italy.  This  was  precisely 
the  information  which  the  Allied  Plenipotentiaries  could  not  give 
him;  for  they  had  not  settled  the  matter  among  themselves.  More- 
over, it  was  soon  apparent  that  Razumoffski,  the  Russian  Pleni- 
potentiary, was  anxious  to  stop  the  discussions  altogether.  He  had 
indeed,  almost  immediately,  received  orders  from  Alexander  to  do  so, 
for  the  successes  of  the  Allies  in  the  early  days  of  February  had  con- 
vinced the  Tsar  that  the  War  was  practically  over,  and  that  he  could 
march  straight  to  Paris.  Castlereagh  appears  to  have  shared  this  view  to 
some  extent,  but  he  was  anxious  that  there  should  be  no  sudden  rupture 
on  the  part  of  the  Allies,  and  he  wished  to  use  Caulaincourt 's  inter- 
rogatories as  a  means  to  settle  the  points  of  the  Continental  settlement 
on  which  the  Allies  were  at  variance.  He  told  the  Plenipotentiaries 
frankly  at  the  outset  that  he  would  only  be  prepared  to  sign  away  the 
Conquests,  after  three  preliminary  conditions  had  been  satisfied. 

"The  first  was,"  he  said,  "that  France  should  submit  to  retire,  if  not 
literally,  substantially  within  her  ancient  limits.  Secondly — that  Great 
Britain  should  have  an  assurance  by  an  amicable  arrangement  of  limits 


DISCUSSIONS  AT  TROYES  439 

between  the  three  Great  Powers,  that,  having  reduced  France  by  their 
union  they  were  not  likely  to  re-establish  her  authority  by  differences 
amongst  themselves.  And  thirdly — that  we  should  be  satisfied  that  the 
arrangements  in  favour  of  the  Powers  of  whose  interests  we  were  especially 
the  guardian,  were  likely  to  be  attended  to,  and  especially  those  of  Holland 
and  Sicily — the  point  of  Spain  being  abandoned  by  France  herself1." 

But  at  Troyes,  now  the  Allied  headquarters,  reached  after  Napo- 
leon's defeat  at  La  Rothiere  (February  2ist)  by  Bliicher,  Metternich 
found  that  he  could  no  longer  control  Alexander.  The  Tsar  was 
urgent  that  Schwarzenberg  should  support  Bliicher's  army  and  a 
direct  march  be  made  on  Paris.  The  Austrians,  both  soldiers  and 
diplomatists,  were  much  alarmed,  and  Metternich  especially  so,  since 
he  feared,  with  reason,  that  Alexander  had  returned  to  the  views  he 
had  held  at  Langres.  The  Tsar,  at  last,  sent  a  formal  order  to  Razu- 
moffski  to  suspend  negotiations2.  Castlereagh,  therefore,  left  for 
Troyes  on  February  loth.  There,  he  found  that  the  Tsar's  order  had 
been  issued  on  his  own  authority,  so  as  to  prevent  any  further  dis- 
cussions till  the  Allies  should  have  reached  Paris,  where  he  intended 
to  summon  a  Representative  Assembly  to  decide  the  future  Sovereignty 
of  France,  Napoleon  himself  not  being  excluded  from  candidature. 
The  Austrians  were  indignant  and  alarmed,  especially  as  it  was 
rumoured  that  Bernadotte  was  about  to  place  himself  at  the  head  of 
the  Allied  corps  nearest  Paris.  It  was  Castlereagh Js  task  to  convince 
Alexander  of  the  danger  of  these  intentions ;  and  this  he  accomplished 
in  two  stormy  interviews.  The  Tsar  was  still  hostile  to  the  return  of  the 
Bourbons,  particularly  of  Lewis  XVIII  himself,  and  talked  of  satis- 
fying his  Allies  by  setting  up  the  Duke  of  Orleans  or  another  member 
of  the  younger  branches  of  the  Family.  Castlereagh,  in  his  efforts  to 
convince  the  Tsar,  went  to  the  extreme  limit  of  free  speech  permitted 
from  a  statesman  to  a  Sovereign.  It  was  the  first  of  many  such  inter- 
views in  the  ensuing  twelve  months.  He  asked  the  Tsar  how  long 
he  would  keep  his  troops  in  France  to  support  a  new  Sovereign  on 
the  Throne,  after  the  Allies  had  refused  to  make  a  peace  on  their  own 
terms  with  Bonaparte.  Alexander  remained  obdurate.  He  attempted 
to  refute  Castlereagh  by  producing  a  despatch  from  Lieven  of  January 
26th,  which  declared  that  the  Prince  Regent  and  Liverpool  wished 
Napoleon  to  be  dethroned  and  the  Bourbons  substituted.  Castle- 
reagh replied  that  he  was  bound  by  his  Instructions,  and  denied  the 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  February  6th,  1814.   P.O.  Continent.  2;   British 
Diplomacy,  p.  147. 

2  Fournier,  Congress  von  Chatillon,  pp.  313,  372- 


440        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

Tsar's  right  to  question  them1.  He  was  very  indignant  at  this  attempt 
to  undermine  his  authority,  and  the  incident  was  perhaps  a  turning- 
point  in  his  relations  with  the  Tsar.  For  several  days,  the  issue  hung 
in  the  balance.  But,  in  the  Council  of  Ministers,  where  each  Power 
replied  in  turn  to  a  series  of  queries  drawn  up  by  Metternich,  both 
Hardenberg  and  Castlereagh  supported,  in  the  main,  the  Austrian 
point  of  view,  and  Nesselrode  was  at  heart  of  their  opinion.  A  com- 
promise was  at  last  effected,  in  which  Metternich  obtained  most  of 
what  he  wanted,  though  not  before  he  had  secretly  threatened  to 
make  a  separate  peace  with  Napoleon.  He  had  to  submit  to  a  refusal 
of  the  armistice  which  Caulaincourt  had  offered,  for  on  this  point 
Castlereagh  was  strongly  against  him;  but  Alexander  had  to  consent 
that  the  negotiations  at  Chatillon  should  be  renewed,  and  circum- 
stances soon  made  it  clear  that  the  march  to  Paris  was  out  of  the 
question.  The  Tsar's  design  had,  however,  caused  a  Convention  to 
be  drawn  up  by  the  three  Continental  Powers,  as  to  the  mode  of 
occupation  of  the  city.  Castlereagh  refused  to  sign  this  document, 
though  he  approved  its  contents,  since  he  thought  it  advisable  not  to 
associate  himself  unnecessarily  "in  delicate  questions  relating  to  the 
interior  of  France2." 

A  new  and  more  detailed  document  was,  also,  drawn  up  to  be  sub- 
mitted to  Caulaincourt.  To  effect  this,  Castlereagh  had  to  make  con- 
cessions. He  now,  for  the  first  time,  named  the  Colonies  which  he  was 
prepared  to  give  back  to  France,  subsequently  explaining  to  his  Cabinet 
that,  "  as  this  is  a  document  upon  which,  if  the  negotiation  breaks  off, 
the  appeal  [i.e.  to  public  opinion]  will  be  made,  I  thought  it  expedient 
to  put  the  British  terms  forward  in  a  liberal  shape."  The  only  French 
Colonies  reserved,  therefore,  were  Les  Saintes,  Tobago,  Mauritius  and 
Bourbon, and  the  French  were  to  be  allowed  to  have  commercial  settle- 
ments on  the  coast  of  India.  In  return,  the  limits  of  France  were  now 
expressly  laid  down  as  those  of  1792,  and,  further,  Castlereagh  was 
allowed  to  add  a  clause  stipulating  that  the  Slave-trade  should  be 
abolished  in  all  the  Colonies  so  restored.  But  he  had  entirely  failed 
to  obtain  his  second  point — an  amicable  arrangement  among  the 
Allies  themselves,  which  he  stipulated  as  necessary  before  he  signed 
away  the  Colonies.  On  the  contrary,  Austria  and  Russia  were  more 
openly  at  variance  than  ever,  and,  in  these  circumstances,  Castlereagh 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  February  i6th,  1814.    P.O.  Continent.  2;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  147. 

2  Ibid. 


CONFERENCES  AT  CHATILLON  441 

could  do  little  either  to  bring  his  Allies  to  an  agreement  or  to  complete 
his  project  of  a  permanent  Alliance. 

But  it  was  the  question  of  the  dynasty  that  had  caused  the  greatest 
alarm,  and  Castlereagh  took  immediate  steps  to  deal  with  it.  He  sent 
Robinson  home  to  prevent  any  repetition  of  Lieven's  intrigues,  and 
naturally  obtained  Liverpool's  full  support.  In  spite  of  the  opposition 
of  one  or  two  members  of  the  Cabinet,  a  definite  Instruction  was  sent 
to  Castlereagh,  that  peace  might  be  concluded  with  Napoleon  if  he 
accepted  the  Allied  terms.  At  the  same  time,  the  Cabinet  could  not  be 
deaf  to  the  growing  insistence  of  public  opinion  in  England  on  the  de- 
thronement of  Bonaparte.  The  Times  and  other  papers  were  now 
vehement  against  him,  and  it  was  obvious  that  a  peace  with  him, 
however  satisfactory  the  terms,  would  be  very  unpopular.  The 
Cabinet,  therefore,  urged  that,  if  the  terms  were  not  at  once  accepted, 
an  appeal  should  be  made  to  the  French  nation  to  get  rid  of  their 
ruler,  and  that,  without  attempting  to  prescribe  to  them  their  new 
sovereign,  it  should  be  suggested  to  them  that  only  the  Bourbons 
could  bring  them  peace1. 

Castlereagh  returned  to  Chatillon  on  February  i6th,  and  the  new 
projet  was  handed  to  Caulaincourt  on  the  I7th.  But,  while  these  dis- 
cussions had  been  in  progress,  the  military  situation  had  entirely 
changed;  and,  indeed,  this  had  been  one  of  the  factors  which  had  at 
last  produced  agreement.  Napoleon  had  thoroughly  beaten  Bliicher's 
troops  in  a  series  of  battles  in  February,  and  then,  turning  on  Schwar- 
zenberg's  army,  had  forced  it  to  retreat  in  disorder.  Thus  it  was  now 
Caulaincourt  and  not  the  Allies  who  delayed ;  for  Napoleon  had  with- 
drawn the  permission  to  accept  the  terms  previously  given  to  his 
Envoy,  who  could  now  do  nothing  but  refer  to  his  master  for  new 
Instructions.  Meanwhile,  at  the  Allied  headquarters,  something  like 
panic  reigned,  and  the  decision  was  taken  to  ask  for  an  armistice. 
When  this  news  reached  Chatillon  in  a  letter  from  Metternich,  urging 
the  necessity  of  expediting  peace,  Castlereagh  immediately  replied  in 
an  indignant  letter,  and  entreated  the  Allies  in  passionate  words  not 
"to  descend  from  the  substance  of  your  peace2."  The  letter  betrays 
the  emotion  he  felt;  and,  full  of  anxiety,  he  returned  to  headquarters, 
which  had  now  retired  to  Bar-sur-Aube,  so  soon  as  the  negotiations 
at  Chatillon  had  been  suspended.  There,  he  found  the  greatest  des- 

1  Bathurst  to  Castlereagh,  February  27th,  1814.   P.O.  Continent.  Archives,  2; 
British  Diplomacy,  p.  161. 

2  Castlereagh  to  Metternich,  February  i8th,  1814.  F.O.  Continent.  Archives,  2; 
British  Diplomacy,  p.  158. 


442       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

pendency.  It  was  Alexander  who  had  given  the  orders  as  to  the 
armistice  offer,  and  he  was  now  almost  as  urgent  for  peace  as  Austria. 
The  soldiers  and  diplomatists  of  both  Powers  were  full  of  bitter  re- 
criminations. Each  suspected  the  other  of  saving  its  army,  while  the 
threatened  appearance  of  Czartoryski  and  Radziwill  at  Alexander's 
side  renewed  all  Metternich's  apprehensions  about  Poland.  Castle- 
reagh's  patience  was  almost  worn  out.  The  Allies,  by  their  previous 
hesitation,  had  let  slip  the  opportunity  of  signing  a  peace  on  the  basis 
of  the  old  limits,  and  now  they  appeared  to  be  ready  to  grant  any  con- 
cessions. "Nothing  keeps  either  Power  firm,"  he  wrote,  "but  the 
consciousness  that  without  Great  Britain  the  peace  cannot  be  made1." 
His  own  position,  however,  he  made  quite  clear.  He  would  refuse  to 
conclude  any  peace  except  that  which  had  been  agreed  on  at  Troyes, 
and,  since  it  was  unlikely  that  Napoleon  would  sign  without  assurances 
from  Great  Britain  as  to  the  Colonies,  without  Castlereagh  peace 
could  not  be  made.  By  this  means,  with  some  assistance  from  the 
Prussians,  he  succeeded  in  reestablishing  confidence.  At  the  same 
time,  he  played  an  important  part  in  the  military  councils  of  the 
Allies,  where  some  timid  spirits  were  already  pressing  for  a  retreat 
to  the  Rhine.  It  was  urgent  to  reinforce  Bliicher's  beaten  army, 
against  which  Napoleon  had  once  more  turned  after  driving  back 
Schwarzenberg.  The  only  means  of  obtaining  these  troops  was  to 
detach  from  Bernadotte's  command  the  corps  of  Billow  and  Wintzin- 
gerode,  which  were  now  advancing  from  the  Belgian  frontier.  When 
the  Allies  hesitated  lest  such  a  step  should  offend  Bernadotte,  Castle- 
reagh insisted  that  the  order  should  be  sent,  and  took  upon  himself 
the  responsibility  of  soothing  the  Crown-prince.  These  troops  reached 
Bliicher  just  in  time  to  save  him  at  the  battle  of  Laon,  and  Napoleon's 
failure  in  that  battle  marked  the  beginning  of  the  end2. 

For  the  moment,  the  situation  was  saved.  Instructions  were  sent 
to  Chatillon  to  demand  a  definite  answer  within  a  reasonable  time 
from  Caulaincourt  to  the  projet  previously  given  him,  and,  urged  by 
Castlereagh,  Metternich  sent  a  sufficiently  warlike  reply  from  the 
Emperor  of  Austria  to  a  letter  recently  addressed  to  his  father-in -law  by 
Napoleon.  Castlereagh  did  not  return  to  Chatillon.  The  negotiations 
there  now  depended  more  on  the  firmness  of  headquarters  and  their 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  February  26th,  1814.  P.O.  Continent.  3;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  160. 

2  Cf.  the  Earl  of  Ripon's  account,  Castlereagh  Correspondence,  i.  129.  Bernadotte 
was  conciliated  by  being  given  nominal  command  of  all  the  troops  besieging  the 
French  fortresses. 


TREATY  OF  CHAUMONT 


443 


military  and  political  energy  than  on  what  was  said  to  Caulaincourt, 
and,  above  all,  Castlereagh  was  anxious  to  use  the  financial  necessities 
of  his  Allies  to  construct  the  Treaty  of  Alliance  which  recent  events 
showed  to  be  so  urgently  needed.  He  had  kept  this  project  in  view, 
ever  since  he  had  joined  the  Allied  Ministers.  But  the  successive 
crises  prevented  him  from  doing  more  than  discuss  the  question  in- 
formally with  his  colleagues,  as  opportunity  offered.  So  early  as  the 
middle  of  February,  he  had  prepared  a  project  of  a  Treaty  based  on 
his  Instructions,  and  had  secured  the  general  approval  of  the  Ministers 
of  the  three  Powers.  Even  Alexander  now  gave  his  consent  to  the 
Treaty,  stating  that  the  restriction  of  the  casus  foederis  to  the  European 
dominions  of  the  Powers  had  removed  his  principal  objection.  The 
real  motive  of  the  Allies  was,  however,  their  anxiety  to  obtain  Sub- 
sidies for  the  campaign ;  for  Castlereagh  refused  to  sign  any  Treaty 
on  this  subject,  unless  the  larger  question  of  the  Alliance  was  likewise 
included.  He  had  thus  been  forced  to  abandon  the  position  which  he 
had  taken  up  in  December,  when  approached  by.Lieven.  This  was, 
however,  only  a  minor  matter.  Far  more  serious  was  it,  that  he  had, 
also,  to  abandon  his  plan  of  making  the  Treaty  contribute  to  the 
settlement  of  the  outstanding  questions  between  the  Allies.  His  first 
weapon,  the  Colonial  conquests,  he  was  obliged  to  abandon,  in  order 
to  obtain  a  suitable  offer  to  Caulaincourt.  Now,  he  had  to  promise  the 
Subsidies  without  achieving  his  purpose.  The  truth  was  gradually 
becoming  manifest,  that  the  Allies  were  so  divided  as  to  render  any 
result  hopeless  until  after  a  long  series  of  discussions.  Castlereagh 
had,  therefore,  to  be  content  with  merely  including  in  the  Treaty  the 
Articles  already  delivered  to  Caulaincourt  at  Chatillon,  which,  al- 
though they  provided  specifically  for  Holland,  contained  only  vague 
references  to  the  future  of  Germany,  and  made  no  mention  of  Poland 
or  Saxony. 

The  Treaty  of  Alliance  had  a  double  object.  First,  to  provide 
the  means  for  ending  the  War  then  in  progress.  For  this  purpose, 
each  Power  agreed  to  keep  150,000  men  in  the  field.  The  share 
of  Great  Britain  was,  however,  a  double  one.  For  she  not  only  bound 
herself  to  subsidise  the  armies  of  the  other  three  Powers  with  five 
millions  per  annum,  but  she,  also,  agreed  to  provide  150,000  men 
herself.  She  was  allowed,  indeed,  to  employ  the  troops  of  the  smaller 
Powers  in  the  army  for  which  she  was  responsible,  and,  as  Castlereagh 
pointed  out,  the  three  other  Powers  had  to  raise  considerably  more  than 
150,000  men,  for  the  Subsidies  were  based  on  the  active  strength  of 


444        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

the  troops.  Still,  even  Castlereagh  felt  it  was  a  bold  offer  on  the  part 
of  Great  Britain,  which  had  scarcely  been  considered  a  great  military 
Power.  But  since  the  Allies  pressed  him,  he  felt  that  Wellington's 
successes  had  justified  him  in  accepting  the  challenge,  and  he  was 
convinced  that,  if  his  country  wished  to  have  real  influence  on  the 
Continent,  she  must  be  ready  to  assume  military  as  well  as  naval 
responsibilities.  "There  can  be  no  reason,"  he  wrote,  "why  Great 
Britain  should  not  assume  that  station  in  Europe  as  one  of  the  great 
military  powers  which  the  exploits  of  her  armies  and  the  scale  of  her 
resources  have  so  justly  entitled  her  to  claim1";  and,  in  a  private 
letter,  "  My  modesty  would  have  prevented  me  from  offering  it ;  but, 
as  they  choose  to  make  us  a  military  power,  I  was  determined  not  to 
play  second  fiddle2." 

This  agreement,  which  contained  the  usual  clauses  not  to  make 
peace  except  in  common,  was,  however,  only  a  continuation  of  the 
usual  Subsidy  engagements.  The  novel  part  of  the  Treaty,  which  was 
entirely  due  to  Castlereagh,  was  to  provide  for  the  continuance  of 
the  Alliance  in  peacetime.  In  order  that  the  Peace,  when  won,  might 
be  guaranteed,  the  Four  Powers  bound  themselves  to  protect  one 
another  against  France  for  a  period  of  twenty  years — but,  in  this  case, 
the  stipulated  force  was  to  be  only  60,000  men.  This  is  the  origin  of 
the  Quadruple  Alliance,  which  after  some  vicissitudes  was  to  be  re- 
vived again  at  Vienna  and  at  Paris.  It  was  Castlereagh's  great  scheme 
for  preserving  Europe  from  a  repetition  of  the  evils  of  the  last  twenty 
years.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that,  if  he  had  been  able,  he  would 
have  phrased  it  differently,  and  made  it  an  Alliance,  not  merely 
against  France,  but  against  whatever  Power  broke  the  Peace.  But, 
after  all,  it  was  France  which,  in  the  eyes  of  British  statesmen,  was 
most  likely  to  cause  a  war  in  the  future,  and  the  equilibrium  which  the 
Treaty  was  to  ensure  was  mainly  to  be  obtained  by  balancing  the  rest 
of  Europe  against  France.  At  least,  so  Castlereagh  thought  at  the 
moment.  He  reserved  the  wider  guarantee  foreshadowed  in  Pitt's 
despatch  of  1805,  until  the  Allies  should  have  settled  their  disputes. 
For  it  was  not  possible  to  broaden  the  scope  of  the  Treaty,  so  long  as 
it  was  uncertain  what  shape  the  New  Europe  would  assume. 

The  Treaty  was  signed  only  by  the  Four  Great  Powers.  Even 
Sweden  was  only  asked  to  accede,  and  it  marks  the  beginning  of  that 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  March  loth,  1814.    F.O.  Continent.  Archives,  3; 
British  Diplomacy,  p.  165. 

2  Castlereagh  to  Hamilton,  March  loth,  1814.  Castlereagh  Correspondence,  ix. 
335- 


TREATY  OF  CHAUMONT  445 

formal  ascendancy  of  the  Great  Powers  which  was  to  be  the  charac- 
teristic of  the  nineteenth  century.  Spain,  Portugal  and  Holland  were 
also  to  be  invited  to  place  themselves  under  the  protection  of  the 
Treaty,  the  minor  German  Powers  not  being  included,  because  it 
was  possible  that  they  would  shortly  be  welded  together  in  a  Federa- 
tion which  would  be  able  to  act  for  them  all. 

Castlereagh  had  thus  accomplished  only  a  part  of  the  task  which 
he  had  set  himself,  when  he  took  his  departure  for  the  Continent.  The 
Powers  had  shown  themselves  so  undecided  in  their  attitude  towards 
the  enemy,  and  so  jealous  of  each  other's  claims,  that  no  other  course 
was  possible.  The  European  settlement  had  perforce  to  be  left  in  a 
condition  of  uncertainty.  But  security  against  France,  at  least,  had 
been  won,  and,  with  Napoleon  still  in  the  field,  this  had  to  override 
all  other  considerations.  Even  as  it  is,  the  Treaty,  which  was  accepted 
by  the  Cabinet  without  alteration,  and  greeted  with  a  chorus  of 
praise  by  Castlereagh's  subordinates,  who  knew  how  difficult  the  task 
had  been,  remains  as,  perhaps,  his  greatest  achievement.  At  any  rate, 
it  symbolised  the  fact  that,  but  for  his  intervention  in  1814,  the 
Coalition  against  France  would  almost  certainly  have  been  forced  by 
its  own  dissensions  to  make  a  peace  which,  sooner  or  later,  would  have 
left  Europe  again  at  the  mercy  of  Napoleon. 

The  Treaty  of  Chaumont,  though  dated  lyforr.H  ist»_}£as  nnf 
signed  till  March  QthTTtylvKicK datelhe  time  limit  for  Caulaincourt's 
reply  tO'lKe i  ultimatum  of  February  28th,  had  expired.  During  that 
period,  Napoleon  almost  crushed  Bliicher's  armies,  but  was  foiled 
at  Laon  (March  Qth)  in  a  repulse  which  was  equivalent  to  a  heavy 
defeat;  for  Bliicher,  now  reinforced  by  Billow's  and  Wintzingerode's 
corps,  was  quite  able  to  resume  the  offensive.  But,  in  the  meantime, 
Napoleon  had  entertained  high  hopes,  and,  up  to  March  Qth,  had  sent 
no  answer  to  Caulaincourt.  The  interval  at  Chatillon  was  passed  in 
disputes  as  to  the  phrasing  of  the  Protocol ;  but  the  information  that 
reached  the  Plenipotentiaries  made  Caulaincourt  even  more  anxious 
for  peace — if  this  had  been  possible.  Schwarzenberg's  army  won 
some  minor  successes,  and  from  the  south  came  the  news  (by  way  of 
London),  that  Wellington  had  resumed  the  offensive,  defeated  Soult 
at  Orthez  (February  ayth)  and  was  marching  on  Toulouse.  On 
March  loth  Caulaincourt  sent  an  answer  on  his  own  initiative  which 
evaded  the  direct  question.  Still,  the  Allied  Plenipotentiaries  did  not 
break  off  negotiations,  but  referred  the  answer  to  headquarters;  so 
that,  as  Stadion  pointed  out  to  Metternich,  it  was  still  possible  to 


446       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

prolong  the  discussion  almost  indefinitely  if  he  wished.  Caulaincourt 
explored  every  possible  channel,  especially  in  the  direction  of  Austria, 
by  which  he  might  obtain  concessions,  and  thus  perhaps  secure  a  peace 
which  his  master  would  sign.  But  the  Chaumont  Treaty  had  been 
concluded,  and  the  reply  that  came  back  from  headquarters  was  an 
order  to  enforce  the  ultimatum.  Even  then,  so  anxious  was  each  side 
to  throw  on  the  other  the  odium  of  refusing  peace,  that  the  rupture 
did  not  ensue  till  March  i9th.  The  Declaration  to  the  People  of 
France,  which  made  Napoleon  responsible  for  the  miseries  the  War 
was  inflicting  upon  them,  had  been  drawn  up  long  before  at  head- 
quarters, not  without  considerable  discussion;  but  it  was  not  issued 
till  March  25th,  owing  to  the  necessity  of  obtaining  the  Tsar's  express 
approval  before  it  was  published. 

By  this  time,  however,  the  last  act  of  the  drama  had  begun.  The 
Emperor,  after  the  bloody  battles  of  Craonne  and  Laon,  which  at 
least  gave  him  a  few  days  breathing  space,  turned  once  more  against 
Schwarzenberg's  army.  Even  now,  he  had  no  intention  of  sending  to 
Caulaincourt  the  word  that  could  alone  bring  peace.  Checked  at 
Arcis-sur-Aube,  he  formed  the  idea,  which  had  long  been  in  his  mind, 
of  throwing  himself  on  the  Allied  line  of  communications,  relieving  his 
besieged  fortresses  in  the  east,  joining  forces  with  Augereau  and  com- 
pelling his  enemies  to  retreat,  in  order  to  escape  destruction.  But, 
before  this  audacious  plan  could  be  put  into  operation,  the  Allied 
armies  had  reached  his  capital  and  made  it  certain  that  he  would  lose, 
not  only  the  campaign,  but  his  Throne. 

The  series  of  events  that  led  to  the  Restoration  of  the  Bourbons 
are  intricate  and  obscure.  As  has  been  seen,  Castlereagh  had  through- 
out the  negotiations  with  Napoleon  insisted  that  the  Allies  were  bound 
to  conclude  peace  with  him,  if  he  would  agree  to  it.  But  he  made  it 
clear  that,  if  another  dynasty  was  to  take  the  place  of  Napoleon,  it 
could  only  be  the  Bourbons.  The  British  Cabinet  was,  from  the  first, 
by  no  means  united  as  to  the  possibility  of  making  peace  with  Napo- 
leon. Harrowby  and  Eldon,  and  even  Bathurst,  were,  as  early  as 
January,  against  such  a  conclusion.  Sidmouth  and  Vansittart  supported 
Liverpool  in  backing  up  Castlereagh's  policy ;  but  the  Prime  Minister 
found  increasing  difficulty  in  making  head  against  the  strong  pre- 
dilection of  the  Prince  Regent,  which  Miinster's  despatches  must  have 
intensified,  and  the  ever  increasing  clamour  of  the  Press.  The 
Marquis  Wellesley  had  also  expressed  himself  strongly  on  the  Bourbon 
side,  and  was  reported  to  be  gaining  in  favour  with  the  Prince;  and, 


BRITISH  POLICY  AND  THE  BOURBONS          447 

deprived  of  Castlereagh's  assistance,  the  Ministry  was  losing  ground 
everywhere1. 

On  March  iQth,  the  news  of  the  prolongation  of  the  Chatillon 
Conference  caused  the  Cabinet  to  send  a  strong  protest  to  Castle- 
reagh,  who  was  ordered  to  inform  the  Allies  that,  unless  the  negotia- 
tions were  brought  to  a  speedy  close,  the  British  offers  as  to  the 
Colonial  conquests  would  be  withdrawn2.  At  last,  when  the  news 
came  that  Bordeaux  had  declared  for  the  Bourbons,  the  firmness  of 
the  Cabinet  broke  down.  On  March  22nd,  Instructions  were  sent  to 
Castlereagh  that  no  peace  must  be  signed  with  Bonaparte3;  he  was 
also  told  that,  if  one  had  already  been  signed,  it  would  not  be  ratified 
until  the  Cabinet  were  convinced  that  the  Emperor  still  possessed  the 
allegiance  of  the  French  people.  Neither  of  these  Instructions,  how- 
ever, had  any  influence  on  the  course  of  events.  Before  they  reached 
their  destination,  the  wishes  of  the  Cabinet  had  already  been  ful- 
filled. 

Throughout  the  campaign  in  the  north,  no  signs  had  been  given 
by  the  French  people  that  they  wished  for  the  return  of  the  Bourbons. 
Monsieur  (Charles  X)  had  taken  up  residence  at  Vesoul;  but  his 
emissaries  had  exercised  no  effect.  On  the  contrary,  the  exasperation 
of  the  French  peasants  at  the  brutality  of  the  Allied  troops  had,  as 
Castlereagh  noted,  made  them  look  to  Bonaparte  once  more  as  a  pro- 
tector. In  the  south,  however,  where  Wellington's  army  paid  for  all 
it  took,  and  where  plundering  was  repressed  by  an  iron  discipline, 
the  people  showed  a  very  different  spirit.  To  the  south  the  Due 
d'Angouleme  had  been  allowed  to  proceed ;  but  Wellington,  though 
he  was  desirous  of  his  success,  gave  him  no  open  countenance.  The 
Bourbon  Prince  was,  however,  able  to  get  in  touch  with  his  supporters, 
much  more  numerous  in  the  south,  and,  on  March  i2th,  Bordeaux 
raised  the  white  flag.  Though  an  intrigue  of  an  emissary  of  Bernadotte's 
confused  the  issue  for  a  moment,  this  example  was  soon  followed  by 
other  towns. 

The  real  intrigue,  however,  took  place  in  the  north.  Throughout 
the  negotiations  with  Napoleon,  the  conduct  of  the  Allies  was 
studiously  correct.  Alexander  indeed,  as  has  been  seen,  had  no  desire 
to  help  the  Bourbons,  and  Metternich,to  the  last  possible  moment,  pre- 

1  See  C.  K.  Webster,  The  Congress  of  Vienna,  p.  28. 

*  Bathurst  to  Castlereagh,  March  iQth,  1814.  P.O.  Continent,  i;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  166. 

8  Bathurst  to  Castlereagh,  March  22nd,  1814.  P.O.  Continent,  i ;  British  Diplo- 
macy, p.  171. 


448        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

ferred  a  peace  with  his  Emperor's  son-in-law.  But,  once  the  Chatillon 
Conference  was  broken  up,  events  moved  quickly.  Metternich  had 
now  to  guard  against  what  action  Alexander  might  take  if  he  found 
himself  at  Paris  with  a  free  hand.  The  Bourbon  cause  had  there  been 
slowly  winning  adherents,  and  Talleyrand,  with  Dalberg  and  others, 
were  preparing  the  ground.  No  communication,  however,  as  Castle- 
reagh  reported  with  surprise  to  the  Cabinet,  had  been  entered  into 
with  the  Allies  until  the  middle  of  March.  Yet  Baron  Vitrolles, 
who  then  appeared  at  headquarters,  was  not  received  by  the  Allied 
Ministers,  until  the  rupture  with  Napoleon  was  announced.  Then, 
under  Metternich's  presidency,  a  formal  meeting  was  held,  and  it  was 
determined  to  support  the  Bourbon  cause.  The  Bourbons  were 
promised  by  the  Continental  Powers  the  immediate  administration 
of  any  districts  that  declared  in  their  favour.  Castlereagh,  for  his 
part,  offered  funds,  which,  however,  he  wished  to  furnish  through  his 
Allies,  "as  not  only  the  most  prudential  in  a  financial  point  of  view, 
as  rendering  the  expense  definite  on  our  part,  but  as  relieving  the 
question  of  much  of  the  political  difficulty,  which  must  always  attend, 
in  a  Government  like  ours,  the  voting  a  sum  of  money  for  effectuating 
a  change  in  the  Government  of  France."  In  fact,  Castlereagh,  while 
now  determined  to  bring  the  Bourbons  back,  was  anxious  to  take  no 
step  which  would  enable  the  Opposition  to  accuse  the  Government  of 
not  allowing  the  French  to  choose  their  own  Sovereign.  In  the  same 
way,  he  hoped  that  events  at  Paris,  towards  which  the  Allied  armies 
were  now  making  progress,  would  be  regulated  by  the  Convention 
drawn  up  at  Troyes,  to  which  he  had  refused  his  signature,  so  as 
to  effect  "the  object  I  have  in  view,  which  is,  to  bring  Great 
Britain  forward,  in  whatever  may  regard  the  interior  of  France,  rather 
as  the  Ally  and  auxiliary  of  the  continental  powers  than  as  charging 
herself  in  chief1." 

Alexander's  consent  was  assumed,  but  not  obtained,  to  these  nego- 
tiations ;  for  the  Tsar  was  marching  with  the  King  of  Prussia  on  Paris. 
Napoleon,  on  discovering  their  intentions,  hesitated,  and,  before  he 
could  strike  a  blow,  Marmont  and  Mortier  had  been  defeated,  and 
Paris  capitulated.  Castlereagh  and  Metternich,  meanwhile,  remained 
at  Dijon  with  the  Emperor  of  Austria,  who,  like  Castlereagh,  was 
anxious  to  avoid  the  final  scene.  There,  on  March  25th,  the  cause  of 
the  Bourbons  was  publicly  toasted,  Castlereagh  joining  in  with  the 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  March  22nd,  1814.  P.O.  Continent.  3;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  168. 


THE  ALLIES  AT  PARIS.  TREATY  OF  FONTAINEBLEAU  449 

rest,  and  an  Austrian  agent  was  despatched  to  Monsieur,  to  urge  him 
to  raise  the  country,  when  the  Allies  would  support  him.  Metter- 
nich's  messenger  to  Paris  was  captured;  but  Castlereagh  established 
communication  by  a  letter  to  a  friend  in  that  city  which  brought  a 
new  agent  to  Dijon.  When,  therefore,  on  April  4th,  Castlereagh  and 
Metternich  learnt  that  the  Allies  were  in  Paris,  they  knew  that 
Talleyrand  was  assured  of  their  support  and  that  the  Bourbon  cause 
was  in  safe  hands.  Thus,  though  they  were  somewhat  perturbed  at 
the  Tsar's  pledge  to  guarantee  a  Constitution1,  yet  they  were  quite 
easy  in  their  minds  on  the  question  of  the  dynasty,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  Alexander's  declaration  merely  excluded  Napoleon  himself  from 
the  Throne.  Bernadotte's  intrigues  with  Joseph  and  others,  which 
were  known  through  intercepted  letters,  had  quite  put  him  out  of 
court,  and  Nesselrode  had  secretly  reassured  his  colleagues  on  this 
head.  Alexander  at  Paris  had  thus  no  real  alternative  to  the  Bourbons. 
He  was  easily  persuaded,  therefore,  by  the  ingenious  Talleyrand  to 
take  the  necessary  steps  for  their  recall  in  a  manner  which  ensured 
some  show  of  popular  approval,  and  the  entreaties  of  the  Marshals 
and  Caulaincourt  for  a  Regency  were  of  no  avail.  That  the  Tsar  had 
found  it  necessary  to  support  Lewis  XVIII,  whom  he  regarded  as 
absolutely  unfit  for  the  Throne,  was  due  to  causes  over  which  no  states- 
man had  any  control.  But  the  steps  that  Castlereagh  and  Metternich 
took  in  the  last  days  of  March  certainly  contributed  much  to  the 
course  of  events,  and,  but  for  the  British  statesman's  intervention,  the 
differences  between  Austria  and  Russia  might  have  led  to  serious 
results.  Alexander,  however,  was  able  by  his  solitary  action  to  secure  a 
Constitution  for  the  French  people — a  step  of  sound  v/isdom,  on  which 
he  would  certainly  have  found  it  difficult  to  insist,  if  Castlereagh  and 
Metternich  had  been  on  the  spot.  For,  as  will  appear,  with  all  his 
desire  for  a  peaceful  and  contented  Europe,  Castlereagh  had  no  wish 
to  help  the  cause  of  Constitutional  liberty  on  the  Continent.  Nor  was 
he,  when  he  arrived  on  April  loth,  satisfied  with  the  Treaty  of 
Fontainebleau,  which  Alexander  was  on  the  point  of  signing  with  the 
dethroned  Emperor.  To  this  Treaty,  which  guaranteed  the  Emperor 
the  full  sovereignty  of  Elba,  recognised  his  titles,  assigned  the  duchies 
of  Parma,  Piacenza,  and  Guastalla  to  the  Empress,  with  succession 
to  her  son,  and  made  ample  financial  provision  for  Napoleon  and  all 
his  family,  Castlereagh  raised  many  objections;  but  he  was  persuaded 
by  Talleyrand  that  the  situation  made  its  acceptance  inevitable.  He 
1  "Without  knowing  what  it  is,"  reported  Castlereagh. 

W.&G.I.  ,39'* 


450        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

refused,  however,  to  sign  it,  and  only  acceded  to  it  so  far  as  the 
territorial  arrangements  were  concerned.  Thus,  Great  Britain  per- 
sisted to  the  end  in  refusing  to  recognise  the  Imperial  title,  and 
Napoleon  remained,  for  her,  "General  Bonaparte"  to  the  end  of  the 
chapter. 

Like  some  others,  Castlereagh  was  not  happy  at  the  choice  of 
Elba;  but  no  other  less  objectionable  alternative  could  be  found.  "I 
did  not  feel,"  he  wrote  to  his  Cabinet,  "that  I  could  encourage  the 
alternative  which  Caulaincourt  assured  me  Bonaparte  repeatedly  men- 
tioned, namely,  an  asylum  in  England1." 

The  Treaty  of  Peace  had  now  to  be  made  with  a  Bourbon  Govern- 
ment, and  it  was  nearly  two  months  before  it  was  concluded.  The 
necessity  of  consolidating  the  power  of  the  new  monarchy  and  arranging 
for  the  withdrawal  of  the  Allied  armies  and  the  surrender  of  the 
French  fortresses,  occupied  most  of  the  month  of  April.  The  Treaty 
was,  moreover,  delayed  by  the  attempt  of  Talleyrand  to  obtain  for  the 
Bourbons  an  extension  of  the  frontiers  of  1792,  while  the  disposition 
of  the  conquered  territories  had  still  to  be  determined.  These  dis- 
cussions kept  Castlereagh  in  Paris  till  the  end  of  May,  in  spite  of  the 
desire  of  his  Government  that  he  should  return  to  their  assistance. 
He  was  occupied  there,  not  merely  with  the  Peace  with  France,  but 
also  with  attempting  to  compose  the  differences  between  the  Allies; 
while  the  War  had  left  problems  of  importance  all  over  Europe,  in 
some  of  which,  notably  in  those  concerning  Norway,  Sicily,  Spain 
and  Holland,  British  interests  were  especially  concerned.  One  of 
Castlereagh's  first  actions  on  arriving  at  Paris  was  to  offer  the  post  of 
Ambassador  to  Wellington,  who  accepted  it  with  the  same  cheerful 
readiness  to  undertake  any  duty  which  he  displayed  throughout  all 
these  years.  But  Wellington  could  not  come  to  Paris  at  this  time; 
and,  meanwhile,  Castlereagh,  with  no  one  of  high  calibre  to  assist 
him,  was  unable  to  expedite  matters,  though  he  claimed  to  work  as  hard 
as  it  was  possible  for  a  man  to  do  in  a  city  like  Paris. 

In  the  Peace  with  France,  Castlereagh  was  prepared  to  make  con- 
cessions to  the  new  monarchy,  provided  that  they  did  not  interfere 
with  his  plans  for  the  Netherlands.  He  urged  his  Cabinet  to  be  as 
liberal  on  Colonial  questions  as  possible.  France,  he  pointed  out, 
was  weak,  and  any  Colonies  returned  to  her  could  be  easily  reduced 
if  a  new  war  broke  out.  He  was  prepared,  therefore,  to  limit  his 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  Apri    i3th,  1814.    P.O.  Continent.  Archives,  4; 
British  Diplomacy,  p.  176. 


THE  NEGOTIATIONS  AT  PARIS  451 

demands  to  Mauritius  and  Tobago,  retaining  also,  of  course,  Malta 
and  the  Cape,  and  confining  the  French  in  India  to  commercial 
occupation.  He  thus  abandoned  Les  Saintes,  but  after  pressure  from 
the  Admiralty  added  St  Lucia  in  its  place.  He  was  even  more  anxious 
not  to  annex  Dutch  Colonies.  "  I  am  sure  our  reputation  on  the  Con- 
tinent," he  wrote  to  Liverpool,  "as  a  feature  of  strength,  power  and 
confidence,  is  of  more  real  moment  to  us  than  an  acquisition  thus 
made1."  Castlereagh  was,  therefore,  all  the  more  indignant  when  he 
found  that  in  his  Counter-project  delivered  in  the  middle  of  May 
(which  was  shown  to  him  unofficially  before  presentation),  Talleyrand 
had  refused  to  cede  St  Lucia  and  Tobago,  demanded  compensation 
for  Mauritius  and,  worst  of  all,  said  nothing  about  the  Slave-trade. 
His  protests  recalled  Talleyrand  to  a  sense  of  reality.  But  the  most 
difficult  question  was  the  Slave-trade.  Both  Castlereagh  and  his 
Cabinet  knew  that  it  was  necessary  to  satisfy  public  opinion  in  England 
on  this  point.  The  Abolitionists  were  well  organised,  and  had  cap- 
tured the  imagination  of  the  nation.  From  this  time  onwards,  not 
merely  the  British  Ministers,  but  the  Allied  Sovereigns,  were  im- 
portuned by  letters,  memoranda  and  appeals  of  all  kinds,  in  order  to 
carry  through  universal  abolition.  The  French,  perhaps  naturally, 
suspected  this  zeal  on  the  part  of  a  nation  that  had  only  recently  been 
converted  to  the  Abolitionists'  views.  They  hinted  that  the  British 
statesmen  were  utilising  public  opinion  to  prevent  the  French  Colonies 
from  rivalling  the  British  in  prosperity.  In  this  they  erred,  for  there 
is  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  both  the  nation  and  Ministers  were 
perfectly  sincere  on  this  question — a  fact  of  which  the  sacrifices  which 
they  were  prepared  to  make  during  the  succeeding  years  are  sufficient 
evidence.  But  Castlereagh  recognised  the  difficulties  of  the  case. 
"My  feeling  is,"  he  wrote,  "that  on  grounds  of  general  policy  we 
ought  not  to  attempt  to  tie  France  too  tight  on  this  question.  If  we 
do,  it  will  make  the  Abolition  odious  in  France,  and  we  shall  be  con- 
sidered as  influenced  by  a  secret  view  to  prevent  the  revival  of  her 
colonial  interests."  He  pressed,  therefore,  the  advantage  of  concilia- 
ting French  public  opinion,  rather  than  imposing  by  force  concessions 
which  France  would  do  her  best  to  defeat  in  practice2. 

Talleyrand,  also,  tried  to  obtain  substantial  concessions  on  the 
Netherlands  frontier.  This,  again,  Castlereagh  peremptorily  refused 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  April  iQth,  1814.  Castlereagh  Correspondence,  ix.  474. 

2  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  May  igth,  1814.  P.O.  Continent.  4;  British  Diplo- 
macy, p.  183. 

29—2 


452        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

to  allow,  telling  Talleyrand  that,  if  he  wished  for  a  lasting  peace,  he 
must  extinguish  "in  the  minds  of  the  army,  this  false  notion  of 
Flanders  being  necessary  to  France."  It  was  only  a  threat  to  transfer 
the  negotiations  to  London  that  produced  a  settlement  by  May  3Oth, 
thus  saving  a  month's  Subsidies  to  the  Exchequer. 

In  its  final  form,  the  Treaty  gave  Castlereagh  almost  everything 
that  was  essential  to  British  interests.  Her  maritime  position  in  the 
Mediterranean  was  secured  by  Malta  and  the  protection  of  the  long 
route  to  India  by  the  Cape,  Mauritius;  St  Lucia  and  Tobago.  Holland 
was  compensated  for  the  cession  of  the  Cape  with  two  millions  of 
money,  which,  however,  she  was  to  expend  on  constructing  a  "  Barrier  " 
against  France.  Holland's  extension  in  the  Netherlands  was,  also, 
especially  mentioned  in  one  of  the  Secret  Articles  of  the  Treaty ;  for 
Castlereagh  felt  it  of  the  first  importance  not  to  leave  this  point  open 
until  the  Congress.  The  mouth  of  the  Scheldt  was  thus  placed  in  the 
hands  of  a  Power  which  it  was  hoped  would  be  sufficiently  strong  to 
protect  Antwerp,  and,  moreover,  would  be  closely  united  to  Great 
Britain  by  the  marriage  between  the  Prince  of  Orange  and  Princess 
Charlotte,  to  which  all  the  Powers  had  agreed.  France  had  been 
reduced  to  the  frontiers  of  1792,  with  some  small  concessions  at 
Landau  and  Saarlouis,  and  in  Savoy.  No  indemnities  had,  however, 
been  imposed;  for  Castlereagh,  like  the  Russian  and  Austrian  states- 
men, had  declined  to  agree  to  Prussian  demands  on  this  point.  This 
liberal  concession,  as  well  as  the  refusal  to  insist  on  the  return  of  the 
art  treasures  accumulated  at  Paris,  which  had  been  either  extorted  by 
Treaty  or  frankly  carried  off  as  plunder,  was  due  to  the  desire  on  the 
part  of  the  Allies  to  be  as  lenient  to  the  new  Bourbon  dynasty  as 
possible.  When  the  brutal  exactions  of  France  during  the  Napoleonic 
Wars  are  remembered,  this  decision  deserves  to  rank  as  one  of  the 
most  notable  examples  of  political  moderation  in  modern  history. 
Alexander  and  Castlereagh  were  the  main  instruments  in  bringing 
it  about,  but  the  final  word  lay  with  the  British,  who  saw  France  left 
without  a  National  Debt,  while  their  own  had  mounted  to  over  seven 
hundred  millions  in  the  effort  to  overthrow  her  domination  of  Europe. 
It  must  be  remembered  also  that  the  Subsidies  had  been  given,  not 
lent,  and,  save  for  a  small  loan  to  Austria  which  dated  from  1796 
and  one  or  two  other  small  sums,  Great  Britain  had  nothing  to  recover 
from  her  Allies  in  mitigation  of  her  huge  debt,  which  was  causing 
her  the  most  serious  anxiety. 

From  Castlereagh's  point  of  view,  the  settlement  was,  however, 


CASTLEREAGH  AND  THE  PEACE  OF  PARIS        453 

marred  by  the  failure  once  again  to  determine  the  reconstruction  of 
Europe.  At  the  opening  of  the  negotiations,  he  had  the  idea  of  settling 
with  France  quickly  and  then  completing  the  European  arrangements 
in  London.  But,  as  he  reported  on  May  5th,  "the  desire  felt  by 
Prussia  and  Austria  to  bring  both  Russia  and  France  to  some  under- 
standing upon  the  main  principles  of  the  Continental  arrangements, 
in  a  secret  article  or  otherwise,  previously  to  our  stipulating  away 
our  conquests,  had  led  to  a  very  tedious  and  elaborate  examination 
of  this  very  complicated  question1."  Of  the  precise  part  played  by 
Castlereagh  in  these  discussions  there  is  no  complete  record,  for  he 
wrote  very  little  to  his  Cabinet  about  it.  But  Miinster's  despatches 
and  other  evidence  leave  no  doubt  that  he  took  a  strong  line  on  the 
Polish  question,  even  at  Paris.  His  support  was  given  wholly  to 
Austria  in  refusing  Alexander's  demands,  which  included  Cracow 
and  Thorn,  and  he  began  the  policy,  which  he  was  to  follow  at  the 
Congress  of  Vienna,  of  trying  to  unite  Austria  and  Prussia  against  the 
Tsar  by  securing  Austria's  consent  to  the  annexation  of  the  whole 
of  Saxony  to  Prussia.  In  other  German  questions,  and  especially  in 
the  form  to  be  taken  by  the  Federation,  he  showed  less  interest, 
leaving  them  to  Miinster,  unless  some  vital  point  arose.  Though  great 
efforts  were  made  to  settle  all  these  questions,  they  were  without 
avail,  and  the  only  express  stipulations  which  the  Treaty  with  France 
contained,  besides  the  settlement  of  the  Netherlands  frontier,  were 
the  extension  of  the  Austrian  possessions  to  the  Mincio,  and  the 
incorporation  of  Genoa  in  Sardinia.  As  to  the  rest,  they  were  to  be 
settled  at  a  Congress  to  be  held  at  Vienna  in  August,  to  which  all 
the  Powers  of  Europe,  great  or  small,  who  had  taken  part  in  the  War 
were  to  be  invited.  The  Allied  Powers,  however,  by  a  Secret  Clause, 
reserved  to  themselves  the  right  to  determine  the  disposition  of  the 
conquered  territories,  and  bound  France  to  agree  to  their  decisions. 
The  Tsar  and  the  King  of  Prussia,  with  Metternich  and  the  other 
principal  statesmen,  had  accepted  the  Prince  Regent's  invitation 
to  London.  Castlereagh  and  Metternich,  therefore,  hoped  that  all 
matters  could  be  settled  there,  where  the  Poles  would  have  less 
influence  than  at  Paris.  No  one,  at  this  time,  regarded  the  coming 
Congress  as  anything  more  than  an  opportunity  for  communicating 
the  decisions  of  the  Great  Powers  to  the  rest  of  Europe  and  for  ad- 
justing minor  points.  They  could  not  foresee  that  their  discussions 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  May  5th,   1814.     P.O.   Continent    Archives,  4; 
British  Diplomacy,  p.  180. 


454        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

would  bring  Europe  to  the  verge  of  war,  and  that  over  twelve  months 
would  be  required  before  a  final  settlement  could  be  effected. 

These  difficulties,  in  any  case,  did  not  loom  large  in  the  eyes  of 
the  British  people,  who  cared  little  for  the  rest  of  the  Continental 
settlement,if  France  was  rendered  impotent.  The  absence  of  vindictive 
conditions  in  the  Treaty,  such  as  France  had  inflicted  so  often  on  other 
countries,  indeed,  caused  a  great  deal  of  discontent.  "No  Murders, 
No  Torture,  No  Conflagration,— how  ill  the  pretty  Women  of  London 
bear  it?"1  wrote  Whitbread;  but  he  was  himself  delighted  with  the 
Treaty  and  honestly  said  so. 

Castlereagh's  return  was  something  of  a  triumph,  and  the  House 
of  Commons  rose  to  receive  him  when  he  entered  it.  The  Treaty  was 
approved  without  a  division.  Castlereagh's  most  serious  difficulties, 
indeed,  were  in  connexion  with  the  events  subsidiary  to  the  settlement, 
some  of  which  met  with  considerable  criticism  both  in  the  House  and 
at  the  Court.  In  the  first  place,  the  Norwegians,  though  their  country 
had  been  ceded  to  Bernadotte  by  Denmark  in  the  Treaty  of  Kiel  in 
January,  refused  to  submit  and  organised  a  national  resistance.  Dis- 
gusted as  the  Allies  were  with  Bernadotte's  conduct  in  1814,  they  could 
not  see  their  way  to  breaking  with  him  completely.  Thus  Great  Britain, 
in  compliance  with  her  Treaty  engagements,  was  forced  to  assist  in 
the  subjection  of  Norway  by  a  naval  blockade — an  odious  necessity 
which  Ministers  had  to  defend  against  hot  attacks  from  the  Opposi- 
tion. Spanish  questions,  also,  caused  great  difficulty.  Ferdinand,  on 
his  restoration,  had  straightway  abolished  the  Spanish  Cortes  and 
returned  to  the  ideals  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  British  had  to  see 
patriots  with  whom  they  had  fought  against  Napoleon  subjected  to 
imprisonment  and  persecution.  The  abolition  of  the  impracticable 
Constitution  of  1812  caused  little  uneasiness  to  Castlereagh;  but  he 
protested  vigorously,  though  without  avail,  against  Ferdinand's  in- 
creasing tyranny.  The  question  of  the  Spanish  Colonies  was  also  a 
difficult  one,  in  which  we  had  a  great  interest,  for  our  trade  with  them 
was  growing  by  leaps  and  bounds.  Nevertheless,  the  Treaty  signed 
with  Spain  contained  a  clause  binding  Great  Britain  to  strict  neutrality 
in  the  struggle  between  Spain  and  her  over-seas  possessions.  In  the 
same  Instrument,  however,  there  was  secured  a  stipulation  which,  like 
the  "  Barrier,"  went  back  to  the  i8th  century ;  for,  by  a  Secret  Article, 
Ferdinand  engaged  not  to  renew  the  "Family  Compact." 

Most  difficult  of  all  the  questions  with  which  Castlereagh  had  to 

1  Creevy  Papers,  i.  191. 


LORD  WILLIAM  BENTINCK  455 

deal  was  the  situation  in  Italy,  where  an  extraordinary  situation  had 
arisen  during  the  spring  campaign,  which  had  already  caused  him 
much  uneasiness,  and  was  to  lead  to  much  equivocal  diplomacy  before 
it  was  finally  settled.  Fortified  by  Aberdeen's  consent,  Metternich 
had  hastened  to  conclude  a  treaty  with  Murat  so  early  as  January  3rd, 
1814.  It  was  urgently  needed,  if  Austrian  arms  were  to  be  imme- 
diately successful  in  Italy.  For  the  Viceroy,  with  his  small  army  of 
conscripts,  successfully  withstood  all  the  attacks  of  Bellegarde's  much 
larger  forces.  Murat  was,  therefore,  not  only  recognised  as  King  of 
Naples,  but  was  promised  some  increase  of  territory  and  Austria's 
good  offices  to  obtain  his  recognition  by  Great  Britain  and  Austria's 
other  Allies,  as  well  as  by  the  Sicilian  Bourbons,  who  were  to  be  given 
compensation  elsewhere.  But  Murat  was  threatened  from  the  south 
by  the  Anglo- Sicilian  army  of  Bentinck,  who  was  virtual  Governor 
of  the  island,  where  he  professed  to  cherish,  as  an  instrument  for  the 
regeneration  of  the  Italian  people,  the  remarkable  Constitution  estab- 
lished by  him  in  1812. 

Lord  William  Bentinck1  is  one  of  the  most  curious  figures  of  this 
time.  A  military  career  of  considerable  success  had  made  this  in- 
transigeant  Whig  a  Lieutenant- General  at  the  age  of  38  and  the 
representative  of  a  Tory  Ministry  in  one  of  the  most  important  posts 
in  Europe.  From  Sicily,  aided  by  sea  power,  Bentinck  could  strike  a: 
will  at  Spain  or  Naples,  or  further  afield,  if  events  proved  propitious. 
To  a  man  of  his  unmeasured  ambition,  masterful  character  and  ultra- 
Whig  views  the  temptations  were  immense.  During  the  earlier  part  of 
the  year  1813,  he  carried  on  in  person  tentative  negotiations  with 
Murat  at  Ponza,  soon  put  aside  to  engage  in  a  campaign  in  Catalonia 
which  (at  least  not  wholly  by  his  fault)  ended  in  failure.  The  close 
of  the  year  found  him  back  in  Sicily,  evolving  great  schemes  for  the 
liberation  of  the  Italians  by  appealing  to  their  sense  of  nationality, 
and  endowing  them  with  the  institutions  he  had  set  up  in  Sicily. 
To  these  views,  which,  of  course,  were  in  direct  opposition  to  those 
of  his  Government,  he  perhaps  added  others,  even  more  extravagant, 
for  the  retention  of  Sicily  as  a  British  possession,  and  a  model  of 
Constitutional  liberty  to  the  oppressed  Mediterranean  peoples.  Castle- 
reagh  appears  to  have  left  him  completely  in  the  dark  as  to  the 
Instructions  which  he  had  given  to  Aberdeen.  He  perhaps  dis- 
trusted Bentinck's  discretion.  When,  therefore,  the  latter  received 
from  Aberdeen  Instructions  to  support  Neipperg  and  Mier,  the 
Austrian  Envoys  at  Naples,  and  to  conclude  a  treaty  with  Murat 

1  See  supra,  p.  380. 


456       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

similar  to  that  of  Austria,  he  flatly  refused.  In  spite  of  the  vehement 
entreaties  of  the  Austrians,  he  refused  all  cooperation  with  Murat, 
and  it  was  only  on  February  3rd  that  he  concluded  an  Armistice, 
which  entirely  ignored  political  considerations  and  merely  suspended 
hostilities  between  the  two  forces.  In  this,  he  was  only  acting  pru- 
dently, for  he  could  not  accept  Instructions  from  Aberdeen  on  so 
vital  a  point1.  For  his  later  conduct  there  can,  however,  be  no  excuse. 
He  had  his  own  plans  for  the  Italian  campaign,  and  absolutely  refused 
to  subordinate  them  to  the  necessities  of  the  situation.  On  March  8th, 
he  landed  at  Leghorn,  but,  instead  of  cooperating  with  Murat,  he 
began  an  embittered  controversy  as  to  the  control  of  Tuscany,  which 
provided  the  King  of  Naples  with  an  excellent  pretext  for  not 
attacking  the  Viceroy  and  carrying  out  his  obligations  under  the 
Austrian  Treaty.  The  Hereditary  Prince  was  allowed  to  address  a 
proclamation  to  the  Anglo-Sicilian  army,  which  denounced  Murat  as 
a  usurper.  Even  Sir  Robert  Wilson,  Bentinck's  fellow  Whig,  could 
find  no  excuses  for  this  strange  conduct,  which  is  only  to  be  explained 
by  Bentinck's  personal  dislike  of  Murat  and  his  rage  at  the  complete 
overthrow  of  the  plans  that  had  long  been  fermenting  in  his  own 
brain. 

Meanwhile,  Castlereagh  and  Metternich,  engaged  in  the  final 
struggle  against  Napoleon,  had  had  scant  leisure  to  deal  with  the 
Italian  deadlock.  Complaints  against  Bentinck,  however,  began  to 
pour  in  at  headquarters,  and  Castlereagh  at  last  awoke  to  the  situa- 
tion. He  approved  Bentinck's  conduct  in  merely  signing  an  armistice ; 
for,  as  has  been  seen,  the  offer  to  Murat  had  never  been  really  to  his 
liking,  and  Aberdeen  had  committed  himself  far  too  rashly.  Metter- 
nich himself  was  dissatisfied  with  the  Treaty,  and  made  some  altera- 
tions in  its  language.  Castlereagh,  however,  had  no  alternative  but  to 
accept  the  situation,  and  he  admitted  that,  at  the  moment  when  the 
Treaty  was  made,  "it  was  both  wise  and  necessary,"  while  at  the 
same  time  he  urged  a  full  indemnity  for  Ferdinand.  On  February  2ist, 
he  wrote  to  Bentinck  that  "The  British  Government  are  perfectly 
ready  to  act  up  to  the  spirit  of  the  Austrian  Treaty  and  to  acknowledge 
Murat  upon  a  peace  upon  two  conditions:  ist  That  he  exerts  himself 
honourably  in  the  war;  and  2nd  that  a  reasonable  indemnity  (it  cannot 
be  an  equivalent)  is  found  for  the  King  of  Sicily."  When  it  gradually 
became  clear  that  no  headway  was  being  made  in  Italy,  Castlereagh 

1  See  R.  M.  Johnston's  article  "Lord  William  Bentinck  and  Murat,"  in  The 
English  Historical  Review,  April  1904.  But  while  Mr  Johnston  successfully  estab- 
lishes this  point  against  M.  Weil,  he  is  in  error  in  thinking  that  Aberdeen  had  no 
authority  to  sign.  See  above,  p.  409. 


BENTINCK'S  ACTION  IN  SICILY  REPUDIATED    457 

grew  all  the  more  indignant.  It  was  some  time  before  he  credited  all 
the  reports  against  Bentinck,  and  his  just  indignation  was  levied  more 
against  Murat  himself  and  the  Austrian  Commander-in- Chief1.  But, 
by  the  end  of  March,  the  situation  had  become  clear,  and  Bentinck 
was  severely  reproved  in  letters  which  Castlereagh  wrote  to  him  on 
April  and,  which  he  made  all  the  more  incisive,  inasmuch  as  the 
Sicilian  Court  had  communicated  direct  to  London  the  insinuations 
which,  they  asserted,  Bentinck  had  allowed  himself  as  to  Great 
Britain  becoming  Sovereign  of  Sicily — a  subject  on  which  he  was 
ordered  at  once  to  enlighten  them  as  to  the  true  views  of  the 
British  Government.  Castlereagh  had,  in  fact,  now  determined  to  get 
rid  of  Bentinck  as  soon  as  possible,  and  William  A'Court,  a  shrewd 
and  moderate  diplomatist  of  the  true  Tory  creed,  was  nominated  as 
his  substitute  at  Palermo,  while  Bentinck  was  told  that  he  might  take 
leave  of  absence  as  soon  as  convenient.  Before  he  departed,  however, 
Bentinck  was  to  involve  Castlereagh  in  further  embarrassments.  On 
April  26th  he  issued  a  proclamation  which  promised  the  Genoese 
their  independence.  Castlereagh  had  already  agreed,  as  has  been 
seen,  to  assign  Genoa  to  Sardinia.  He  at  once  repudiated  Bentinck's 
action,  and  to  a  deputation  from  Genoa  and  Lombardy  who  came  to 
Paris  to  plead  for  independence  he  was  inflexible.  He  listened  patiently, 
but  could  only  advise  them  to  make  the  best  of  their  new  Sovereigns2. 
Bentinck's  attempts  to  encourage  Italian  independence  were  all  the 
more  distasteful  to  Castlereagh,  since  it  was  associated  with  the  idea 
of  setting  up  new  Constitutions  in  Italy  on  the  model  of  that  in  Sicily, 
which  in  his  opinion — and  the  facts  bore  him  out — had  been  a  com- 
plete failure.  The  experience  of  these  doctrinaire  Instruments,  set  up 
in  Spain  and  Sicily,  had,  indeed,  not  been  encouraging.  That  Castle- 
reagh had  judged  accurately  the  main  cause  of  their  impotence  is  seen 
by  a  letter  to  Henry  Wellesley  (afterwards  Lord  Cowley)  on  May  loth. 

I  hope,  if  we  are  to  encounter  the  hazards  of  a  new  constitutional 
experiment  in  Spain  in  addition  to  the  many  others  now  in  progress  in 
Europe,  that  the  persons  charged  with  the  work  will  not  fall  into  the 
inconceivable  absurdity  of  banishing  from  the  legislature  the  Ministers  of 
the  Crown ;  to  which  error,  more  perhaps  than  any  other,  may  be  attributed 
the  incapacity  which  has  distinguished  the  march  of  every  one  of  these 
systems  which  has  placed  the  main  authorities  of  the  Constitution  in 
hostility  instead  of  alliance  with  each  other3. 

1  Castlereagh  to  Bentinck,  February  4th,  15th,  2ist,  1814.  Castlereagh  Corres- 
pondence, ix.  235,  237,  286,  362. 

2  Hansard,  xxx.  391. 

3  Castlereagh  Correspondence,  x.  26. 


458        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

To  Bentinck  he  wrote  even  more  strongly— perhaps  more  strongly 
than  he  felt,  since  it  was  necessary  to  put  a  stop  to  the  policy  which 
might  ruin  Castlereagh's  schemes  at  Paris. 

"  It  is  impossible  not  to  perceive,"  he  wrote  on  May  yth,  "  a  great  moral 
change  coming  on  in  Europe,  and  that  the  principles  of  freedom  are  in  full 
operation.  The  danger  is  that  the  transition  may  be  too  sudden  to  ripen  into 
anything  likely  to  make  the  world  better  or  happier.  We  have  new 
Constitutions  launched  in  France,  Spain,  Holland,  and  Sicily.  Let  us  see 
the  result  before  we  encourage  further  attempts.  The  attempts  maybe  made 
and  we  must  abide  the  consequences,  but  I  am  sure  it  is  better  to  retard 
than  accelerate  the  operation  of  this  most  hazardous  principle  which 
is  abroad. 

"In  Italy  it  is  now  the  more  necessary  to  abstain  if  we  wish  to  act  in 
concert  with  Austria  and  Sardinia.  Whilst  we  had  to  drive  the  French  out 
of  Italy  we  were  justified  in  running  all  risks ;  and  with  a  view  to  general 
peace  and  tranquillity,  I  should  prefer  seeing  the  Italians  await  the  insensible 
influence  of  what  is  going  on  elsewhere,  than  hazard  their  own  internal 
quiet  by  an  effort  at  this  moment1." 

In  this  there  is  much  truth,  and  the  same  common-sense  is  shown 
in  Castlereagh's  conversation  with  the  Italians  in  Paris.  But  his  hos- 
tility to  Constitutional  liberty  was  not  merely  one  of  form.  On  no 
single  occasion  in  these  years  is  Castlereagh  found  giving  it  any  en- 
couragement or  sacrificing  to  it  the  cardinal  point  of  his  policy ;  union 
with  Austria  against  Russia.  His  deliberate  plan  for  perpetuating 
Austrian  influence  in  the  Peninsula  he  had  inherited  from  Pitt,  and 
he  applied  the  prescription  only  too  well  when  the  opportunity  came2. 
It  was  a  fundamental  part  of  his  policy  to  the  end  of  his  career;  and, 
indeed,  it  was,  in  a  sense,  part  of  the  Tory  creed  until  Italy  won  her 
independence.  At  the  same  time,  it  must  be  remembered  that  Castle- 
reagh's policy  was  itself  a  necessary  element  in  the  struggle  against 
Napoleon,  and  that  Bentinck's  wild-cat  schemes,  which  had  little  real 
support  among  the  Italians  themselves,  would  have  only  produced 
chaos  and  civil  war — whereby  ultimately  the  Coalition's  main  objects 
might  have  been  lost. 

Bentinck  had,  however,  saved  Castlereagh  from  the  recognition 
of  Murat  as  King  of  Naples.  It  might,  indeed,  be  claimed  that  Great 

1  Castlereagh  Correspondence,  x.  18. 

a  There  is,  of  course,  no  truth  whatever  in  the  story  first  put  forward  by  Bianchi, 
that  as  early  as  July,  1813,  Castlereagh  had  concluded  a  Secret  Treaty  with  Metter- 
nich  concerning  Italy,  the  existence  of  which  is  based  on  a  supposed  letter  from 
Metternich  to  Castlereagh,  dated  May  26th,  1814.  Fournier  and  others  have  proved 
the  impossibility  of  the  document,  which  would  refute  itself,  even  if  examination  of 
the  British  and  Austrian  Archives  had  not  shown  it  to  be  a  forgery. 


PREPARATIONS  FOR  THE  CONGRESS  459 

Britain  was  morally  bound  to  support  him;  but,  meanwhile,  his 
relations  to  her  were  only  defined  by  the  Armistice.  Castlereagh 
had  thus,  to  some  extent,  a  free  hand,  and  already  there  were 
signs  that  the  interests  of  the  Sicilian  Bourbons  had  not  been  for- 
gotten by  the  British  Government.  In  June,  the  Duke  of  Orleans 
pleaded  Ferdinand's  cause  at  Paris  and  London,  and  the  Prince 
Regent  did  not  hesitate  to  promise  him  his  support,  while  Liverpool 
did  not  conceal  his  hostility  to  Murat,  and  even  Castlereagh,  though 
cautiously,  gave  the  Bourbons  some  hope1.  This  interview  was,  of 
course,  a  profound  secret,  but  even  publicly  in  the  House  Castlereagh 
had  spoken  of  the  Neapolitan  Question  as  not  yet  decided  2 .  The  greatest 
obstacle  was  indeed  the  folly  of  Ferdinand  himself.  In  July,  Ben- 
tinck's  last  act  had  been  to  allow  the  King  to  resume  power  in  Sicily, 
though  he  had  carefully  safeguarded  the  Constitution  on  which  he 
had  built  such  extravagant  hopes.  But  it  was  not  long  before  A' Court 
reported  that  King  Ferdinand  was  breaking  his  promises,  and,  how- 
ever hostile  to  the  Constitutional  regime,  the  British  Government 
could  not  immediately  betray  those  whom  they  had  put  in  power,  and 
protected  for  so  long.  It  remained  to  be  seen  whether  Murat  could 
utilise  these  difficulties,  so  as  to  win  his  recognition  from  the  British 
Government  at  the  coming  Congress.  Meanwhile,  in  the  north  of 
Italy  Austrian  influence  was  dominant  and  Lord  Burghersh,  who  had 
been  appointed  British  Minister  to  the  Grand-duke  of  Tuscany,  was 
well-fitted  for  cooperating  with  the  Austrians,  and  for  removing  the 
ideas  which  Bentinck  and  Sir  Robert  Wilson  had  spread  of  Great 
Britain's  interest  in  Constitutional  liberty. 

III.  THE  CONGRESS  OF  VIENNA 

The  numerous  negotiations  made  imperative  by  the  close  of  the 
War  had  not  prevented  the  questions  reserved  for  settlement  at  the 
coming  Congress  from  being  attentively  considered.  Castlereagh  was, 
however,  disappointed  in  his  hope  that  affairs  could  be  brought  nearer 
to  a  solution  during  the  visit  of  the  Sovereigns  and  statesmen  to 
England.  On  the  main  questions,  indeed,  no  progress  at  all  was  made. 
The  lavish  and  warm,  if  not  very  refined,  hospitality  offered  to  the  Tsar 
and  the  King  of  Prussia  took  up  most  of  their  time.  The  four  Ministers 
managed  to  meet  for  business;  the  stubbornness  of  the  Russians, 
however,  prevented  anything  being  done,  though  a  good  deal  of  dis- 

1  Weil,  Murat,  i.  127  ff. 

2  Hansard,  xxvni.  464.  (In  response  to  a  remark  of  Canning's  in  favour  of  the 
Bourbons.  Cf.  Wei),  op.  cit.  i.  167.) 


460        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

cussion  took  place.  Of  the  actual  details  of  these  discussions,  little  is 
known,  except  that  a  serious  attempt  was  made  to  come  to  some  agree- 
ment. It  would  appear  that  Castlereagh  was  anxious  to  avoid  a 
rupture  with  the  Tsar  in  London ;  for  Metternich  complained  of  his 
lack  of  support  to  Austrian  policy.  Alexander,  indeed,  seemed  to 
look  beyond  the  Prince  Regent  and  his  Ministers  for  support.  He  had 
long  been  in  touch  with  the  Whigs  through  Sir  Robert  Wilson  and 
others.  Now,  like  his  strange  and  unconventional  sister  Catharine, 
who  had  preceded  him  to  England,  the  Tsar  seemed  to  go  out  of  his 
way  to  show  marked  attention  to  the  Ministry's  opponents.  More  than 
this,  the  Grand-duchess  was  with  difficulty  prevented  from  recogni- 
sing the  unhappy  wife  of  the  Prince  Regent,  whose  rupture  with  her 
husband  was  now  complete.  The  Grand-duchess  saw  much  of  the 
Princess  Charlotte,  and  to  her  influence  and  that  of  Princess  Lieven  was 
attributed  the  uncompromising  refusal  given  to  the  suit  of  the  Prince 
of  Orange.  The  result  was  that  Alexander  mortally  offended  the 
Prince  Regent,  and  made  a  very  bad  impression  on  his  Ministers. 
The  Cabinet  as  a  whole,  and  particularly  Liverpool,  had  been  scarcely 
content  with  Castlereagh 's  policy  of  support  to  Austria.  A  more 
diplomatic  behaviour  on  the  part  of  Alexander  might  have  done  much 
to  smooth  his  path  to  his  Polish  Kingdom.  But  when  Czartoryski 
and  Radziwill  were  seen  in  close  conference  with  the  Whigs,  the  Tory 
Ministry  naturally  became  suspicious.  Alexander  attributed  his  failure 
to  the  intrigues  of  Metternich  and  Count  von  Merveldt,  the  Austrian 
Ambassador,  who  doubtless  let  slip  no  opportunity  of  increasing  these 
suspicions.  But  the  Tsar  had  only  himself  to  blame  for  conduct 
apparently  dictated,  partly  by  a  personal  dislike  to  the  Prince  Regent, 
which  may  perhaps  be  pardoned,  and  partly  by  a  conviction  that  the 
unpopularity  of  the  Prince  and  some  of  his  Ministers  with  the  London 
mob  indicated  that  a  change  of  Government  would  soon  take  place. 
The  result  was  a  capital  blunder,  which  rendered  of  no  avail  later 
efforts  on  the  part  of  Russia  to  influence  the  British  Cabinet  against 
Castlereagh. 

In  these  circumstances,  the  only  decisions  of  importance  to  be 
recorded  were  the  approval  by  the  Allies  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
new  Netherlands  kingdom,  to  which  the  Belgian  Provinces  were  now 
provisionally  assigned  (though  the  frontiers  of  the  new  State  with 
Germany  still  waited  on  other  arrangements)  and  the  signing  of  a 
Protocol,  by  which  the  Four  Powers  agreed  to  keep  at  least  75,000 
troops  on  a  war  footing  until  the  Congress  closed.  It  was,  also,  soon 


CASTLEREAGH  AND  TALLEYRAND  461 

found  that  the  Congress  could  not  meet  in  August,  as  had  been  in- 
tended. Castlereagh  could  not  finish  his  parliamentary  business  in 
time,  and  the  Tsar  therefore  insisted  on  a  postponement  to  a  still 
later  date,  in  order  that  he  might  return  to  Russia.  The  opening  was 
accordingly  arranged  for  the  beginning  of  October;  but  the  four 
Ministers  agreed  to  meet  at  an  earlier  date  before  the  arrival  of  the 
Sovereigns,  so  that  the  procedure  of  the  Congress  might  be  arranged 
among  themselves.  For,  although  they  had  made  no  progress  in  their 
disputes,  yet  they  were  still  firmly  resolved  not  to  allow  the  settlement 
to  go  out  of  their  hands. 

The  interval  of  July  and  August  was  spent  by  Castlereagh  in 
winding  up  parliamentary  affairs  and  in  the  transactions  narrated  at 
the  close  of  our  last  section.  But  correspondence  was  also  carried  on 
between  Castlereagh,  Metternich  and  Hardenberg  on  the  Polish- 
Saxon  question.  The  former  two  Ministers  endeavoured  to  convince 
Hardenberg,  now  that  he  was  away  from  Russian  influence,  of  the 
dangers  of  Alexander's  Polish  plans.  Hardenberg's  reply  to  Castle- 
reagh, which  entered  at  length  into  all  his  plans  for  Germany,  showed 
little  sign  of  breaking  with  the  Tsar,  and  displayed  considerable 
jealousy  and  suspicion  of  both  Austria  and  Bavaria.  It  was  evident 
how  difficult  it  would  prove  to  persuade  the  German  Powers  to  resist 
Alexander's  Polish  plans,  which  every  intelligence  from  Petrograd 
and  Warsaw  showed  to  be  more  intently  pursued  than  ever1. 

Castlereagh  had  also,  throughout  this  period,  been  in  close  touch 
with  Talleyrand.  That  experienced  diplomatist,  who  was  already  en- 
gaged in  planning  the  disruption  of  the  Chaumont  Alliance,  was  at 
the  same  time  the  Minister  of  a  Bourbon  King.  The  old  French  con- 
nexion with  Poland  did,  indeed,  pledge  him  to  some  exertion  on  her 
behalf;  but  his  real  interests,  and  those  of  Lewis  XVIII,  which  he 
was  forced  to  consider  equally  with  those  of  France,  lay  elsewhere. 
To  save  Saxony  from  Prussia  and  drive  Murat  from  Naples  were  the 
main  objects  for  which  he  invented  the  doctrine  of  legitimacy,  on 
which  his  famous  Instructions  were  founded.  Both  Alexander  and 
Metternich  had  made  overtures  at  Paris,  but  it  was  to  Great  Britain 
that  Talleyrand  looked  for  support.  When,  therefore,  Castlereagh 
gave  him  an  opportunity  by  communicating  the  Convention  of  June 
ZQth  with  some  courteous  explanations,  he  made  every  endeavour  to 
establish  a  connexion  with  him.  Throughout  July  and  August,  he 

1  Castlereagh  to  Hardenberg,  August  8th,  1814;  Hardenberg  to  Castlereagh, 
May  27th,  1814.  P.O.  Continent.  Archives,  20;  British  Diplomacy,  p.  190. 


462        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

emphasised  to  Sir  Charles  Stuart,  and  later  to  Wellington,  the  coinci- 
dence of  French  and  British  interests  and  the  necessity  of  the  two 
"Constitutional"  Powers  of  Europe  acting  together.  To  these  over- 
tures Castlereagh  replied  by  a  cautious  but  unmistakable  response. 
He  made  it  clear  that  he  had  no  intention  of  separating  from  his 
Allies ;  but  he  encouraged  Talleyrand  to  develop  his  views  and  pro- 
mised to  visit  Paris  on  his  way  to  Vienna.  His  main  object  was  to 
secure  the  support  of  Lewis  XVIII  and  Talleyrand  to  his  policy  of 
resisting  Alexander's  Polish  plans.  This  support  was  actually  offered 
with  an  embarrassing  readiness,  and  Castlereagh  had  to  point  out 
that  "the  Four"  still  intended  to  settle  matters  in  accordance  with 
the  Secret  Article  of  the  Treaty  of  Paris.  But  he  promised  to  do  his 
best  to  harmonise  the  views  of  the  Allies  with  those  of  the  French 
Government,  and,  with  this  understanding,  preceded  Talleyrand  to 
Vienna,  where  the  Ministers  of  the  Four  Powers  proposed  by  a  pre- 
liminary discussion  to  settle  the  procedure  and  constitution  of  the 
Congress,  before  the  representatives  of  the  other  States  assembled1. 
Castlereagh  arrived  in  Vienna  on  September  i3th.  Stewart  and 
Cathcart  accompanied  him  as  Plenipotentiaries,  and  the  former  (now 
made  a  Baron  in  his  own  right)  was  Ambassador  to  the  Austrian 
Court.  Aberdeen  had  declined  further  employment,  and  it  may  be 
imagined  that  Castlereagh  did  not  press  him.  In  his  stead,  he  brought 
the  Earl  of  Clancarty,  a  member  of  the  Ministry  and  recently,  since 
the  return  of  the  Prince  of  Orange,  British  representative  at  the  Hague, 
where  he  had  already  obtained  a  very  commanding  position.  Stewart 
owed  his  position  entirely  to  his  brother's  affection,  and  scarcely  any- 
one approved  of  his  appointment.  He  played  a  subordinate  part, 
though  his  relations  with  the  Prussian  military  chiefs  were  not  without 
importance.  His  egregious  vanity  and  love  of  display,  which  obtained 
for  him  the  nickname  of  "Lord  Pumpernickel,"  made  him  one  of 
the  standing  jests  of  the  Congress.  Cathcart  was  far  less  in  evidence, 
and  was  only  nominated  lest  Alexander  should  be  offended.  It  was 
on  Clancarty  alone  that  Castlereagh  could  rely  for  really  hard  work 
and  business  capacity.  The  stiffest  of  Tories,  and  not  too  subtle  or 
quick-minded,  he  was  a  conscientious  and  consistent  subordinate, 
who  could  be  trusted  to  carry  out  his  chief's  ideas.  Throughout,  he 
did  much  valuable  work,  and,  after  Wellington  left,  he  handled  the 
complicated  diplomacy  connected  with  the  closing  of  the  Congress 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  September  3rd,  1814.    P.O.  Continent.  7;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  191. 


THE  BRITISH  STAFF  AT  VIENNA  463 

with  considerable  skill.  Edward  Cooke,  a  permanent  official  of  great 
experience,  was  the  principal  member  of  Castlereagh's  staff.  He 
stood  in  the  most  confidential  relations  not  only  to  Castlereagh  but 
also  to  the  Prime-Minister,  with  whom  he  corresponded  in  private 
letters  which  retailed  much  cynical  gossip.  The  rest  of  the  staff, 
besides  Castlereagh's  discreet  Private  Secretary,  Planta,  was  com- 
posed of  four  young  sprigs  of  the  nobility  and  five  commoners  from 
the  Foreign  Office.  Six  of  these  remained  during  the  whole  period. 
Wellington  brought  over  three  more  of  them  during  his  stay,  and 
Clancarty  two,  and  one  other  at  the  close.  This  small  staff,  which 
was  overworked  throughout  the  whole  period,  was  one  of  the  most 
zealous  and  discreet  of  those  at  Vienna .  Lady  Castlereagh  accompanied 
her  husband,  and  the  conjugal  bliss  of  the  British  Ambassador  caused 
much  amusement  to  Vienna  society.  The  fourteen  rooms  taken  in 
the  Auge-Gottes  were  not  sufficiently  imposing  for  this  establishment, 
which  was  removed  to  the  Minoritenplatz.  There,  a  grave  and  de- 
corous hospitality  was  dispensed  by  Lady  Castlereagh,  which  the 
Viennese  found  extraordinarily  dull.  Many  wits  were  inspired  by 
the  fact  that  she  wore  her  husband's  Garter  as  a  hair  ornament. 
Divine  service  was  held  every  Sunday  at  Lord  Stewart's  residence 
for  all  the  English  in  Vienna,  and,  in  deference  to  their  susceptibilities, 
the  first  performance  of  Beethoven's  new  concerto  was  postponed  to 
a  weekday.  But,  however  deficient  in  some  of  the  arts  which  charac- 
terised the  Congress  in  general,  Castlereagh's  establishment  was  one  of 
the  most  zealous  and  discreet,  and  the  Secret  Police  entirely  failed  to 
penetrate  its  secrets1. 

From  his  Government  at  home  Castlereagh  only  received  a  single 
definite  official  Instruction  during  the  whole  of  his  stay  at  Vienna ;  and 
this  he  deliberately  ignored.  He  reported  to  his  colleagues,  however, 
at  fairly  frequent  intervals,  and  maintained  with  Liverpool  a  private 
correspondence  of  considerable  length.  The  Prime-Minister  conveyed 
to  him  the  sense  of  the  Cabinet  on  the  large  general  questions  which 
arose  at  Vienna,  as  well  as  the  state  of  public  opinion  in  England,  and 
thus  undoubtedly  influenced  him  on  certain  points.  But  Vienna  was 
too  far  away  for  much  to  be  accomplished  in  this  way.  The  despatches 
often  took  a  fortnight  to  reach  their  destination,  and,  before  they  could 
be  answered,  events  had  changed.  The  Cabinet,  in  truth,  displayed 
only  a  moderate  interest  in  the  settlement  since  the  main  points  of 
British  policy  were  already  secured.  It  was  essential,  for  the  sake  of 

1  See  C.  K.  Webster,  The  Congress  of  Vienna. 


464      .THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

public  opinion  at  home,  that  every  effort  should  be  made  to  secure  the 
Abolition  of  the  Slave-trade;  but  in  other  matters  it  was  not  thought 
that  Great  Britain  ought  to  play  a  very  decided  part.  Events,  however, 
forced  Castlereagh's  colleagues  to  pay  more  attention  to  questions  of 
foreign  policy  than  they  wished.  The  Opposition,  which  under  Whit- 
bread's  influence  had  been  studiously  moderate  during  the  crisis  of 
1814,  saw  in  the  embarrassing  prolongation  of  the  Congress  a  means 
of  harassing  the  Ministry.  The  propaganda  of  Talleyrand  and  others 
had  some  effect  in  London.  Thus  Bragge,  Bathurst,  Robinson  and 
Vansittart  found  themselves  persistently  attacked  by  Whitbread,  Pon- 
sonby  and  others,  especially  on  the  questions  of  Genoa,  Saxony  and 
Naples;  and  they  found  it  exceedingly  difficult  to  return  convincing 
replies.  They  took  refuge,  for  the  most  part,  in  an  obstinate  refusal  to 
furnish  any  information  whatever  about  the  course  of  the  negotiations, 
while  Liverpool  pressed  Castlereagh  to  return  as  soon  as  possible  to 
their  assistance.  Neither  this  nor  the  alarm  produced  by  various  de- 
velopments of  the  Saxon  Question  had,  however,  very  much  influence 
on  the  course  of  events  at  Vienna,  where,  from  the  first,  Castlereagh 
took  a  prominent  part  in  all  the  leading  Questions,  and  whence  he 
refused  to  return  until  all  danger  of  a  rupture  was  at  an  end. 

For  Castlereagh  had  gone  to  the  Congress,  not  only  with  fixed 
principles,  but  with  a  plan  for  carrying  them  out,  and  a  conviction 
that  upon  his  own  efforts,  more  than  upon  anything  else,  depended 
the  reconstruction  of  Europe.  Unlike  his  colleagues,  he  regarded  Great 
Britain  as  part  of  the  Continent,  and  he  saw  clearly  how  difficult  it 
would  be  for  her  to  keep  clear  of  any  conflict,  if  a  peaceful  settlement 
was  not  obtainable.  Thus,  he  was  prepared  to  play  his  part  in  the 
forefront  of  the  battle,  not  merely  on  such  questions  as  the  Nether- 
lands, in  which  all  recognised  that  his  country  had  a  special  interest, 
but  in  the  more  difficult  and  even  more  important,  if  more  remote, 
disputes  as  to  Poland  and  Saxony,  on  the  solution  of  which  the  whole 
reconstruction  of  Central  Europe  depended.  More  clearly  than  any 
of  his  colleagues,  he  looked  on  the  problem  as  a  whole,  and,  con- 
tinuing the  ideas  put  forward  in  Pitt's  paper  in  I8O51,  he  wished  to 
establish  a  Balance  of  Power  in  Europe,  which  should  prevent  any 
one  State  from  threatening  the  rest.  The  First  Peace  of  Paris  had 
allayed  for  the  moment  the  fear  of  France,  to  whose  Government 
Castlereagh  was  already  looking  for  assistance  in  the  prosecution  of 
his  plans,  and  this  fear  was  partly  replaced  by  that  of  Russia,  whose 

1  See  above,  p.  400. 


THE  BALANCE  OF  POWER  465 

expansion  had  caused  Pitt  so  much  anxiety  in  the  period  immediately 
preceding  the  Revolution.  It  must  also  be  allowed  that,  blind  as  he 
was  to  the  importance  of  recognising  national  and  Liberal  forces, 
which  he  regarded  as  mere  survivals  of  the  dangerous  influence  of  the 
French  Revolution,  yet  he  had  ideals  of  a  new  system  of  government 
for  Europe  which  might  perchance  prevent  the  recurrence  of  a  period 
of  warfare  such  as  had  been  lately  experienced. 

To  produce  a  Balance  of  Power — the  "just  equilibrium,"  as  it  is 
so  often  called  in  despatches  and  documents  of  this  period — Castle- 
reagh  endeavoured  to  strengthen  by  all  the  means  at  his  disposal  the 
two  principal  States  of  the  Centre.  During  the  Napoleonic  period, 
Austria,  and  even  more  completely  Prussia,  had  been  reduced  in 
extent,  while  not  only  France  but  also  Russia  had  secured  great 
acquisitions  of  territory.  France  had  now  been  driven  back  to  her  old 
frontiers,  though  it  was  thought  that  she  might  again  become  dan- 
gerous to  the  liberties  of  the  small  States  which  fringed  them. 
Russia  had  obtained  Finland,  a  large  portion  of  Polish  territory  and 
acquisitions  in  the  south,  particularly  Bessarabia,  and  she  was  now 
aiming  at  absorbing  (though  under  a  separate  Constitution)  almost 
the  whole  of  Poland.  To  protect  Europe  against  both  French  and 
Russian  preponderance,  it  was  imperative  that  the  Centre  should  be 
made  sufficiently  strong  to  resist  them.  Castlereagh  perceived  that 
this  object  could  not  be  obtained  merely  by  a  territorial  redistribution, 
but  necessitated  the  establishment  of  cordial  relations  between  Prussia 
and  Austria,  and  an  amicable  settlement  of  the  disputes  still  dividing 
them.  By  helping  forward  such  an  agreement,  he  hoped  to  produce 
a  combination  which  would  prevent  the  Tsar  from  carrying  out  his 
Polish  plans.  A  strong  Federal  Germany  would  also  be  the  natural 
result  of  the  union  of  the  two  Powers,  and  an  impenetrable  barrier 
might  thus  be  erected  both  on  the  Rhine  and  the  Vistula.  As  for 
Italy,  he  had  long  regarded  that  peninsula  as  the  natural  sphere  of 
Austrian  influence.  The  domination  of  Austria  would  prevent  that 
of  France,  which  might  threaten  British  sea-power  in  the  Mediter- 
ranean, and  it  has  been  seen  that,  so  early  as  August  1813,  he  found 
it  necessary  to  encourage  Austrian  expansion  in  this  direction,  with  a 
view  to  preventing  her  from  looking  for  compensation  at  the  expense 
of  the  Turkish  Empire. 

Such  principles  were,  no  doubt,  laid  down  in  the  Instructions  which 
he,  apparently,  took  with  him,  but  which  unfortunately  have  not  been 
preserved.  At  any  rate,  they  were  the  principles  on  which  he  founded 

w.  &G.I.  30 


466       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

his  reports  to  his  timid  and  reluctant  Cabinet  in  the  course  of  his 
stay  at  Vienna.  No  doubt,  also,  there  were  added  covering  phrases 
as  to  the  advantages  of  the  restoration  of  a  completely  independent 
Poland,  if  circumstances  permitted.  But  Castlereagh  had  no  illusions 
on  this  subject.  He  knew  that  the  three  Eastern  Powers  would  never 
consent  to  give  up  their  spoils,  and,  though  he  was  careful  to  make, 
at  the  outset,  and  subsequently  as  the  occasion  required,  official 
representations  as  to  the  desire  of  his  Cabinet  for  the  reestablishment 
of  Polish  Independence,  such  declarations  were  merely  intended  to 
safeguard  his  Government  against  possible  attacks  in  Parliament. 
For,  from  so  early  a  date  as  February  1814,  Castlereagh  had  announced 
to  the  Austrian  statesmen  that  he  would  not  tolerate  any  separate 
Polish  Kingdom,  whether  openly  declared  or  created  in  some  in- 
direct manner,  and  since  then  all  his  efforts  had  been  directed  to 
combining  Prussia  and  Austria  in  a  refusal  to  give  up  any  part  of  their 
shares  of  the  Polish  Partitions  to  Russia.  In  order  to  detach  Prussia 
from  the  influence  of  the  Tsar,  it  had  been  necessary  to  promise  her 
the  bribe  which  Alexander  had  already  offered  her  at  Kalisch — the 
whole  of  the  kingdom  of  Saxony.  Metternich  had,  very  reluctantly, 
made  a  verbal  promise  to  this  effect  so  long  ago  as  January  1814,  and 
Castlereagh  had  accepted  this  arrangement  as  the  basis  of  the  agree- 
ment between  the  two  Powers.  In  the  discussions  at  Paris  and  Lon- 
don, and  subsequently,  though  other  points  of  difference  had  arisen, 
particularly  as  regards  Mainz,  which  Austria  wished  Bavaria  to 
acquire,  so  as  to  facilitate  her  own  acquisition  of  Salzburg  from  that 
Power,  this  arrangement  had  been  maintained  by  Metternich,  without 
any  written  agreement  having  been  exchanged.  There  was,  however, 
in  Austria  a  strong  party  opposed  to  it.  This  feeling  was  naturally 
shared  by  the  smaller  German  Powers,  who  were  in  effect  guilty  of 
all  the  offences  of  which  Saxony  was  accused,  while  the  preservation 
of  Saxony  was  the  principal  point  in  the  Instructions  which  Talleyrand 
had  drawn  up  for  himself,  and  even  took  precedence  of  his  desire  to 
dethrone  Murat.  Nevertheless,  Castlereagh  founded  his  whole  plan 
of  campaign  on  Austria's  consent  to  the  absorption  of  all  Saxony  by 
Prussia. 

It  was  with  issues  of  such  magnitude  impending  that  Metternich, 
Castlereagh,  Hardenberg  and  Nesselrode  began  their  preliminary  dis- 
cussions, on  September  i5th.  Their  first  task  was  to  make  a  plan  for 
the  deliberations  of  the  Congress ;  and  none  of  them  appear  at  the 
outset  to  have  quite  understood  how  difficult  this  task  was.  In  these 


THE  POLISH  AND  SAXON  QUESTIONS  467 

discussions,  Castlereagh  took  up  a  slightly  different  attitude  to  that 
of  his  colleagues.  He  agreed  that  "the  Four"  must  preserve  the 
"initiative"  granted  to  them  by  the  Secret  Article  of  the  Treaty  of 
Paris,  and  arrange  all  matters  between  themselves  before  they  were 
discussed  with  other  Powers.  But  he  carried  out  his  promise  to 
Talleyrand  to  do  his  best  to  make  the  position  of  France  as  little 
derogatory  as  was  possible  under  the  circumstances.  He  acquiesced 
in  the  strongly  expressed  wish  of  his  colleagues  to  exclude  her  from 
the  preliminary  discussions,  but  entered  a  protest  in  the  Protocol 
of  September  22nd,  against  this  decision  being  too  bluntly  laid  down. 
Similarly,  he  was  anxious  that  the  decision  of  the  Great  Powers  to 
keep  matters  in  their  own  hands  should  be  made  as  palatable  as 
possible  to  the  smaller  Powers,  and  that  they  should  maintain  their 
control  "without  openly  assuming  authority1."  He  failed,  however, 
to  convince  his  colleagues,  and,  when  Talleyrand  appeared  at  Vienna, 
he  found  no  difficulty  in  preventing  the  acceptance  of  the  schemes  of 
"the  Four,"  with  the  result  that  the  opening  of  the  Congress  was 
postponed,  while  the  points  at  issue  began  to  be  discussed  amongst 
the  Plenipotentiaries  of  the  Four  in  an  informal  way,  but  with  the 
fixed  intention  of  producing  some  settlement,  before  either  France 
or  the  smaller  Powers  were  allowed  any  opportunity  to  put  forward 
their  views  in  any  formal  manner. 

In  the  discussions  on  the  Polish  and  Saxon  questions  thus  opened, 
Castlereagh  played  a  prominent  and,  in  some  respects,  a  dominant 
role.  The  formal  agreement  between  Austria  and  Prussia  as  to  Saxony 
still  hung  fire,  and,  until  this  was  reached,  neither  Hardenberg  nor 
Metternich  could  assume  too  bold  an  attitude  towards  the  Tsar.  It 
was  on  Castlereagh,  therefore,  that  the  main  burden  fell  of  arguing 
the  case,  and  endeavouring  to  make  the  Tsar  understand  that  his 
plans  for  a  kingdom  of  Poland  under  the  Russian  Crown  were  opposed 
by  all  his  three  Allies.  A  diplomatic  duel  thus  began  of  extreme 
bitterness,  which  very  nearly  indeed  produced  a  European  war.  If 
Castlereagh  suffered  some  heavy  defeats,  he  managed  at  last  to  pro- 
duce a  settlement  which  he  could  conscientiously  defend,  and  the 
courage  and  address  with  which  he  managed  his  attack  have  rarely 
been  excelled  by  a  British  statesman. 

Though  Nesselrode  retained  his  position  of  principal  Minister, 
Alexander  kept  the  control  of  affairs  in  his  own  hands,  and  was 

1  For  details  on  these  points  of  organisation  see  C.  K.  Webster,  The  Congress  of 
Vienna,  Part  n. 


468        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

advised  by  a  group  of  foreigners  of  whom  Czartoryski,  Capodistrias, 
Stein  and  Anstett  had  the  most  influence.  Castlereagh's  negotiations 
during  this  first  period  were,  therefore,  conducted  with  the  Tsar 
himself,  and  it  was  only  when  Alexander  had  completely  failed  to 
overcome  the  stubborn  resistance  offered  to  his  plans  that  he  asked 
for  the  employment  of  the  regular  diplomatic  channels.  The  dis- 
cussions began  with  two  interviews  at  the  end  of  September ;  and,  from 
the  outset,  it  was  apparent  that  there  was  little  hope  of  agreement. 
Alexander,  doubtless  with  much  sincerity,  defended  his  policy  as  one 
dictated  by  a  wish  to  help  Poland,  and  not  merely  by  Russian  interests 
or  personal  ambition.  He  hinted,  however,  that  he  was  prepared  to 
modify  his  views  as  to  the  erection  of  a  Polish  kingdom,  and  he  had 
already,  in  deference  to  the  loudly  expressed  wishes  of  his  Russian 
advisers,  abandoned  the  idea  of  including  in  it  Lithuania  and  White 
Russia.  Castlereagh,  with  great  frankness,  insisted  that  the  Tsar's 
plans  ran  counter  to  the  wishes  of  all  his  Allies  as  well  as  of  his  own 
Russian  subjects.  He  said  that,  so  far  as  England  was  concerned, 
the  creation  of  an  independent  Poland  would  be  welcomed,  and  he 
secured  an  admission  at  the  outset  that  this  course  was  rendered  im- 
possible by  the  attitude  of  all  the  Three  Eastern  Powers.  He  refused 
to  admit,  therefore,  Alexander's  plea  of  a  moral  duty  towards  the 
Poles.  So  long  as  Russia  denied  them  full  independence,  she  could 
only  rely  on  the  Treaties  concluded  between  the  three  Powers  to 
justify  herself,  and  these  precluded  the  granting  of  a  Constitution 
(which,  as  Castlereagh  held,  would  cause  grave  discontent  among 
those  Poles  who  were  left  under  Prussian  and  Austrian  rule),  and  bound 
Russia  to  an  equitable  Partition  with  her  Allies.  At  the  end  of  a  second 
interview,  the  discussion  grew  warm,  and  Alexander  hinted,  though 
in  a  less  menacing  tone  than  he  was  employing  towards  Metternich 
and  Talleyrand,  that  he  was  in  possession,  and  meant  to  remain  so. 
To  this  threat  Castlereagh  returned  an  answer  which  he  was  to  make 
on  more  than  one  occasion  during  the  course  of  the  Congress ;  that 
only  the  recognition  by  Europe  could  enable  a  Power  to  enjoy  new 
possessions  with  tranquillity1. 

Meanwhile,  Castlereagh  was  working  hard  to  cement  the  tenta- 
tive Alliance  already  formed  between  Austria  and  Prussia.  Both 
Metternich  and  Hardenberg  were  anxious  to  come  to  an  agreement, 
but  both  had,  throughout  the  Congress,  to  reckon  with  forces  in 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  October  2nd,  October  gih,  1814.  P.O.  Continent.  7 ; 
British  Diplomacy,  pp.  197,  201. 


THE  AUSTRO-PRUSSIAN  AGREEMENT  469 

their  own  country  which  made  a  decided  course  of  action  difficult. 
Hardenberg's  principal  obstacle  was  his  King,  who,  in  his  heartfelt 
gratitude  to  the  Tsar,  found  it  almost  impossible  to  oppose  his  wishes. 
There  was,  also,  a  strong  military  party  to  reckon  with  in  Prussia,  who 
were  not  only  determined  to  secure  all  Saxony,  but  were  passionately 
opposed  to  allowing  Mainz,  which  they  regarded  as  the  key  to  southern 
Germany,  to  remain  in  Bavarian  hands.  Metternich  was  himself 
ready  to  yield  Saxony  to  Prussia.  But  Stadion,  Starhemberg  and 
others  were  urgent  against  such  a  course,  and,  if  he  was  to  satisfy  them, 
it  was  necessary  that  the  loss  of  Saxony  should  be  compensated  by 
large  concessions  to  Austrian  interests,  not  only  in  Poland,  but  on 
the  whole  of  the  German  Questions,  including  not  only  Mainz  but 
the  form  of  the  Confederation,  which  was  now  being  tentatively  dis- 
cussed in  a  Special  Committee. 

Castlereagh  could  do  little  to  strengthen  the  infirm  will  of  the 
King  of  Prussia,  though  he  early  made  the  attempt;  but  he  succeeded 
in  bringing  the  two  Ministers  to  an  arrangement,  which,  though  it 
did  not  completely  satisfy  either  of  them,  would,  he  hoped,  prove  a 
stable  Alliance.  The  initiative  came  from  him,  and  without  his  inter- 
vention the  experiment  could  hardly  have  been  tried.  It  was  he  who 
drew  up  a  Memorandum  as  to  the  method  by  which  the  negotiation 
should  be  handled,  for  it  was  imperative  that  his  Allies  should  not 
use  arguments  which,  as  a  Constitutional  Minister,  he  could  not 
defend.  He  wished  the  offer  of  an  entirely  independent  Poland  to  be 
put  forward  at  the  outset  by  the  two  Powers,  being  convinced  that 
Alexander  could  not  accept  it:  so  that  the  arguments  for  Partition 
might  be  more  strongly  supported  by  Great  Britain  and  France.  He 
was  anxious,  also,  that  the  negotiations  should  be  begun  as  soon  as 
possible,  for  Alexander  was  every  day  committing  himself  more  deeply 
in  private  conversations  to  the  plan  which  he  had  laid  down  for  him- 
self. Hardenberg,  however,  told  his  Allies  that  he  would  take  no  step 
in  the  Polish  question  until  he  was  fully  assured  of  the  possession  of 
Saxony.  On  October  Qth,  he  addressed  letters  to  Castlereagh  and 
Metternich  categorically  demanding  an  answer  in  writing  to  his  de- 
mand. Castlereagh's  answer  of  October  nth  was  explicit.  He  gave 
formal  consent  to  the  total  absorption  of  Saxony  by  Prussia  and, 
provided  she  loyally  supported  his  Polish  plans,  offered  no  objections 
to  her  immediately  taking  over  the  provisional  administration  of  the 
country  from  Prince  Repnin,  the  Russian  governor.  He  also  denied 
the  King  of  Saxony's  right  to  any  indemnity,  for  he  had  no  desire  to 


470       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

complicate  the  rest  of  the  settlement  by  the  necessity  of  finding 
another  realm  for  Frederick  Augustus.  Metternich's  answer  was  more 
difficult  to  obtain ;  but  he  at  last  yielded  to  Hardenberg's  pressure.  His 
answer,  on  October  22nd,  gave  a  reluctant  consent  to  the  annexation 
of  Saxony,  but  only  on  the  express  condition  that  Prussia  should,  in 
her  turn,  consent  to  arrangements  satisfactory  to  Austria  in  the  rest 
of  Germany.  This  was  scarcely  an  Alliance,  and  Castlereagh  only 
secured  the  consent  of  both  Hardenberg  and  Metternich  to  joint 
action  after  a  long  and  stormy  interview.  Even  then,  some  of  the 
points  in  dispute  between  them  were  merely  waived  for  the  moment. 
They,  however,  agreed  to  follow  the  plan  of  action  drawn  up  by 
Castlereagh  himself,  and  thus  the  formal  offer  of  an  independent  Poland 
was  made.  But  the  real  intention  was  to  confine  Russia  to  the  eastern 
bank  of  the  Vistula1. 

Meanwhile,  the  original  controversy  between  Alexander  and 
Castlereagh  had  been  continued  by  an  exchange  of  formal  notes. 
Castlereagh  had  sent  the  Emperor,  for  his  information,  the  Memo- 
randum which  he  had  drawn  up  as  a  basis  of  joint  action  between  the 
Powers.  He  was  embarrassed  at  receiving  from  the  Emperor  a 
vigorous  reply,  of  which  Czartoryski  was  the  author,  though  Alex- 
ander assumed  personal  responsibility  for  it.  Nevertheless,  Castlereagh 
felt  compelled  to  return  an  answer  in  which  he  adroitly  ascribed  the 
Russian  Memorandum  to  Alexander's  advisers,  and  thus  was  able  to  re- 
state his  case  with  the  utmost  possible  firmness2.  Even  then,  this  rather 
futile  method  of  negotiation  was  not  brought  to  a  close,  for  a  final 
answer  was  returned  by  Alexander,  together  with  a  cold  note  asking  that 
the  negotiations  should  henceforth  be  carried  on  by  the  regular 
channels  of  communication.  Neither  party  to  the  dispute  had  yielded  in 
the  slightest  degree,  and  Castlereagh  was  confirmed  in  his  opinion  that 
it  was  not  by  this  method  that  the  Tsar  would  be  made  to  give  way. 
Only  a  united  demand  by  the  Three  Powers  could,  he  thought,  force 
the  Tsar  to  a  compromise3. 

But  the  Alliance,  the  making  of  which  had  occupied  all  the  month 
of  October,  fell  to  pieces  almost  before  it  was  put  into  force.  Advan- 
tage was  taken  of  a  visit  of  the  three  Sovereigns  to  Buda-Pesth  to  make 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  October  24th,  1814.    P.O.  Continent.  7;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  212. 

2  Cooke  was  suspected  of  having  drawn  up  this  and  some  others  of  Castlereagh's 
notes ;  but  it  was  not  Castlereagh's  habit  to  entrust  such  important  work  to  sub- 
ordinates, however  competent  and  trustworthy. 

3  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  November  sth,  1814.    P.O.  Continent.  8;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  222. 


FAILURE  OF  CASTLEREAGH'S  PLAN  471 

the  onset  on  the  Tsar,  Castlereagh  purposely  leaving  the  affair  in  the 
hands  of  Metternich  and  Hardenberg.  Alexander  was  furious  and 
heaped  bitter  reproaches  on  the  two  Ministers  in  the  presence  of 
their  masters.  Frederick  William  was  not  proof  against  the  charge  of 
ingratitude,  and  withdrew  his  support  from  Hardenberg.  Castle- 
reagh's  scheme  thus  completely  failed.  Hardenberg  refused  to  follow 
up  the  first  attempt,  and  suggested  compromises  which  Metternich 
could  not  accept.  Nor  could  he  give  any  guarantee  that  he  would 
join  with  Austria  in  enforcing  these  conditions,  if  the  Tsar  refused 
to  accept  them,  as  he  surely  would.  The  situation  which  Castlereagh 
had  been  dreading  and  which  it  had  been  his  object  to  avoid,  even 
more  than  the  increase  in  Russian  power,  had  now  been  brought 
about.  If  Austria  could  not  obtain  a  Polish  frontier,  she  refused  to 
consent  to  the  incorporation  of  Saxony  in  Prussia ;  which  meant  that 
the  two  German  Powers  would  become  completely  estranged.  This 
Castlereagh  had  foreseen,  as  he  explained  to  his  Cabinet  in  narrating 
his  failure,  and  he  clearly  perceived  the  consequences  that  might  ensue. 

"I  deemed  it,"  he  reported  on  November  nth1,  "of  great  importance 
to  contribute  as  far  as  depended  upon  me  to  this  concert ;  considering  the 
establishment  of  Russia  in  the  heart  of  Germany  not  only  as  constituting 
a  great  danger  in  itself,  but  as  calculated  to  establish  a  most  pernicious  in- 
fluence both  in  the  Austrian  and  Prussian  Cabinets;  and  I  also  foresaw, 
that  if  these  two  Powers,  from  distrust  of  each  other,  gave  up  the  Polish 
point  as  desperate,  the  contest  in  negotiation  would  then  turn  upon  Saxony, 
Mayence  and  other  German  points,  and  through  the  contention  of  Austria 
and  Prussia,  the  supremacy  of  Russia  would  be  established  in  all  directions, 
and  upon  every  question :  whereas  an  understanding  previously  established 
on  German  affairs  gave  some  chance  of  ameliorating  the  Polish  arrangement, 
and,  in  case  of  its  failure,  afforded  the  best  if  not  the  only  means  of  coun- 
teracting the  Russian  influence  in  the  other  European  arrangements " 

This  was  his  defence  for  agreeing  to  the  annexation  of  Saxony  by 
Prussia,  which  he  knew  could  not  be  palatable  to  his  colleagues,  and  at 
the  same  time  he  explained  somewhat  anxiously  how  he  came  to  assume 
so  prominent  a  part  in  the  negotiations.  Though  the  Polish  question 
was  remote,  he  contended  that  all  British  interests,  even  her  interests 
in  the  Netherlands,  were  ultimately  bound  up  in  securing  a  pacific 
settlement. 

" I  have  certainly  been  led  from  circumstances,"  he  continued,  "to  take 
a  more  active  share  in  the  discussions  on  this  question  than  I  should  have 
permitted  myself  to  do  if  it  had  been  any  part  of  my  policy  to  push  the 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  November  nth,  1814.  P.O.  Continent.  8;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  229. 


472        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

Polish  point  to  a  hostile  issue.  In  preparing  for  so  serious  an  alternative, 
I  should  have  felt  the  propriety,  as  a  British  Minister,  of  preserving  a 
greater  degree  of  reserve :  it  being  the  province  of  Great  Britain  to  support 
rather  than  lead,  on  such  occasions.  But  in  proportion  as  I  felt  that  an 
effort  ought  to  be  made  successively,  by  conciliation,  by  moderation,  by 
persuasion,  by  pressure  of  argument,  and  ultimately  if  necessary  by  an 
imposing  negotiation,  uniting  the  general  sentiments  of  Europe  upon  sound 
and  popular  grounds,  and  not  by  armies,  I  felt  the  less  precluded  from 
taking  a  forward  part.  Some  advantages  have  perhaps  resulted  from  my 
being  the  person  to  do  so,  as  the  same  arguments,  had  they  been  urged  by 
the  parties  most  interested,  might  have  rendered  accommodation  more 
difficult...." 

In  requesting  approval  of  this  line  of  conduct  he  laid  down  for 
the  benefit  of  the  Cabinet  the  principles  on  which  he  conceived  it 
was  founded. 

In  the  first  place,  so  to  conduct  the  arrangements  to  be  framed  for  the 
Congress,  as  to  make  the  establishment  of  a  just  equilibrium  in  Europe  the 
first  object  of  my  attention,  and  to  consider  the  assertion  of  minor  points 
of  interest  as  subordinate  to  this  great  end.  Secondly,  to  use  my  best 
endeavours  to  support  the  Powers  who  had  contributed  to  save  Europe  by 
their  exertions,  in  their  just  pretensions  to  be  liberally  re-established  upon 
the  scale  to  which  their  treaties  entitled  them  to  lay  claim,  and  not  to  be 
deterred  from  doing  so  by  the  necessity  of  adopting,  for  this  end,  measures 
which,  although  not  unjust,  are  nevertheless  painful  and  unpopular  in  them- 
selves. And,  thirdly,  to  endeavour  to  combine  this  latter  duty  to  our  friends 
and  Allies  with  as  much  mildness  and  indulgence  even  to  the  offending 
states,  as  circumstances  would  permit. 

It  was  for  these  objects,  he  said,  that  he  had  combatted  Russia's 
plans  so  warmly.  But  he  was  convinced  that  a  milder  policy  would 
have  produced  worse  results,  and  he  was  not  hopeful  of  the  future. 

"Your  Lordship  may  rest  assured,"  he  concluded,  "that  no  effort  on 
my  part  shall  be  omitted  to  prevent  disunion  and  still  more  war ;  but  I  am 
confident  I  speak  the  universal  sentiment,  when  I  declare  my  perfect  con- 
viction, that,  unless  the  Emperor  of  Russia  can  be  brought  to  a  more  moderate 
and  sound  course  of  public  conduct,  the  peace,  which  we  have  dearly 
purchased,  will  be  but  of  short  duration." 

The  Cabinet  had  need  of  these  explanations  and  admonitions;  for 
the  proceedings  at  the  Congress  were  now  beginning  to  be  the  cause 
of  public  alarm  throughout  all  Europe.  Talleyrand's  opposition  had 
prevented  any  plan  being  accepted  for  the  formal  opening  of  the 
Congress,  and  he  had  skilfully  fomented  the  jealousy  of  all  the  small 
Powers  at  their  exclusion  from  any  important  business.  While  all  the 
energies  of  the  Four  Powers  were  directed  to  the  Polish-Saxon 


DISSATISFACTION  OF  THE  CABINET  473 

question,  but  little  progress  could  be  made  on  any  of  the  other  points 
of  dispute.  So  long  as  Austria  and  Prussia  were  at  enmity,  the  German 
Committee  could  come  to  no  conclusion,  and  its  meetings  soon  ceased 
altogether.  Of  Italian  Questions,  only  the  incorporation  of  Genoa  in 
Piedmont,  which  had  already  been  settled  by  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  could 
be  formally  considered.  Though  public  opinion  in  England  was  not 
seriously  interested  in  the  main  Questions  in  dispute  at  Vienna,  yet 
the  attitude  of  the  Opposition  in  the  House  of  Commons  was  very 
different  from  what  it  had  been  during  Castlereagh's  absence  in  the 
early  part  of  the  year.  The  conclusion  of  peace  had  liberated  them 
from  all  such  restraints  as  they  had  at  that  time  felt,  and,  as 
the  rumours  of  dissensions  at  Vienna  grew  more  and  more  preva- 
lent, they  began  a  vigorous  and  concerted  attack.  Talleyrand  and 
others  made  it  their  business  to  convey  to  the  public  as  much  informa- 
tion as  possible,  and  it  was  not  long  before  tolerably  authentic  news 
of  Castlereagh's  note  on  Saxony  reached  London.  Whitbread  took 
the  first  opportunity  to  uphold  the  cause  of  the  Saxon  King,  while 
the  Whigs  also  defended  Alexander,  declaring  that  he  wished  to 
restore  the  independence  of  Poland.  The  Ministers,  in  the  face  of 
Castlereagh's  pessimistic  despatches,  found  great  difficulty  in  coping 
with  these  attacks ;  and  their  task  was  all  the  more  uncongenial,  since 
none  of  them  were  sincerely  convinced  of  the  necessity  or  wisdom 
of  Castlereagh's  conduct.  They  cared  little  about  the  Continent, 
except  to  keep  out  of  trouble;  and  the  prominent  part  that  their 
Plenipotentiary  was  playing  in  the  thorny  questions  of  Saxony  and 
Poland  gradually  began  to  create  a  real  feeling  of  alarm.  This  was 
expressed  in  Liverpool's  private  letters  to  Vienna,  which,  without 
giving  any  specific  Instructions,  dwelt  continually  on  the  difficulties 
of  the  Ministry  in  Parliament,  and  urged  a  cautious  line  of  policy. 
At  the  end  of  October,  Vansittart  (who  was  much  embarrassed  by  the 
financial  questions  which  had  arisen  on  the  conclusion  of  peace) 
attacked  Castlereagh's  Polish  policy  in  a  Memorandum  which  was 
duly  forwarded  to  Vienna;  and  these  warnings  were  repeated  in 
November1. 

Yet  at  the  Congress,  after  a  short  interval,  Castlereagh  continued 
his  policy  of  active  mediation.  He  was  far  too  much  involved  in  the 
negotiations  to  play  a  passive  role  there,  and  he  never  wavered  in  his 
belief  that  it  was  only  by  his  own  active  participation  in  the  negotiations 

1  Liverpool  to  Castlereagh,  October  28th,  1814,  November  and,  November 
i8th.  Wellington,  Supplementary  Despatches,  ix.  382,  401,  438. 


474       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

that  a  rupture  could  be  averted,  which,  if  it  took  place,  must  involve  all 
Europe  and  ultimately,  therefore,  Great  Britain,  in  war.  Throughout 
November,  the  relations  between  the  three  Powers  grew  steadily 
worse.  Hardenberg  made  some  pretence  of  endeavouring  to  induce 
Alexander  to  yield,  and  after  his  failure  still  insisted  on  the  retention 
of  Saxony.  Since  he  could  no  longer  obtain  it  from  Metternich,  he 
went  over  completely  to  the  Russian  side,  and  it  was  not  long  before 
the  chances  of  war  were  openly  discussed  at  Vienna.  On  November 
8th,  Prince  Repnin,  the  Russian  Governor  of  Saxony,  handed  over 
the  administration  to  the  Prussians,  with,  as  he  declared  in  his  procla- 
mation, the  consent  of  Austria  and  Great  Britain.  This  act,  designed 
by  Alexander  to  foment  the  differences  between  Austria  and  Prussia, 
produced  exactly  the  effect  which  he  had  anticipated,  and  caused, 
moreover,  great  discussion  throughout  Europe  and  a  special  debate 
in  the  British  Parliament.  For  some  time,  Castlereagh  kept  away  from 
these  discussions,  which  were  prolonged  by  an  illness  of  Alexander; 
but,  by  the  beginning  of  December,  affairs  had  assumed  so  alarming 
an  aspect  that  he  was  approached  on  all  sides  for  help  in  order  to 
arrive  at  a  settlement,  and  he  took  up  once  more  his  role  of  Mediator. 
He  had  now,  however,  to  pursue  a  different  plan.  A  Polish  settle- 
ment such  as  he  had  desired,  he  felt  to  be  now  impossible,  since 
Prussia  had  refused  to  combine  with  Austria  to  extort  it  from  Alex- 
ander. The  great  question  now  was  that  of  Saxony,  and  as  to  this  Castle- 
reagh threw  his  whole  weight  on  the  side  of  Austria.  His  change  of 
attitude  was  attributed  by  public  gossip  at  the  Congress,  which  later 
found  expression  in  the  House  of  Commons,  to  a  change  of  In- 
structions from  home.  This  was,  however,  not  a  true  statement  of 
the  case.  Liverpool  did,  indeed,  suggest  to  Castlereagh  in  his  letters, 
that  the  total  extinction  of  Saxony  was  not  popular  in  England. 

"  I  ought  to  apprise  you,"  he  wrote  on  November  i8th,  "  that  there  is  a 
strong  feeling  in  this  country  respecting  Saxony.  The  case  against  the  King 
appears  to  me,  I  confess,  to  be  complete,  if  it  is  expedient  to  act  upon  it; 
but  the  objection  is  to  the  annihilation  of  the  whole  of  Saxony  as  an  inde- 
pendent Power,  particularly  considering  the  part  which  the  Saxon  troops 
took  in  the  operations  on  the  Elbe.  Considering  the  prominent  part  which 
Saxony  has  always  taken  in  the  affairs  of  Germany,  it  would  certainly  be 
very  desirable  that  a  noyau  of  it  at  least  should  be  preserved,  even  if  it  were 
under  some  other  branch  of  the  Saxon  family ;  and  I  am  fully  convinced  that 
the  King  of  Prussia  would  gain  more  in  character  and  influence  by  agreeing 
to  such  an  arrangement  than  he  would  lose  by  any  reasonable  sacrifice1." 

1  Wellington,  Supplementary  Despatches,  ix.  438. 


CASTLEREAGH  AND  THE  SAXON  COMPROMISE  475 

There  was,  however,  no  vehement  feeling  in  Great  Britain  on  this 
subject,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  various  diplomatic  agents  to  foment 
it,  and  The  Times,  which  attached  far  more  importance  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  Polish  independence  than  to  the  preservation  of  the  Saxon 
monarchy,  probably  represented  the  views  of  those  sufficiently  in- 
terested in  the  affairs  of  the  Congress  to  have  any  opinion  at  all. 

Castlereagh's  change  of  front,  in  fact,  though  approved  and  com- 
mended by  the  Cabinet,  was  the  natural  result  of  his  own  actions, 
and  not  dictated  from  home.  He  sought,  indeed,  not  the  preservation 
of  the  whole  of  Saxony,  but  a  compromise  which  would  enable  Austria 
and  Prussia  to  come  together  once  more  and  free  the  latter  from 
Russian  influence ;  and,  as  will  be  seen,  after  a  two  months'  struggle 
he  was  successful  in  bringing  his  plan  to  fruition. 

Until  the  beginning  of  December,  Castlereagh  made  no  attempt 
to  reopen  the  negotiations.  When,  however,  Alexander  had  per- 
emptorily rejected  the  suggestions  which  Hardenberg  had  hesita- 
tingly put  forward  as  a  means  of  "saving  his  face,"  and  Metternich 
had  intimated  that,  in  such  circumstances,  Austria  withdrew  her 
consent  to  the  Prussian  annexation  of  Saxony,  it  was  imperative  that 
he  should  declare  his  attitude,  before  an  open  rupture  of  relations 
between  the  two  German  Powers  took  place.  Hardenberg's  Notes 
had  begun  to  assume  a  menacing  tone,  and  Castlereagh  was  thus 
induced  to  seek  an  interview  with  him  in  the  first  days  of  December, 
in  order  to  make  it  clear  that,  in  the  new  aspect  of  affairs  which  had 
arisen  as  a  consequence  of  the  failure  to  oppose  Alexander,  he  sup- 
ported the  Austrian  case.  He  took  with  him  the  extract  from  Liver- 
pool's private  letter  of  November  i8th,  quoted  above,  in  order  to 
show  that  his  change  of  view  was  in  accordance  with  the  wishes  of 
his  Government.  Hardenberg  met  him  with  menacing  words,  de- 
claring that  he  "would  run  all  risks  rather  than  return  home  under 
such  an  humiliation."  Castlereagh's  answer  was  the  same  as  he  had 
given  to  Alexander  when  he  used  similar  language  with  regard  to 
Poland. 

"  I  represented,"  he  reported,  "that  this  was  not  a  case  of  war,  that  he 
was  in  occupation  of  Saxony,  and  that  I  apprehended  no  one  would  think 
of  removing  him  hostilely  from  thence;  but  that  he  could  not  regard  an 
unacknowledged  claim  as  constituting  a  good  title,  and  that  he  never  could, 
in  conscience  or  honour,  advise  his  sovereign  to  make  the  mere  refusal  of  a 
recognition  cause  of  war  against  other  states:  That  Prussia  would  then 
remain  in  a  state  of  disquietude  and  doubt,  compelled  to  remain  armed, 
and  that  his  return  to  Berlin  would,  under  such  circumstances,  be  more 


476       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

painful  than  if  he  brought  back  the  accession  of  all  the  Powers  of  Europe 
to  an  equal  extent  of  dominion,  though  differently  constituted1." 

Such  language  was  not  without  effect.  Hardenberg  promised  at 
least  to  consider  any  proposal  which  Austria  might  make,  and  Castle- 
reagh  hastened  to  Metternich  to  endeavour  to  make  this  as  conciliatory 
as  possible.  But  the  omens  were  not  favourable,  and  in  a  private  letter 
Castlereagh  directed  the  attention  of  his  Cabinet  to  the  chances  of 
war  and  to  the  necessity  of  his  interference,  if  it  was  to  be  prevented.  It 
was  impossible,  he  pointed  out,  for  Great  Britain  to  keep  out  of  such 
a  war  for  any  length  of  time ;  her  engagements  to  the  Netherlands,  if 
nothing  else,  would  bring  her  in.  He  suggested,  therefore,  that  the 
only  chance  of  peace  was  an  Armed  Mediation  between  the  three 
Eastern  Powers,  and  that,  in  order  to  make  this  effective, France  should 
be  asked  to  join  Great  Britain  in  such  action.  By  this  means,  she 
would  be  prevented  from  fishing  in  troubled  waters,  while  the  united 
force  of  the  two  Powers  might  be  sufficient  to  prevent  the  threatened 
explosion2. 

The  course  of  the  negotiations  showed  how  wellfounded  Castle- 
reagh's  fears  were.  Austria's  Memorandum  was  far  from  conciliatory. 
There  was  an  open  quarrel  between  Hardenberg  and  Metternich,  in 
which  all  their  private  correspondence  concerning  Poland  was  be- 
trayed to  the  Tsar.  Alexander  himself,  after  vainly  attempting  to 
obtain  Metternich's  dismissal,  showed  some  signs  of  willingness  to 
compromise,  and  offered  the  Tarnopol  district  to  Austria;  but  there 
appeared  to  be  no  possibility  of  agreement  on  the  Saxon  point. 

Meanwhile,  the  Cabinet  had  been  growing  more  and  more  alarmed. 
On  November  25th  an  attack  had  been  made  by  the  Opposition  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  pressing  for  information  on  the  rumours  of 
dissensions  concerning  Naples,  Saxony  and  Poland,  to  which  Ministers 
found  the  greatest  difficulty  in  returning  an  effective  reply.  A  meeting 
of  the  Cabinet  was  held  and  an  official  Instruction  was  sent  to  Castle- 
reagh— the  only  important  one  received  by  him  during  the  whole  course 
of  the  Congress — which,  while  approving  of  his  attitude  as  regards 
Poland,  expressed  the  greatest  alarm  at  the  general  state  of  Europe, 
and  concluded:  "It  is  unnecessary  for  me  to  point  out  to  you  the 
impossibility  of  His  Royal  Highness  consenting  to  involve  this  country 
in  hostilities  at  this  time  for  any  of  the  objects  which  have  hitherto  been 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool.  December  yth,  1814.    P.O.  Continent.  8;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  255. 

2  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  December  5th,  1814.  Wellington,  Supplementary 
Despatches,  ix.  463. 


CASTLEREAGH  AS  MEDIATOR  477 

under  discussion  at  Vienna1."  How  little  attention  Castlereagh  was 
to  pay  to  this  communication  will  be  seen.  The  Cabinet,  on  receipt  of 
his  despatches  of  December  5th  and  7th,  moved  further  in  his  direction. 
Liverpool  agreed  that  an  Alliance  with  France  was  desirable,  and  that, 
to  obtain  it,  some  concession  to  her  on  the  question  of  Murat  was 
expedient.  Any  settlement  of  Poland,  Germany  and  Italy  was,  he 
said,  to  be  preferred  to  war,  of  which,  however,  he  admitted  Great 
Britain  could  not  indefinitely  remain  a  mere  spectator.  He  renewed,  at 
the  same  time,  his  warning  against  committing  this  country  to  hostilities, 
and  intimated  that  the  Cabinet  could  not  sanction  such  a  course, 
until  they  were  in  possession  of  all  the  circumstances  of  the  rupture2. 
But  these  warnings  had  little  effect  on  the  negotiations  at  Vienna. 
Castlereagh  had  made  up  his  mind  as  to  the  course  to  be  taken,  and, 
during  three  weeks  of  ever-increasing  strain,  he  persisted  steadily  in 
a  line  of  action  which,  if  it  had  not  been  successful  in  its  object,  must 
have  resulted  in  an  immediate  outbreak  of  hostilities.  The  boldness 
of  his  action  was  justified  by  the  result :  peace  was  preserved,  and  it  is 
difficult  to  see  how  it  could  have  been  preserved  in  any  other  way. 
But  no  Foreign  Minister  has  ever  taken  upon  himself  a  greater 
responsibility  than  Castlereagh  assumed  in  the  negotiations  at  Vienna, 
and,  however  his  action  may  be  criticised  in  its  final  results,  due  re- 
cognition must  always  be  given  to  the  courage  and  energy  with  which 
he  acted  at  this  all-important  moment  in  the  history  of  Europe. 

He  had,  first,  to  make  sure  of  Talleyrand ;  and  this  task  proved  far 
less  difficult  than  might  have  been  expected.  Talleyrand  had  been 
successful  in  preventing  the  formal  opening  of  the  Congress ;  but,  until 
the  Powers  came  to  almost  open  rupture,  he  had  exercised  little  in- 
fluence on  their  discussions.  As  a  result  of  the  interview  in  Paris,  his  re- 
lations with  Castlereagh  had  been  closer  than  with  the  other  Ministers. 
His  insistence  on  the  interests  of  Saxony,  rather  than  of  Poland,  had 
indeed,  caused  some  discontent;  but  Castlereagh's  influence  had  held 
back  any  direct  step  on  his  part,  and  through  Wellington  he  had 
impressed  his  views  on  the  French  Court.  At  one  time,  there  had 
been  a  suspicion  that  Talleyrand  might  make  a  bargain  with  Alex- 
ander; but  his  Instructions  and  the  wishes  of  Lewis  XVIII  really 
left  him  no  alternative.  When,  therefore,  Castlereagh,  and  subse- 
quently Metternich,  began  to  make  overtures  to  him,  he  showed  every 

1  Bathurst  to  Castlereagh,  November  27th,  1814.    P.O.  Continent.  6;  British 
Diplomacy ,  p.  247. 

2  Liverpool  to  Castlereagh,  December  23rd,  1814.  Wellington,  Supplementary 
Despatches,  ix.  497. 


478        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

disposition  to  meet  them.  Castlereagh  throughout  treated  him  with 
regard,  though  he  never  gave  him  his  full  confidence  until  the  moment 
of  crisis  came.  Through  Castlereagh 's  influence,  the  issue  of  the 
French  Note  on  Saxony  was  postponed  until  the  first  plan  had  been 
shown  to  be  impossible,  and,  when  the  Prussian  demands  grew  more 
menacing,  Castlereagh,  as  has  been  seen,  began  to  look  forward  to  a 
French  Alliance.  Talleyrand's  only  condition  was  the  expulsion  of 
Murat,  which  Lewis  XVIII  regarded  as  of  equal  importance  to  the 
preservation  of  the  King  of  Saxony.  As  will  be  seen,  Castlereagh  had 
himself  long  desired  the  same  end,  if  it  could  be  obtained  without  an 
actual  breach  of  faith.  Though  he  could  not  give  Talleyrand  definite 
assurances  on  this  point,  he  put  forward  a  plan  by  which  Murat  was 
to  be  offered  a  pecuniary  indemnity  as  a  preliminary  to  his  expulsion, 
and  urged  Talleyrand  to  have  the  French  archives  searched  for 
proofs  of  Murat's  treachery  in  1814,  so  that  public  opinion  in  England 
and  Europe  might  be  satisfied.  With  these  assurances,  though  Metter- 
nich  was  far  less  explicit,  Talleyrand  was  content,  and  pressed  eagerly 
for  a  treaty,  from  which,  however,  Castlereagh  held  back  until  the 
very  last  minute.  For,  though  he  desired  the  French  Alliance,  if  a 
rupture  seemed  inevitable,  he  was  anxious  not  to  force  it  prematurely, 
lest  it  should  give  an  excuse  for  the  outbreak  which  it  was  meant  to 
prevent1. 

In  the  latter  half  of  December,  Castlereagh  made  a  final  effort  to 
settle  the  matters  in  dispute.  The  Three  Powers  all  pressed  him  to 
accept  the  office  of  Mediator,  and  with  this  end  in  view  he  consented 
to  fresh  interviews  with  the  Prussians.  They  now  brought  forward 
a  new  plan  by  which  the  King  of  Saxony  was  to  receive,  as  compensa- 
tion for  his  kingdom,  a  large  part  of  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine ;  but 
Castlereagh  peremptorily  refused  to  have  anything  to  do  with  this 
scheme.  Such  a  State  would,  he  thought,  fall  entirely  under  the 
influence  of  France,  and  the  safety  of  the  Netherlands  would  be  com- 
promised. It  was  now  impossible,  he  said,  for  Prussia  to  obtain  the 
whole  of  Saxony.  She  must  look  for  compensation  elsewhere;  and, 
in  order  that  the  whole  matter  might  be  discussed  without  the  con- 
stant disputes  as  to  the  figures  of  population  of  the  various  territories 
concerned,  he  proposed  that  a  Statistical  Commission  should  be  set 
up,  composed  of  representatives  of  the  Four  Powers,  to  ascertain 
from  the  best  information  at  hand  the  numbers  of  "  souls  "  which  the 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  December  i8th,  1814.  Wellington,  Supplementary 
Despatches,  ix.  485. 


THE  CRISIS  AT  VIENNA  479 

Powers  had  severally  at  their  disposal.  Though  Prussia  as  yet  showed  no 
signs  of  compromise  on  the  Saxon  Question,  she  assented  to  this  pro- 
position, and  the  Committee,  which  proved  of  great  service  in  settling 
the  disputed  points,  was  set  up  on  December  24th.  It  contained  a 
French  representative,  for  Talleyrand  had  threatened  to  leave  the 
Congress,  if  admission  were  refused  him.  Castlereagh,  therefore, 
though  he  had  not  intended  to  expose  his  hand  so  soon,  pressed  for 
his  inclusion,  and  Prussia  and  Russia  gave  way.  On  December  25th 
he  went  further,  and  in  a  letter  to  Talleyrand  assured  him,  though  in 
vague  terms,  that  British  policy,  with  regard  not  only  to  Saxony,  but 
also  to  Naples,  was  aiming  at  the  same  ends  as  that  of  France1. 

The  final  crisis  was  now  at  hand.  The  Tsar,  now  that  he  felt 
assured  of  obtaining  almost  all  his  Polish  demands,  was  anxious  for 
peace.  But  Hardenberg,  urged  on  by  the  Prussian  military  leaders, 
refused  all  compromise,  and  Metternich,  who  was  supported  by  almost 
all  the  small  States,  showed  himself  equally  unyielding.  Matters  were 
brought  to  a  head  by  the  Tsar's  demand  for  a  formal  Conference  to 
settle  the  Polish  question.  When  this  met,  on  December  29th,  it  was 
inevitable  that  Saxony  must  be  discussed  as  well  as  Poland.  Castle- 
reagh and  Metternich,  therefore,  refused  all  formal  discussion  until  a 
French  Plenipotentiary  should  have  been  admitted.  Hardenberg 
vehemently  objected,  for  such  a  course,  in  view  of  Talleyrand's  zeal 
for  Saxony,  was  equivalent  to  accepting  defeat.  The  Prussians  en- 
deavoured to  carry  their  point  by  a  show  of  force  before  it  was  too 
late,  and  Hardenberg,  in  unguarded  words,  threatened  war,  unless 
the  Prussian  claims  on  Saxony  were  immediately  recognised.  His 
language  rid  Castlereagh  of  his  last  hesitations,  and  he  went  straight 
from  the  Conference  to  Talleyrand  and  Metternich,  with  the  project 
of  a  Secret  Treaty,  which  he  had  himself  drafted.  The  Treaty  was  an 
application  of  the  provisions  of  Chaumont  to  the  new  situation. 
France,  Austria  and  Great  Britain  were  each  to  contribute  150,000 
men,  if  attacked  by  Prussia.  Bavaria,  Hanover  and  the  Netherlands 
were  to  be  asked  to  accede  so  soon  as  it  was  signed.  Metternich,  of 
course,  accepted  it,  while  Talleyrand  was  no  less  ready,  and  made  no 
objection  to  a  Clause  which  bound  France  to  respect  in  any  event  the 
stipulations  of  the  Treaty  of  Paris.  He  was  content  that "  the  Coalition 
was  dissolved,"  and  the  French  redaction  which  he  drew  up  at 
Castlereagh's  request  only  made  one  or  two  insignificant  alterations 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  December  i8th,  December  24th,  1914.  F.O.  Con- 
tinent. 9;  British  Diplomacy,  pp.  260,  268. 


480       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

in  the  original  draft.  Even  in  the  matter  of  Saxony,  he  showed  himself 
accommodating,  for  Castlereagh  informed  both  him  and  Metternich, 
before  they  signed,  that  he  did  not  intend  to  refuse  Prussia  some 
increase  of  territory  in  that  quarter1. 

The  Treaty  meant  war,  if  Prussia  persisted  in  her  demands ;  and 
Castlereagh's  decision,  which  was  made  in  direct  opposition  to  the 
Instructions  of  his  Cabinet,  was,  therefore,  of  the  greatest  possible 
moment.  But,  as  he  told  Liverpool,  Great  Britain  was  bound  to  be 
drawn  into  the  war  in  any  case,  and  it  was  far  better  to  enter  into  it 
with  such  a  Treaty  than  to  let  events  take  their  course.  By  safe- 
guarding the  Treaty  of  Paris,  British  interests  in  the  Netherlands  were 
protected  and  no  temptation  was  offered  to  France  to  try  to  win  back  her 
conquests.  The  decision  was  at  once  accepted  by  the  Prime-Minister, 
as  Castlereagh  had  anticipated.  In  fact,  before  information  of  it  had 
arrived,  Liverpool  had  already  indicated,  in  a  letter  of  December  23rd2, 
that  the  Cabinet  were  prepared  for  the  French  Alliance.  But  this 
despatch  had  not  reached  Castlereagh  when  he  signed  the  Treaty; 
nor  can  it  be  said  that  the  news  of  the  signature  of  the  Treaty  of  Ghent 
with  the  United  States,  which  reached  him  on  the  morning  of 
January  ist,  was  a  deciding  factor  in  the  decision.  His  policy  had  long 
been  leading  up  to  such  an  event.  The  occasion  was  provided  by  the 
threats  of  Prussia,  which  gave  sufficient  excuse.  Castlereagh  per- 
ceived that  the  psychological  moment  had  come  when  the  final  battle 
must  be  fought  over  Saxony,  and  the  Treaty  was  therefore  only  a 
precautionary  measure  and  was  justified  by  its  success. 

In  a  few  days,  however,  all  danger  of  war  was  over.  In  the  second 
and  third  meetings  of  "the  Four,"  Metternich  and  Castlereagh,  em- 
boldened by  their  Treaty,  persisted  in  their  demand  for  the  inclusion 
of  France,  and  Hardenberg,  after  a  vain  struggle,  yielded.  Another 
attempt  was  made  by  the  Prussians  to  press  the  scheme  of  compensa- 
ting the  King  of  Saxony  by  a  territory  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine. 
Castlereagh  countered  this  by  a  special  interview  with  Razumoffski, 
the  Russian  representative,  which  was  followed  by  one  with  the  Tsar 
himself.  There  could  be  no  doubt  of  Alexander's  desire  for  peace. 
He  had  heard  something  of  the  Secret  Treaty,  and  challenged  Castle- 
reagh pointblank  on  the  subject.  The  reply  which  he  received  must 
have  left  him  in  no  doubt  that  some  formal  bond  existed,  and  he 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  January  ist,  1815  (nos.  43,  44,  45).    P.O.  Con- 
tinent. 10;  British  Diplomacy,  pp.  276-279. 

2  See  supra,  p.  477. 


CASTLEREAGH  AND  THE  FINAL  SETTLEMENT  481 

showed  great  alacrity  in  accepting  the  scheme  for  the  reconstruction 
of  Prussia  which  Castlereagh  had  drawn  up1. 

Thus,  when  the  Council  of  Five  met  on  January  loth,  the  main 
issue  on  the  Saxon  question  had  already  been  decided.  Prussia  knew 
that  she  must  give  way,  and  it  only  remained  to  settle  how  much  of 
Saxony  was  to  be  given  her,  and  how  her  other  losses  in  Poland  were 
to  be  compensated.  But  the  settlement  occupied  another  five  weeks 
of  arduous  discussions,  before  it  was  finally  concluded.  In  these  dis- 
cussions, Castlereagh  throughout  acted  as  a  real  Mediator,  and  fully 
redeemed  his  promise  to  Hardenberg,  that  he  intended  to  make  a 
large  and  powerful  Prussia.  From  the  first,  he  had  great  difficulties 
with  his  Allies.  Both  Metternich  and  Talleyrand  were  anxious  to 
exploit  their  victory  to  the  utmost,  and  to  exclude  Prussia  from 
obtaining  any  considerable  portion  of  Saxony.  In  these  circumstances, 
Castlereagh  had  himself  to  take  the  initiative  and  to  force  concessions 
on  Prussia's  behalf,  speaking  to  the  Emperor  Francis  in  person,  when 
Metternich  confessed  himself  unable  to  cope  with  the  demands  of 
the  Austrian  military  party.  He  did  not,  indeed,  obtain  anything 
like  enough  to  satisfy  the  pretensions  of  the  Prussians,  who  insisted 
for  a  long  time  on  the  retention  of  Leipzig.  A  complete  deadlock  arose 
on  this  head,  which  threatened  to  wreck  the  negotiations  completely, 
and,  after  long  and  painful  interviews  with  Hardenberg  and  the  King 
of  Prussia,  Castlereagh  was  unable  to  bring  them  to  accept  the  last 
Austrian  offer.  It  was  only  by  inducing  Alexander  to  cede  the  fortress 
of  Thorn  to  Prussia  that  he  was  at  last  able  to  wring  a  reluctant  con- 
sent from  Hardenberg  to  relinquishing  Leipzig.  Finally,  after  repeated 
interviews  with  the  Ministers  and  their  Sovereigns,  he  secured  a 
scheme  to  which  all  parties  consented2. 

In  this  rearrangement,  the  whole  German  and  Polish  settlement 
was  concluded;  and,  except  on  one  or  two  minor  points,  all  the 
boundaries  of  Europe  north  of  the  Alps  were  thus  settled  before 
Castlereagh  left  Vienna.  In  order  to  satisfy  the  Allies  and  to  obtain 
more  territory  for  the  purpose  of  Prussian  reconstruction,  he  cut  down 
to  the  lowest  possible  limit  the  claims  of  the  Netherlands  and  Hanover. 
In  the  last  resort,  both  these  States  depended  on  Great  Britain's 
goodwill,  and  Castlereagh  was  able  to  use  his  influence  with  them  for 


1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  January  8th,  1815.  P.O.  Continent.  10;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  283. 

a  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  January  nth,  22nd,  29th,  1815.  P.O.  Continent,  n  ; 
British  Diplomacy,  pp.  287,  292,  294. 

W.&G.I.  71 


482       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

the  advantage  of  the  general  settlement.  The  final  result  satisfied  his 
expectations,  so  far  as  the  centre  of  Europe  was  concerned.  The  Prince 
of  Orange,  now  King  of  the  Netherlands,  was  master  of  what  was 
thought  to  be  a  solid  and  compact  State,  and  Luxemburg  was  also  under 
his  sovereignty,  though  it  remained  part  of  the  German  Confedera- 
tion. Prussia  received  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine  and  was  thus  at 
hand  to  protect  the  Netherlands, as  Pitt  had  planned  in  1805^  Hanover, 
strengthened  by  the  absorption  of  East  Frisia  in  its  territory /reached 
the  mouth  of  the  Ems,  and  thus,  as  Castlereagh  hoped,  a  solid  bloc 
was  made  on  the  north-eastern  frontier  of  France,  where  she  had 
always  gained  such  signal  successes.  Prussia  received  nearly  two- 
fifths  of  Saxony  in  which  Castlereagh  had  insisted  on  including, 
much  to  Austria's  annoyance,  the  Elbe  fortresses  of  Torgau  and 
Erfurt.  Even  more  important,  however,  than  the  actual  details  of  the 
Saxon  compromise  was  that  it  again  made  possible  good  relations 
between  Austria  and  Prussia,  and  prepared  the  way  for  a  renewal  of 
the  negotiations  on  the  subject  of  a  German  Confederation,  to  which, 
as  a  means  to  solidify  and  strengthen  central  Europe,  Castlereagh 
attached  the  highest  importance. 

In  the  Polish  matter,  Castlereagh  had  to  be  content  with  such 
concessions  as  Alexander  would  grant.  Almost  the  whole  of  the 
duchy  of  Warsaw  remained  in  Russian  hands,  and  out  of  this  Alexander 
created  a  separate  kingdom  of  Poland.  The  cession  of  Thorn  to  Prussia 
and  the  establishment  of  Cracow  as  a  Free  Town  implied  a  certain 
concession  to  the  Central  Powers,  but  the  whole  result  was  regarded 
as  a  menace  to  their  peace.  Before  the  settlement  was  completed, 
Castlereagh  made  a  special  declaration  of  the  wish  of  Great  Britain 
for  an  independent  Poland,  had  such  a  result  been  possible.  In  this 
he  was  quite  consistent,  for  he  had  at  the  outset  of  the  negotiations 
declared  himself  in  the  same  sense.  But,  as  has  been  seen,  he  had 
never  intended  it  seriously,  and  the  declaration  now  made  was  merely 
to  satisfy  public  opinion  in  England,  which  had  throughout  con- 
sistently advocated  Polish  independence,  and  had  even  accused  Castle- 
reagh of  thwarting  Alexander's  good  intentions  on  the  subject.  In 
this  point,  he  only  anticipated  the  wishes  of  his  Cabinet,  for  Liverpool 
wrote  specially  a  few  days  later  to  urge  its  importance1.  More  sincere, 
perhaps,  were  his  solemn  injunctions  to  the  three  Eastern  Powers 
to  grant  the  Poles  special  privileges. 

1  Liverpool  to  Castlereagh,  January  i6th,   1815.  Wellington,  Supplementary 
Despatches,  ix.  539. 


CASTLEREAGH  AND  POLISH  NATIONALITY       483 

"Experience  has  proved,"  wrote  Castlereagh,  "that  it  is  not  by  coun- 
teracting all  their  habits  and  usages  as  a  people,  that  either  the  happiness 
of  the  Poles  or  the  peace  of  that  important  portion  of  Europe  can  be  pre- 
served. A  fruitless  attempt  so  long  persevered  in  by  institutions  foreign 
to  their  manners  and  sentiments,  to  make  them  forget  their  existence  and 
even  language  as  a  people,  has  been  sufficiently  tried  and  failed.  It  has 
only  tended  to  excite  a  sentiment  of  discontent  and  self-degradation,  and 
can  never  operate  otherwise  than  to  provoke  commotion  and  to  awaken 
them  to  a  recollection  of  past  misfortunes. 

"The  Undersigned,  for  these  reasons,  and  in  cordial  concurrence  with 
the  suggestions  which  have  been  thrown  out,  and  which  appear  to  have 
been  favourably  received  by  the  respective  Cabinets  in  the  course  of  the 
present  Conferences,  ardently  desires  that  the  illustrious  Monarchs,  to 
whom  the  destinies  of  the  Polish  nation  are  confided,  may  be  induced, 
before  they  depart  from  Vienna,  to  take  an  engagement  with  each  other, 
to  treat  as  Poles,  under  whatever  form  of  political  institution  they  may 
think  fit  to  govern  them,  the  portion  of  that  nation  that  may  be  placed 
under  their  respective  sovereignties1." 

It  may  be  doubted  if  Castlereagh,  who  had  from  the  first  aimed 
at  a  partition  of  the  duchy  of  Warsaw  between  the  Three  Powers,  had 
any  right  to  make  such  a  protest,  at  any  rate  to  Alexander,  who,  among 
all  the  statesmen  at  Vienna,  was  alone  really  desirous  of  making 
any  concession  to  Polish  nationality.  But  the  Tsar  did  not  resent  it, 
and,  as  a  result  of  it,  the  Treaty  of  Vienna  contained  a  guarantee  to 
the  Poles  of  a  separate  administration  and  institutions  which  at  least 
served  as  a  legal  basis  for  the  protests  which  were  to  be  made  on  their 
behalf  by  Great  Britain  and  France  during  the  nineteenth  century2. 

The  main  territorial  settlement  north  of  the  Alps  had  thus  been 
settled  before  Castlereagh  left  Vienna.  Such  was,  however ,  not  the  case 
with  Italy,  where  some  problems  had  been  postponed  until  the  great 
dispute  was  settled.  Nevertheless,  Italian  Questions,  and  particularly 
the  position  of  Murat,  played  a  by  no  means  inconsiderable  part  in 
the  diplomacy  that  led  to  the  Treaty  of  January  3rd;  and,  throughout, 
the  Powers  were  fully  aware  that  this  difficulty  had  to  be  dealt  with 
before  the  peace  of  Europe  could  be  assured.  Metternich  had  suc- 
ceeded in  preventing  any  formal  discussion  on  Italian  problems, 
except  that  of  Genoa,  which  was  already  decided  by  the  Peace  of 
Paris,  until  he  should  have  settled  matters  with  the  Tsar.  He  had 
naturally  no  wish  to  raise  difficulties  in  Italy  which  would  weaken 

1  British  and  Foreign  State  Papers,  n.  642. 

2  The  Poles  approached  Wellington  after  Castlereagh 's  departure  for  further 
action  in  their  favour,  which  he  declined  to  take.  Wellington  to  Castlereagh, 
February  i8th,  25th,  1815.  Wellington,  Supplementary  Despatches,  ix.  571,  579. 

31—2 


484       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

his  position  in  his  negotiations  concerning  Poland  and  Saxony.  Thus, 
neither  Talleyrand  nor  Labrador  was  able  to  open  formally  the 
Question  of  Naples  during  the  period  of  crisis.  It  was,  however,  often 
referred  to  in  the  negotiations,  and  Alexander  no  less  than  Metternich 
and  Castlereagh  endeavoured  to  use  it  as  a  means  to  influence  Talley- 
rand's policy,  which  was,  however,  as  has  been  seen,  determined  by 
other  considerations.  Nevertheless,  Talleyrand  had  to  be  satisfied  on 
the  head  of  Naples,  and,  before  the  final  crisis,  he  had  received  assur- 
ances, from  Castlereagh  at  least,  that  the  Bourbon  claim  to  overthrow 
Murat  would  be  met  in  some  way  or  other.  The  means  by  which  this 
promise  was  carried  out  led  to  one  of  the  most  obscure  and  intricate 
diplomatic  incidents  of  the  period1.  None  of  the  parties  to  the 
discussion  dare  act  openly,  and  the  exact  processes  by  which  the 
final  result  was  brought  about  are  still  to  some  extent  unknown. 

As  has  been  seen,  Castlereagh,  in  spite  of  his  acquiescence  in  the 
Treaty  between  Austria  and  Murat,  had  attempted  to  keep  his  hands 
free.  Of  his  personal  desire  to  restore  the  Bourbons  there  can  be  no 
doubt,  though  he  in  no  way  committed  himself  towards  the  Duke  of 
Orleans  before  he  set  out  for  Vienna.  From  the  first,  he  showed 
himself  cold  and  reserved  towards  Murat's  able  representatives  at 
Vienna,  the  Due  de  Campochiaro  and  Prince  Cariati.  These  Envoys, 
from  the  opening  of  the  Congress  onwards,  never  ceased  to  press  for 
the  formal  recognition  of  Murat,  which,  they  claimed,  had  been 
promised  at  the  time  of  the  Armistice.  Castlereagh  eluded  all  these 
attempts,  and  gradually  felt  his  way  towards  a  solution.  The  task  was 
not  an  easy  one.  Unless  Murat  could  be  shown  to  have  broken  his 
engagements,  Great  Britain,  if  not  so  deeply  committed  as  Austria, 
had  yet  virtually  agreed  to  his  retention  of  his  kingdom.  It  remained 
to  be  seen  whether  a  way  could  be  found  to  break  this  agreement 
without  too  open  a  breach  of  faith.  Castlereagh  and  Metternich 
proved  equal  to  the  problem,  but  they  were  immensely  assisted  by 
Murat's  own  lack  of  judgment  and  control,  while  the  return  of 
Napoleon  made  the  final  denouement  very  different  from  what  had  been 
anticipated,  and  obscured  the  fact  that  Murat's  deposition  had  already 
been  decided  when  Castlereagh  left  Vienna.  The  first  act  of  Campo- 
chiaro was  to  present  to  Castlereagh  and  other  statesmen  a  Memoire 
Historique,  defending  Murat's  conduct  during  the  period  between  the 

1  The  most  complete  account  is  given  in  Commandant  M.  H.  Weil's  Joachim 
Murat  (1909-10)  which  is  based  on  extensive  researches  in  Italian,  Austrian,  French 
and  British  archives,  and  furnishes  an  immense  collection  of  documents. 


ITALIAN  QUESTIONS  485 

Battle  of  Leipzig  and  the  conclusion  of  the  First  Peace  of  Paris.  Murat 
had  become  alarmed,  and  justly  so,  at  the  hostility  displayed  against 
him  in  so  many  quarters.  France  and  Spain  were  openly  and  fiercely 
supporting  the  claims  which  Ferdinand  IV  had  never  abandoned. 
The  Papacy,  though  under  the  distinguished  influence  of  Consalvi,  it 
was,  at  this  time,  by  no  means  disposed  to  acquiesce  in  Austrian  domi- 
nation of  the  peninsula,  yet  was  disputing  with  Murat  the  control  of 
the  Marches  and  refused  him  recognition.  From  the  Northern  Powers 
he  could  expect  nothing.  He  had  therefore  to  rely  on  his  Treaty  with 
Austria  and  the  self-commitments  of  Great  Britain.  The  support  of  this 
latter  Power  was,  indeed,  most  vital  of  all,  for  she  still  virtually  con- 
trolled Sicily,  which  her  troops  still  occupied  and  her  subsidies  fur- 
nished with  revenue,  while  her  sea  power  prevented  such  an  attack 
as  France  and  Spain  might  be  disposed  to  contemplate.  The  Memoir e 
Historique  was  intended  to  force  Castlereagh's  hand.  It  merely,  how- 
ever, gave  an  opportunity  to  Bentinck  and  Nugent,  the  Austrian  General, 
to  whom  it  was  referred  for  observations  when  the  right  moment  came, 
to  repeat  all  their  accusations  against  Murat,  and  left  matters  exactly 
as  they  were.  In  his  interviews  with  Campochiaro,  Castlereagh  replied 
coldly  and  cautiously  to  all  attempts  to  ascertain  his  views.  He  told 
the  Envoy,  frankly,  that  he  considered  the  Question  an  open  one 
while  at  the  same  time  he  tried  to  prevent  Murat  from  taking  any 
action  by  pointing  out  that  the  Armistice  could  only  be  denounced 
with  three  months'  notice.  Meanwhile,  he  asked  A'Court  to  find  out 
how  far  the  Bourbons  could  look  for  support  in  Naples  itself1. 

The  death  of  Maria  Carolina,  Bentinck's  constant  foe,  on  Septem- 
ber yth,  removed  one  possible  obstacle  to  a  Bourbon  Restoration,  which 
events  at  Vienna  made  more  and  more  necessary,  and  Murat's  relations 
with  the  Tory  Government  were  not  made  easier  by  the  visit  of  the 
Princess  of  Wales  to  Naples  and  her  openly  expressed  admiration  for 
the  King,  while  such  English  friends  as  Lord  Oxford,  who  was  arrested 
at  Paris  when  on  a  secret  mission  from  Murat,  did  him  more  harm 
than  good. 

Meanwhile,  at  Vienna,  Talleyrand  and  Labrador  had  been  pressing 
not  only  the  dethronement  of  Murat,  but  also  the  restoration  to  the 
Spanish  Bourbons  of  the  Parma  duchies,  assigned  to  Marie-Louise  and 
her  son  by  the  Treaty  of  Fontainebleau.  These  overtures  had  no 
immediate  result,  and  it  was  only  the  incorporation  of  Genoa  in 
Piedmont  which  was  formally  agreed  to  at  this  time.  This  cession 

1  Castlereagh  to  A'Court,  October  2nd,  1814.  Castlereagh  Correspondence,  x.  145. 


486        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

provoked  considerable  criticism  in  the  British  Parliament;  for  the 
Whigs,  instructed  by  Bentinck,  seized  on  this  point  as  a  means  of 
embarrassing  the  Ministry.  Nor  was  it  long  before  the  attention  of 
the  Opposition  was  turned  to  Naples.  They  were  well  informed  by 
Murat's  agents  of  the  actual  situation  and,  in  a  debate  on  November 
25th,  Castlereagh  was  accused  of  bad  faith  by  Whitbread  and  Horner. 
These  attacks  had,  however,  little  influence  on  Castlereagh,  though 
they  may  have  contributed  to  Murat's  fall  by  making  him  imagine 
that  his  cause  had  powerful  supporters  in  England.  On  the  con- 
trary, as  the  dispute  over  Saxony  grew  hotter,  Castlereagh  drew  closer 
to  Talleyrand,  and  this  necessarily  meant  some  agreement  on  the 
Neapolitan  Question.  He  was,  perhaps,  influenced  to  some  extent  by 
Wellington's  opinion,  freely  communicated  from  Paris,  that  the  Peace 
of  Europe  could  not  be  considered  secure  while  Murat  was  on  the 
Throne  of  Naples.  Gradually,  therefore,  Castlereagh  came  to  a  de- 
cision; and  when,  on  December  I3th,  Talleyrand  in  a  formal  Note 
proposed  that  all  the  Powers  should  recognise  Ferdinand  as  King  of 
Naples  and  that  Murat  should  be  deposed  by  a  maritime  expedition, 
so  as  to  avoid  the  sending  of  French  troops  through  Italy,  he  promised 
to  seek  Instructions  from  London.  This  he  did  in  a  long  letter  to 
Liverpool  on  December  i8th,  in  which  he  went  further  than  he  had 
indicated  to  Talleyrand1.  It  was  clear,  he  wrote,  that  Murat  had  not 
fulfilled  his  engagements,  and  that,  therefore,  Great  Britain  was  free 
to  act  in  favour  of  the  Sicilian  Bourbons.  He  proposed,  accordingly, 
that  a  definite  offer  should  be  made  of  a  pecuniary  compensation  to 
Murat  himself  and  his  heirs,  together  with  a  solemn  guarantee  to  the 
Neapolitans  of  an  amnesty  and  "  such  rights  and  privileges . . .  as  may  be 
just  and  reasonable."  If  Murat  refused  this  offer,  then  the  future  course 
must  be  decided  according  to  events ;  but  it  was  obvious  that  Castlereagh 
did  not  anticipate  much  difficulty  in  overthrowing  him  by  force,  and 
that  Austria  would  not  offer  much  objection.  Metternich  had,  indeed, 
as  yet  not  committed  himself;  but,  so  early  as  the  middle  of  November, 
direct  negotiations  had  been  opened  between  him  and  Blacas  at  Paris 
without  the  knowledge  of  Talleyrand,  which  were  to  play  an  im- 
portant part  in  the  solution  of  the  whole  question.  By  the  end  of 
December,  these  had  developed  into  a  proposition  to  settle  the  Nea- 
politan question  at  Paris,  and,  by  the  middle  of  January,  these  pour- 
parlers had  carried  the  matter  considerably  further.  Meanwhile,  how- 

Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  December  i8th,  1814.  Wellington,  Supplementary 
Despatches,  ix.  485. 


MURAT  THROWN  OVER  487 

ever,  Castlereagh's  letter,  backed  by  the  strong  support  of  Wellington1, 
who  made  out  the  military  problem  to  be  one  easily  solved,  had  won 
over  Liverpool.  In  a  letter  of  January  nth,  the  Prime-Minister  agreed 
to  Castlereagh's  scheme,  provided  Great  Britain  took  no  active  part, 
and  Castlereagh  was  therefore  able  to  give  Talleyrand  a  definite 
promise  that  action  would  be  taken  against  Murat,  and  thus  win  his 
French  colleague's  consent  to  all  the  compromises  necessary  to  settle 
the  German  Questions2. 

The  final  stages  by  which  the  deposition  was  to  be  carried  out 
were,  however,  arranged  between  Castlereagh  and  Metternich  with- 
out Talleyrand's  knowledge.  Metternich  appears  to  have  made  up 
his  mind  by  the  middle  of  January,  that  Murat  must  be  abandoned. 
He  wished,  however,  to  ensure  that  Bourbon  influence  should  not 
disturb  the  Habsburg  control  of  Italy,  and  he  accordingly  deter- 
mined to  make  his  consent  depend  on  the  French  acceptance  of 
Austrian  plans  for  the  centre  of  the  peninsula,  and  in  particular  of  the 
establishment  of  Marie-Louise  and  her  son  in  the  Parma  duchies,  in 
accordance  with  the  Treaty  of  Fontainebleau.  He  took  Castlereagh 
fully  into  his  confidence,  and  a  project  was  drawn  up  for  the  final 
settlement  of  Italy,  which  Castlereagh  was  to  present  at  Paris  on  his 
way  home  from  the  Congress.  In  this  paper  the  whole  outline  of  the 
proposed  settlement  was  sketched  out  and  the  hope  was  expressed  that, 
in  return  for  the  overthrow  of  Murat,  Lewis  XVIII  would  agree  to 
all  the  rest.  Castlereagh  made  some  reservations  of  his  own  as  to  this 
plan,  especially  as  regards  the  Duchies,  but  in  substance  he  was  pre- 
pared to  back  Metternich.  At  Paris  on  February  2jth  he  had  a  long 
interview  with  Lewis  XVIII,  followed  by  one  with  Vincent,  Metter- 
nich's  Envoy,  and  when  he  left  on  March  ist  he  had  won  Lewis' 
consent  to  the  whole  scheme,  except  the  succession  in  the  Duchies  of 
the  young  Napoleon,  a  change  which  Castlereagh  himself  had  recom- 
mended as  desirable3.  At  the  same  time,  he  took  back  with  him  to 
England  a  number  of  documents  which  Blacas,  in  response  to  re- 
quests from  Vienna,  had  collected  as  proofs  of  Murat's  "treachery" 

1  Sorel's  observation  (L*  Europe  et  la  Revolution  franfaise,  vili.  41 2)  on  Wellington 
"  qui  poursuivait  dans  Murat  le  dernier  lieutenant  de  Napoleon"  is  altogether  beside 
the  mark.    No  one  was  less  susceptible  to  such  a  motive.  Wellington  was,  un- 
doubtedly, genuinely  convinced  that  Murat  was  a  menace  to  the  Peace  of  Europe. 

2  On  January  i8th,  Murat  addressed  a  letter  to  the  Prince  Regent,  professing 
his  devotion  to  Great  Britain ;  but  Liverpool  merely  referred  Gallo  to  Vienna,  where 
he  knew  the  case  would  be  already  decided  against  Murat. 

3  Castlereagh  to  Wellington,  Paris,  February  28th.  Wellington,  Supplementary 
Despatches,  ix.  583. 


488        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

in  1814.  Meanwhile,  at  Vienna,  Metternich  had  prepared  the  way  for 
a  rupture  by  responding  to  yet  another  demand  for  recognition  on 
the  part  of  Campochiaro  in  a  Note  which  was  almost  an  ultimatum ; 
and  the  Austrian  forces  were  steadily  growing  stronger  in  northern 
Italy.  The  stage  was  thus  set  for  the  final  scene,  when  the  whole 
situation  was  altered  by  the  return  of  Napoleon  from  Elba. 

For  the  moment  the  return  of  Napoleon  made  no  difference  to 
Castlereagh's  policy.  The  fear  of  cooperation  between  Murat  and 
Napoleon,  and  the  reports  that  a  correspondence  existed  between 
them,  had  indeed  been  one  of  the  motives  which  induced  Castlereagh 
to  desire  Murat's  removal.  The  papers  sent  from  Paris  and  the  reports 
of  Murat's  recent  conduct  sent  by  Wellington  from  Vienna  appear  to 
have  overcome  all  hesitation  on  the  part  of  the  Cabinet,  and,  on 
March  i2th,  an  Instruction  was  sent  to  Wellington  authorising  him 
to  enter  into  engagements  for  the  removal  of  Murat  from  the  Throne 
of  Naples. 

"As  there  will  be  some  nicety,"  wrote  Castlereagh,  "in  giving  to  our 
line  on  this  question  the  form  most  likely  to  prove  satisfactory  to  Parliament, 
it  might  be  desirable  that  we  should  accede,  according  to  our  own  form, 
to  the  Treaty  previously  agreed  to  by  Austria  and  France,  in  the  negotiation 
of  which  you  will  assist  with  a  view  of  rendering  the  details  as  little  ob- 
jectionable as  possible1." 

When  this  Instruction  was  sent,  the  full  extent  of  Napoleon's  success 
was  not  understood.  But  when  it  was  seen  that  a  new  struggle  had  to 
be  entered  upon,  the  issue  of  which  was  doubtful,  Castlereagh  became 
less  certain  of  the  expediency  of  attacking  Murat,  who  was  indeed  in 
no  sense  an  ally  of  Napoleon's,  and  had  offered  to  place  his  forces  on 
the  side  of  the  Allies.  The  Chevalier  Toco,  Murat's  representative  in 
London,  though  he  had  no  official  character,  presented  a  Memoran- 
dum to  the  British  Government  on  the  part  of  his  master,  which 
asserted  in  the  strongest  possible  terms  his  desire  to  act  with  the 
Allies  against  Napoleon.  In  referring  this  communication  to  Vienna 
on  March  24th,  Castlereagh  authorised  Wellington  to  conclude  a 
Treaty  with  Murat,  so  as  to  liberate  the  Austrian  forces  to  fight 
against  France2.  But  in  Italy  events  were  moving  too  quickly  towards 
a  rupture  for  this  Instruction  to  have  any  effect.  Though,  so  late  as 
March  23rd,  Wellington  had  been  doubtful  whether  it  was  expedient  for 

1  Castlereagh   to  Wellington,  March   i2th,  1815.  Wellington,   Supplementary 
Despatches,  ix.  592.  Memorandum  enclosed.   P.O.  Continent.  Archives,  7. 

2  Castlereagh  to  Wellington,  March  24th,   1815.  Wellington,  Supplementary 
Despatches,  ix.  609. 


CASTLEREAGH  AND  MURAT  489 

Austria  to  attack,  the  hasty  conduct  of  Murat,  who,  perhaps  judiciously, 
in  the  end  decided  that  his  one  chance  for  security  lay  in  summoning 
all  Italy  to  arms  while  the  Allies  were  still  occupied  with  Napoleon, 
brought  matters  to  a  head,  and  by  the  beginning  of  April  he  had 
virtually  begun  hostilities1.  Bentinck,  who  had  returned  to  Genoa 
during  the  winter,  was  authorised  by  Wellington  to  attack  Murat, 
if  he  moved  against  the  Austrians,  and  Great  Britain  was  thus  at 
once  brought  into  the  War.  In  any  case,  it  may  be  doubted  whether 
the  issue  could  long  have  been  postponed;  for  Wellington  assured 
Castlereagh  that,  if  Murat  had  not  been  attacked,  the  plan  for  his 
deposition  originally  agreed  upon  would  have  been  put  into  force 
before  the  Congress  dispersed.  When,  therefore,  Clancarty,  who  had 
been  fully  instructed  by  Wellington  as  to  the  plan  of  operations,  on 
April  8th  received  Castlereagh 's  suggestion  of  March  24th,  he  took 
no  action  on  it,  and  did  not  even  communicate  it  to  Metternich, 
allowing  events  to  run  their  course2.  On  April  loth,  Austria,  in  spite 
of  the  continued  protests  of  Campochiaro  and  Cariati,  declared  war. 
Though  Bentinck  again  quarrelled  with  his  Allies,  the  issue  was  not 
long  in  doubt,  and  before  the  orders  for  Bentinck's  recall  could  be 
issued,  Murat  had  been  defeated  and  driven  out  of  his  kingdom. 

Castlereagh  had,  of  course,  to  defend  his  actions  against  vehement 
attacks  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Much  of  the  correspondence  of 
the  spring  had  become  public  property,  and  the  Opposition  were 
able  to  support  a  charge  of  breach  of  faith  with  quotations  from  the 
documents  which  had  passed  between  Castlereagh  and  Bentinck.  But, 
in  such  circumstances,  when  only  part  of  the  facts  are  known,  the 
position  of  a  Minister  of  the  Crown  is  a  strong  one.  Castlereagh  was 
able  to  make  a  convincing  and  effective  reply  which  he  supported  by 
laying  before  the  House  numerous  despatches  to  prove  his  case. 
These  were  carefully  chosen,  and  included  the  documents  supplied 
by  Blacas  as  well  as  the  comments  of  Bentinck  and  Nugent  on  the 
Memoir e  Historique.  Though  Wellington  admitted  that  Blacas*  docu- 
ments failed  to  convict  Murat  of  a  breach  of  faith,  the  evidence  of 
Bentinck  and  Nugent  did  to  a  certain  extent  show  him  to  have  failed 
to  carry  out  the  promise  on  which  the  Treaty  with  Austria  had  been 
made,  and  in  which  Castlereagh  had  consented  to  recognise  the 
Armistice.  Castlereagh  made  skilful  use  of  this  evidence,  while  the 

1  Wellington  to   Burghersh,   March   23rd,    1815.  Wellington,   Supplementary 
Despatches,  ix.  604. 

2  Clancarty  to  Castlereagh,  April  8th,  1815.  P.O.  Continent.  17;  British  Diplo- 
macy, p.  321. 


490        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

French  documents  were  employed  to  prejudice  Murat's  character. 
Of  the  secret  negotiations  of  January  and  February,  no  mention  was, 
of  course,  made,  and  Castlereagh,  though  he  mentioned  Murat's  offer 
transmitted  by  Chevalier  Toco,  carefully  concealed  the  fact  that  he 
had  been  quite  ready  to  accede  to  it  at  the  time1.  The  case  against 
the  Government,  therefore,  completely  collapsed;  nor  did  Bentinck, 
though  he  protested  hotly  against  his  dismissal,  care  to  raise  Neapoli- 
tan matters  at  a  later  stage,  for  on  the  question  of  Murat  he  had  gone 
even  further  than  his  Government.  Murat's  second  expedition,  which 
resulted  in  his  capture  and  execution,  finally  disposed  of  the  question 
of  dynasty.  Castlereagh  was  thus  free  to  lend  his  support  to  all 
Metternich's  measures  for  establishing  Austrian  control  over  Italy. 
In  Sicily,  thanks  to  Bentinck,  Ferdinand  was  a  Constitutional  monarch, 
and  Metternich  was  not  prepared  to  risk  Parliamentary  institutions 
being  set  up  in  the  peninsula  itself.  As  the  price  of  his  restoration, 
Ferdinand  signed,  on  June  i2th,  a  Treaty  with  Austria,  by  which,  in 
a  Secret  Article,  he  pledged  himself  not  to  allow  a  Constitution  to 
be  set  up  in  Naples.  The  Treaty  was  communicated  to  A' Court,  who, 
though  he  considered  formal  approval  almost  unnecessary  since  "the 
unfortunate  experiment  which  has  been  made  in  Sicily  has  sufficiently 
disgusted  His  Majesty  with  innovations  of  every  description,"  yet 
had  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  anything  which  contributed  to  con- 
solidate the  good  understanding  now  prevailing  between  Austria  and 
Naples  could  not  but  prove  extremely  satisfactory  to  the  British 
Government2.  Castlereagh  quite  approved  of  this  attitude;  but  of 
this  dubious  transaction,  naturally,  the  Opposition  knew  nothing. 

Castlereagh,  before  he  left  Vienna,  had  thus  established,  as  he 
thought,  a  new  arrangement  of  the  European  States  which  he  hoped 
would  safeguard  the  peace  of  Europe.  He  had,  also,  however,  another 
expedient  by  which  the  Peace  so  hardly  won  might  be  specially  pre- 
served from  attack.  Immediately  before  his  departure,  he  produced 
a  scheme  by  which  the  new  order  of  things  was  to  be  specially  guaran- 
teed by  all  the  Powers  of  Europe.  The  idea  of  some  special  machinery 
for  the  preservation  of  peace  was  in  the  air.  Castlereagh's  scheme, 
however,  undoubtedly  dates  back  to  the  discussions  between  Pitt  and 
Alexander  in  1804  and  1805.  In  the  letter  to  the  Russian  Ambassador, 
Pitt,  after  laying  down  the  plan  of  the  New  Europe  (a  plan  which 

1  Hansard,  xxx.  cols.  3-154,  where  the  19  documents  placed  before  the  House 
are  printed. 

2  A'Court  to  Castlereagh,  July  i8th,  1815.  P.O.  Sicily,  70. 


CASTLEREAGH'S  PLAN  OF  GUARANTEE         491 

Castlereagh  might  now  claim  to  have  brought  into  being,  almost  to 
the  smallest  details),  had  dealt  with  Alexander's  proposal  to  "form 
at  the  restoration  of  peace  a  general  agreement  and  guarantee  for  the 
mutual  protection  and  security  of  different  Powers,  and  for  reestab- 
lishing a  general  system  of  public  law  in  Europe."  On  this  point, 
Pitt  (with,  it  will  be  remembered,  Castlereagh's  assistance),  had 
replied : 

It  seems  necessary  at  the  period  of  a  general  pacification,  to  form  a 
Treaty  to  which  all  the  principal  Powers  of  Europe  should  be  parties,  by 
which  their  respective  rights  and  possessions,  as  they  shall  then  have  been 
established,  shall  be  fixed  and  recognised.  And  they  should  all  bind  them- 
selves mutually  to  protect  and  support  each  other,  against  any  attempt 
to  infringe  them: — It  should  re-establish  a  general  and  comprehensive 
system  of  public  law  in  Europe,  and  provide,  as  far  as  possible,  for  re- 
pressing future  attempts  to  disturb  the  general  tranquillity;  and  above  all, 
for  restraining  any  projects  of  aggrandizement  and  ambition  similar  to 
those  which  have  produced  all  the  calamities  inflicted  on  Europe  since  the 
disastrous  aera  of  the  French  Revolution. 

It  was  this  scheme  which  Castlereagh  now  endeavoured  to  put 
into  operation1.  He  was  the  more  anxious  to  do  so  since  he  was  being 
pressed  by  Alexander  to  renew  the  Quadruple  Alliance,  while  Talley- 
rand and  Metternich  were  hinting  that  further  secret  engagements  on 
the  model  of  that  of  January  3rd  would  be  to  their  liking.  Castlereagh, 
of  course,  considered  the  Treaty  of  Chaumont  as  one  of  the  safeguards 
of  the  European  Peace.  But  he  was  naturally  not  anxious  at  this 
moment  to  emphasise  that  Instrument,  while  he  was  also  unwilling 
to  increase  his  secret  engagements  with  other  Powers,  now  that  the 
settlement  had  been  peacefully  arranged.  Accordingly,  he  avoided 
these  special  engagements  by  producing  a  proposal  that  the  Powers 
should  publicly  declare  "their  determination  to  uphold  and  support 
the  arrangements  agreed  upon;  and,  further,  their  determination  to 
unite  their  influence,  and  if  necessary  their  arms,  against  the  power 
that  should  attempt  to  disturb  it."  Alexander  welcomed  the  idea  with 
enthusiasm,  and  Gentz  drew  up  a  declaration  which  in  elaborate  and 
highflown  language  expressed  Pitt's  idea.  It  might,  perhaps,  have 
been  signed  immediately;  but  Castlereagh,  going  further  than  Pitt, 
wished  to  include  the  Turkish  dominions  among  the  territories  thus 
guaranteed.  Even  to  this  proposal  Alexander  agreed,  on  condition 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  February  i3th,  1815;  British  Diplomacy,  p.  303. 
For  the  details  see  also  C.  K.  Webster,  The  Congress  of  Vienna,  pp.  83  and  85,  and 
also  an  article  in  Transactions  of  the  Royal  Historical  Society,  3rd  Series,  vol.  vi. 
November  i6th,  1911. 


492        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

that  his  disputes  with  the  Porte  should  be  first  arranged.  The  Sultan, 
however,  refused  to  take  advantage  of  this  offer,  and,  meanwhile,  the 
return  of  Napoleon  had  caused  the  original  scheme  to  be  dropped. 
The  project  had  thus  no  immediate  result;  but  it  marks  the  direction 
of  Castlereagh's  thoughts,  while  it  was  this  scheme  which  suggested 
to  Alexander  the  idea  of  the  Holy  Alliance. 

After  Castlereagh's  departure,  British  influence  at  Vienna  was 
never  a  determining  factor  in  affairs.  Though  Wellington's  prestige 
stood  even  now  extraordinarily  high,  and  he  was  treated  with  the  greatest 
respect  by  the  Congress,  yet  his  energies  were  soon  almost  entirely 
absorbed  in  organising  Europe  to  resist  Napoleon.  Moreover,  almost 
all  affairs  of  firstclass  importance  had  been  settled  before  Castlereagh 
left ;  so  that  neither  Wellington  nor  Clancarty ,  who  succeeded  him, 
had  more  to  do  than  fill  in  the  details  of  the  arrangements  their  pre- 
decessor had  concluded.  The  disposal  of  Murat  has  been  narrated 
above.  In  one  other  part  of  the  Italian  settlement,  however,  British 
diplomacy  exerted  considerable  influence.  The  arrangement  which 
Castlereagh  concluded  with  Lewis  XVIII  as  to  the  exclusion  of  the 
young  Napoleon  from  the  succession  to  the  Parma  duchies  was  never 
finally  accepted  by  Metternich1.  The  return  of  Napoleon  reduced  the 
French  influence  to  a  negligible  quantity,  and  Metternich  was  not 
anxious  to  see  another  Bourbon  family  established  in  the  peninsula. 
When  therefore,  Alexander,  with  his  usual  chivalry,  pressed  for  the 
enforcement  of  the  Treaty  of  Fontainebleau,  even  though  Napoleon 
had  freed  the  Powers  from  all  obligations  under  it,  Metternich  refused 
to  insist  on  the  arrangement  to  which  he  had  previously  agreed.  Had 
it  not  been  for  the  vigorous  opposition  of  Clancarty,  who  was  now  in 
charge,  the  young  Napoleon  would  have  been  recognised  as  the  heir 
to  the  duchies  in  the  Vienna  Final  Act.  The  spirit  in  which  Clancarty 
approached  the  subject  is  illustrated  by  a  phrase  in  one  of  his  private 
letters  to  Castlereagh :  "Will  you  seta  precedent  of  placing  Bonaparte's 
bastard  on  the  Throne2?"  His  fierce  opposition  was  sufficient  to 
prevent  any  recognition  of  the  young  Napoleon's  rights  in  the  Treaty, 

1  Castlereagh  himself,  however,  admitted,  so  late  as  April  I2th,  that  he  had 
been  wrong  in  agreeing  at  his  Paris  interview  that  the  young  Napoleon  should  be 
excluded  from  the  Succession.  He  pointed  out  that  his  rights  under  the  Treaty  of 
Fontainebleau  were  explicitly  guarded,  and  Marie- Louise  had  no  power  to  deprive 
him  of  them.    If  they  were  taken  away,  therefore,  it  must  be  on  the  plea  that 
Napoleon's  return  had  abrogated  the  Treaty  of  Fontainebleau.    If  Napoleon  had 
remained  at  Elba,  his  son  would  almost  certainly  have  been  recognised  as  heir  to 
the  Duchies.  Castlereagh  Correspondence,  x.  306. 

2  Clancarty  to  Castlereagh,  May  iQth,  1815.  Castlereagh  Correspondence,  x.  355. 


THE  GERMANIC  CONFEDERATION  493 

where  the  succession  was  left  open.  Unknown  to  him,  however,  a 
Secret  Protocol  was  signed  between  Austria,  Prussia  and  Russia  re- 
cognising these  claims,  which  was  to  cause  Metternich  much  em- 
barrassment when  Castlereagh  discovered  it  in  1817. 

Another  subject  bound  up  in  the  fate  of  Italy  was  the  settlement 
of  the  Ionian  Islands.  Castlereagh  had  been  much  exercised  as  to  how 
to  dispose  of  them  in  such  a  way  as  to  exclude  both  French  and 
Russian  influence.  At  one  time,  they  had  been  considered  as  a  possible 
indemnity  for  Ferdinand  IV;  but,  when  he  recovered  Naples,  Castle- 
reagh recognised  that  Austria  could  not  allow  both  sides  of  the  Adriatic 
Gulf  to  be  held  by  the  same  Power.  He  would  himself  have  been 
ready  to  hand  them  over  to  Austria;  but  this  was  vetoed  by  Russia, 
Capodistrias  taking  a  special  interest  in  the  fate  of  his  native  country, 
and  having  been  entrusted  by  Alexander  with  all  his  authority  on  this 
question.  It  was  eventually  owing  to  him  that  Great  Britain  retained 
control  of  the  Islands  as  Protector,  by  the  Treaty  concluded  between 
the  Four  Powers  at  Paris  on  November  5th,  1815 1. 

In  other  minor  arrangements,  the  British  influence  was  exerted 
almost  always  on  the  side  of  Austria.  In  these,  as  in  the  more  im- 
portant questions  of  the  reconstruction  of  the  German  and  Swiss 
Confederations,  her  diplomatists  played  only  a  subordinate  part. 
From  the  first,  Castlereagh  had  determined  to  have  as  little  to  do  as 
possible  with  the  details  of  the  thorny  and  intricate  problem  of  the 
new  Constitution  of  Germany.  He  was,  indeed,  anxious  that  the 
German  States  should  be  combined  in  an  effective  Constitution,  so 
that  they  should  be  able  to  hold  their  own  against  Russia  and  France. 
His  own  wishes  would  probably  have  led  him  to  support  Stein's  pro- 
posals for  a  strong  central  government,  with  real  control  over  the 
several  States.  He  was  especially  anxious  for  the  creation  of  a  Federal 
army,  and  these  ideas  he  supported  in  the  period  subsequent  to  the 
Congress.  But  he  was  aware  of  the  difficulties  of  the  situation,  and 
does  not  appear  to  have  attempted  to  exert  any  direct  influence  on  the 
tortuous  negotiations  which  eventually  resulted  in  the  eleven  articles 
which  formed  part  of  the  Final  Act.  In  the  Commission  set  up  to 
consider  this  question,  Great  Britain  was  not  directly  represented 
and  Miinster  was  allowed  an  almost  entirely  free  hand.  While  more 
"Austrian"  than  " Prussian,"  he  was  yet  sufficiently  moderate  in 

1  British  and  Foreign  State  Papers,  in.  250.  The  suggestion  made  by  Bavaria 
that  the  islands  should  be  given  to  Prince  Eugene  de  Beauharnais  in  compensation 
for  his  claims  under  the  Treaty  of  Fontainebleau  was  immediately  rejected  by 
Wellington.  Supplementary  Despatches,  ix.  570. 


494       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

his  views  to  act  as  a  mediator  between  rival  parties,  which  was  all 
that  Castlereagh  could  desire.  However,  therefore,  he  may  be  blamed 
for  supporting  Metternich  in  later  years  in  the  equivocal  proceedings 
which  resulted  in  the  Carlsbad  Decrees  and  the  Vienna  Final  Act, 
Castlereagh  was  in  no  way  responsible  for  the  halting  solution  reached 
at  the  Congress  of  Vienna  itself. 

As  to  the  Swiss  Confederation,  he  laid  down  for  his  subordinates 
a  similar  policy.  Nevertheless,  the  young  Stratford  Canning,  who 
assisted  Lord  Stewart  in  this  matter,  was  too  able  and  energetic  a 
diplomatist  to  be  content  with  a  passive  role,  and  he  played  a  consider- 
able* part  in  the  series  of  negotiations  which  eventually  adapted  the 
Constitution  of  1803  to  the  altered  circumstances  of  the  time,  and 
finally  succeeded  in  composing  the  differences  among  both  the  Swiss 
and  the  Allies.  He  was,  for  example,  not  satisfied  with  Capodistrias' 
drafting  of  the  Protocols,  and  was  tactfully  allowed  to  draw  them  up 
himself.  He  supported  the  policy  of  allowing  the  wishes  of  the  Diet 
to  prevail,  and  successfully  opposed  Capodistrias'  rather  sweeping 
proposals.  He,  also,  tried  to  save  the  Valtelline  from  Austria  without 
success.  None  of  the  Powers  seem  to  have  understood  the  importance 
of  their  Declaration  guaranteeing  the  neutrality  of  Switzerland,  which 
was  not  finally  executed  until  the  Second  Peace  of  Paris,  and  there 
is  no  sign  that  British  statesmen  took  a  special  interest  in  this  question. 
They  were,  indeed,  more  concerned  in  bringing  Switzerland  into  the 
Coalition  against  Napoleon  and  inducing  her  to  allow  the  Allied  troops 
to  move  across  her  territory,  than  in  arranging  the  details  of  the  new 
policy,  which  was  to  form  a  precedent  of  great  value,  and  prove  of 
enormous  advantage  to  Switzerland  in  the  coming  century. 

The  Abolition  of  the  Slave-trade  was  made  one  of  the  principal 
questions  of  the  Congress,  solely  through  the  agency  of  the  British 
Ministers.  They  had  indeed  no  alternative.  On  this  Question,  public 
opinion  in  England  was  stirred  to  the  uttermost,  and  was,  moreover, 
concentrated  and  organised  so  that  it  could  exert  its  full  force  on  the 
Legislature  and  the  Executive.  The  Additional  Article  of  the  Treaty 
of  Paris  had  by  no  means  satisfied  the  recognised  spokesmen  of  this 
subject  in  the  country.  The  concession  to  France,  that  she  might 
continue  to  bring  slaves  for  five  years  to  the  Colonies,  was  considered 
a  betrayal  of  the  cause.  It  was  in  vain  that  Castlereagh  pleaded  that 
France  must  be  treated  as  an  independent  nation,  and  that  the  cause 
would  ultimately  be  better  served  by  her  agreement  than  by  her  sub- 
mission. He  was  held  to  have  thrown  away  a  unique  opportunity  for 


THE  SLAVE  TRADE  495 

abolishing  the  detested  traffic.  "What  could  be  done  when  your  own 
Ambassador  gave  way  ? "  Alexander  asked  Wilberforce,  doubtless  not 
unwilling  to  make  things  difficult  for  the  Tories.  But  Wilberforce 
was  himself  a  good  Tory,  and,  though  he  would  have  sacrificed  his 
party  if  any  advantage  could  be  secured  for  the  cause,  he  saw  clearly 
that  It  was  useless  to  press  the  Ministry  too  far.  The  motion,  therefore, 
which  he  moved  on  June  ayth,  in  a  speech  that  was  a  severe  rebuke, 
was  one  which  could  be  accepted  by  Castlereagh,  whose  defence  was 
"that  France  could  not  be  taught  morality  at  the  point  of  the 
bayonet."  Motions  by  Grenville  in  the  Upper  House  and  Horner  in 
the  Commons  calling  for  papers  the  Ministry  were  able  to  meet ;  but 
it  was  obvious  that  they  had  disappointed  the  country. 

The  efforts  of  the  Government  as  well  as  those  of  the  leaders  of 
the  agitation  were  immediately  redoubled  in  view  of  the  possibilities 
of  the  approaching  Congress.  Eight  hundred  petitions,  containing 
nearly  a  million  signatures,  were  presented  to  the  House  of  Commons. 
Wilberforce  prepared  a  mass  of  pamphlets,  including  an  open  letter 
to  Talleyrand,  in  order  to  convert  the  Continental  Sovereigns  and 
statesmen.  The  Government,  meanwhile,  made  the  cause  of  Abolition 
a  first  charge  in  their  endeavours.  Orders  were  sent  to  Wellington  at 
Paris  and  to  Wellesley  at  Madrid  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  efforts  to 
be  made  at  the  Congress  itself.  In  neither  country,  however,  could  much 
headway  be  made.  All  that  Wellesley  had  been  able  to  obtain  in  the 
Treaty  of  Alliance,  signed  on  July  i4th,  was  a  promise  by  Spain  to 
limit  the  traffic  to  ships  of  her  own  subjects.  He  was  now  authorised 
by  Castlereagh  to  offer  considerable  subsidies,  amounting  to  two 
million  pounds,  if  Spain  would  limit  the  trade  to  the  south  of  the  line 
and  promise  to  abolish  it  in  five  years,  to  which  offer  that  of  a  loan 
on  British  credit  for  ten  million  dollars  was  added,  if  the  Abolition 
was  made  immediate.  But  both  these  offers  were  rejected,  and  nothing 
had  been  accomplished  by  the  time  the  Congress  opened. 

In  France,  the  Abolitionists  exerted  their  utmost  efforts,  and  sent 
over  Clarkson  on  a  special  mission.  But  French  public  opinion  was 
vehement  against  concessions,  and  the  support  of  the  notorious  Abbe 
Gregoire  did  not  assist  their  cause.  Extensive  slaving  expeditions 
were  being  prepared  in  French  ports,  and  it  was  suggested  that  here,  as 
in  Spain,  British  capital  was  finding  employment.  Talleyrand,  how- 
ever, hinted  to  Lord  Holland  that  France  might  grant  immediate 
abolition  in  return  for  a  Colony;  and,  on  the  conversation  being  re- 
ported, Wellington  was  permitted  by  Liverpool  to  sound  the  French 


496       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

as  to  whether  a  money  compensation  would  suffice,  though  both  Am- 
bassador and  Prime-Minister  were  agreed  as  to  the  impolicy  of  barter. 
When  Wilberforce  and  the  Whigs  heard  of  the  proposal  from  Clarkson, 
they  took  it  up  so  warmly  as  to  render  it  obvious  that  some  such  offer 
must  be  made,  if  only  to  avoid  disastrous  criticism  at  home.  By  this 
time,  however,  the  Congress  had  assembled,  and  the  negotiation  was, 
by  Wellington's  wish,  transferred  to  Vienna.  On  October  8th,  there- 
fore, Castlereagh  addressed  an  official  Note  to  Talleyrand,  making  the 
definite  offer  to  France  of  a  West  Indian  island  or  a  sum  of  money  as 
compensation,  if  immediate  Abolition  were  granted.  This  action  was 
admittedly  forced  on  the  Government  by  fear  of  public  opinion,  and 
neither  Liverpool,  Wellington  nor  Castlereagh  himself  believed  it  to 
be  a  wise  step .  Castlereagh ,  indeed ,  considered  that  the  whole  agitation 
in  England  was  doing  more  harm  than  good. 

"The  more  I  have  occasion  to  observe  the  temper  of  foreign  Powers 
on  the  question  of  Abolition,"  he  wrote  to  Liverpool,  "the  more  strongly 
impressed  I  am  with  the  sense  of  prejudice  that  results,  not  only  to  the 
interests  of  the  question  itself  but  of  our  foreign  relations  generally,  from 
the  display  of  popular  impatience  which  has  been  excited  and  is  kept  up 
in  England  on  this  subject.  It  is  impossible  to  persuade  foreign  nations 
that  this  sentiment  is  unmixed  with  views  of  Colonial  policy,  and  their 
Cabinets,  who  can  better  estimate  the  real  and  virtuous  motives  which 
guide  us  on  this  question,  see  in  the  very  impatience  of  the  nation  a  power- 
ful instrument  through  which  they  expect  to  force  at  a  convenient  moment 
the  British  Government  upon  some  favourite  object  of  policy. 

"  I  am  conscious  that  we  have  done  an  act  of  indispensable  duty,  under 
the  circumstances  in  which  we  have  been  placed,  in  making  to  the  French 
and  Spanish  Governments  the  propositions  we  have  done,  but  I  am  still 
more  firmly  persuaded  that  we  should  be  at  this  moment  in  fact  nearer  our 
object,  if  the  Government  had  been  permitted  to  pursue  this  object  with 
its  ordinary  means  of  influence  and  persuasion,  instead  of  being  expected 
to  purchase  concessions  on  this  point  almost  at  any  sacrifice1." 

Talleyrand  delayed  his  answer  till  November  5th,  and  when  it 
came  it  was  a  refusal,  as  Castlereagh  and  Wellington  had  anticipated. 
Nevertheless,  the  Note  was  by  no  means  uncompromising,  partly,  as 
Castlereagh  thought,  because  the  recovery  of  San  Domingo  by  the 
French  was  now  abandoned.  In  these  circumstances,  he  avoided 
bringing  the  subject  officially  before  the  Congress,  merely  circulating 
documents  and  memoranda,  and  adding  to  the  circulars  of  the  Aboli- 
tionists others  prepared  by  his  own  Office,  which  appealed  to  the 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  October  25th,  1814.  F.O.  Continent.  7;  British 
Diplomacy  y  p.  215. 


THE  SLAVE  TRADE:  SPAIN  AND  PORTUGAL       497 

commercial  and  financial  interests  of  the  Powers  concerned.  Wellesley 
had,  at  last,  induced  the  Spanish  Government  to  offer  to  abolish  the 
Trade  in  eight  years,  and  immediately  up  to  10°  on  either  side  of  the 
line;  and  the  Portuguese  Plenipotentiaries  at  Vienna  were  prepared 
to  go  rather  further.  It  was  Castlereagh's  opinion,  therefore,  that, 
instead  of  concentration  on  attempts  to  obtain  immediate  Abolition, 
France  should  be  induced  to  reduce  her  period  to  three  years,  after 
which  coercive  measures  should  be  employed  against  Spain  and 
Portugal  by  a  refusal  to  admit  their  Colonial  commerce  to  the  markets 
of  other  countries ,  until  the  Trade  was  completely  abolished .  He ,  also , 
proposed  to  set  up  a  permanent  Commission  in  London  and  Paris 
to  watch  over  the  effectual  execution  of  the  regulations ;  for  he  was 
well  aware,  as  events  proved  to  be  the  case,  how  difficult  in  practice 
it  would  be  to  enforce  worldwide  Abolition.  He  hinted  that  exercise 
of  the  right  of  search  and  the  treatment  of  offenders  as  pirates  might 
be  necessary  to  put  a  stop  to  the  traffic — questions  which  were  to 
occupy  the  attention  of  the  British  Government  throughout  the 
nineteenth  century.  These  ideas  were  submitted  to  the  Government 
in  a  special  Memorandum  on  November  21st1.  Liverpool's  reply,  on 
December  Qth2,  approved  of  the  plan  and  urged  that  five  years 
should  be  the  extreme  limit  allowed  to  Spain  and  Portugal.  By  the 
beginning  of  December,  however,  when  Castlereagh  endeavoured  to 
have  the  matter  formally  taken  up,  he  was  met  with  the  determined 
opposition  of  these  two  Powers  to  the  establishment  of  a  special  Com- 
mission of  the  Eight  Powers  for  consideration  of  the  subject,  though 
Talleyrand,  who  was  anxious  at  this  time  to  win  Castlereagh's  favour 
for  other  reasons,  supported  him  loyally.  For  the  moment,  therefore, 
Castlereagh  dropped  the  formal  negotiations,  which  the  extreme 
tension  then  existing  in  the  Congress  made  it  difficult  to  pursue3. 
He  succeeded,  during  the  interval,  by  the  offer  of  money  and  many 
other  concessions,  including  the  abrogation  of  some  of  the  more 
onerous  Clauses  of  the  Treaty  of  Alliance  between  Portugal  and  Great 
Britain,  in  inducing  the  Portuguese  Plenipotentiaries  to  sign  a  Treaty 
abolishing  the  traffic  north  of  the  line.  Similar  efforts  with  Spain 
were  however  of  no  avail. 

At  last,  early  in  the  new  year,  the  formal  consideration  of  the  subject 
was  again  taken  up.    By  personal  interviews  with  the  three  Allied 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  November  2ist.   P.O.  Continent.  8;  British  Diplo- 
macy, p.  233. 

2  Wellington,  Supplementary  Despatches,  ix.  469. 

3  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  December  i8th,  1814.   P.O.  Continent.  9. 

W.&G.I.  32 


498        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

Sovereigns,  Castlereagh  procured  the  full  support  of  their  Ministers1 
for  all  his  proposals,  Alexander  showing  himself  especially  zealous. 
He  knew,  also,  that  Talleyrand  would  go  as  far  as  he  dared.  On 
January  i6th,  therefore,  he  was  able  to  obtain  the  establishment  of  a 
"  Conference  "  of  the  Eight  Powers  to  consider  the  subject,  which  was 
distinguished  in  name  only  from  a  formal  Commission.  This  Com- 
mittee held  four  meetings  between  January  2Oth  and  'February  8th, 
in  which  all  Castlereagh's  proposals  were  formally  considered.  He 
was  able  to  confront  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  Plenipotentiaries 
with  the  united  efforts  of  all  the  Great  Powers,  and  to  place  the  former 
in  an  exceedingly  difficult  position.  Though  Labrador  and  Palmella 
maintained  a  determined  front,  a  record  was  thus  obtained  of  the 
public  feeling  of  all  Governments  which  bore  some  immediate  fruit, 
and  certainly  made  easier  the  task  of  completing  and  making  effective 
the  work  of  Abolition  in  the  succeeding  years.  A  formal  Declaration 
that  the  Slave-trade  was  against  the  laws  of  humanity  was  easily 
obtained,  since  it  committed  no  Power  to  any  express  measure,  and 
this  Declaration  subsequently  became  part  of  the  Final  Act  signed  in 
Vienna.  An  effort  to  induce  Talleyrand  to  reduce  the  French  term  to 
three  years  having  failed,  as  Castlereagh  knew  must  be  the  case,  he 
concentrated  his  efforts  on  obtaining  Abolition  north  of  the  line  and 
complete  Abolition  in  five  years.  From  Portugal,  he  obtained  the 
former  concession,  and  the  latter  from  all  the  Powers  except  Portugal 
and  Spain.  Castlereagh  then  opened  his  plans  for  setting  up  special 
machinery  in  the  form  of  Ambassadorial  Conferences  at  London  and 
Paris,  to  supervise  the  regulations  as  to  Abolition.  Spain  and  Portugal 
protested  against  this ,  wishing  the  Colonial  Powers  to  be  alone  admitted ; 
but  Castlereagh  refused  to  give  way,  since  the  whole  essence  of  his 
plan  lay  in  associating  with  Great  Britain  the  Continental  nations, 
who  had  no  direct  interests  in  the  maintenance  of  the  Trade,  in  order 
to  put  pressure  on  the  other  Maritime  Powers.  He,  also,  adumbrated 
plans  for  mutual  right  of  search,  and  sketched  his  idea  of  excluding 
from  the  ports  of  all  civilised  nations  the  Colonial  produce  of  any 
Power  who  refused  to  agree  to  complete  Abolition  after  a  lapse  of 
time.  This  last  proposition  much  alarmed  Palmella,  who  placed  a 
special  protest  on  the  Protocol,  but  Castlereagh  was  able  to  obtain  a 
general  approval  of  it2. 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  January  ist,  1815;  British  Diplomacy,  p.  274. 
a  It  was  turned  against  him,  in  1817,  by  Alexander  in  the  question   of  the 
Spanish  Colonies. 


THE  SLAVE  TRADE.  RESULTS  499 

On  the  whole,  Castlereagh  thought  that  Parliament  and  public 
opinion  ought  to  be  satisfied  with  the  result  of  his  efforts. 

" I  hope,"  he  wrote  on  January  26th,  "that  essential  progress  has  been 
made  at  least  upon  one  branch  of  the  question,  I  mean  the  liberation  of  the 
Northern  parts  of  Africa  from  the  miseries  of  this  Trade ;  the  foundation 
has  also  been  laid  for  an  entire  cessation  of  the  evil  at  a  definite  period,  with 
the  prospect  that  the  auspicious  epoch  may  be  accelerated  by  future 
exertion ;  and  what  I  consider  of  great  importance  is  that  the  attention  of 
the  Ministers  here  has  been  awakened  to  this  important  subject  in  a  degree 
much  beyond  what  I  could  have  hoped  for,  considering  the  multiplicity 
of  their  avocations  and  their  former  ignorance  of  the  question1." 

The  claim  was  justified.  By  obtaining  a  general  Declaration 
against  the  Trade  in  the  Treaty,  by  awakening  public  opinion  among 
the  statesmen  by  the  discussions  of  the  final  Conference,  and  by  initia- 
ting practical  measures  to  ensure  that  Abolition,  once  obtained,  should 
be  faithfully  carried  out,  Castlereagh  had  done  an  immense  amount 
to  bring  this  odious  practice  to  an  end.  He  was  to  add  further  services 
to  the  cause  in  the  next  two  or  three  years.  Nevertheless,  in  spite  of 
his  strictures  on  the  vehement  manifestations  of  public  opinion  in 
England,  it  is  obvious  that,  without  the  unceasing  efforts  of  Wilber- 
force  and  his  friends,  Castlereagh  and  his  Government  would  have 
accomplished  but  little.  Their  goodwill  cannot  of  course  be  doubted; 
but  they  needed  a  spur  to  make  them  sufficiently  active  when  other 
matters  were  pressing  on  their  attention.  By  forcing  Ministers  to 
initiate  a  policy  of  sacrifice,  Wilberforce  may  sometimes  have  caused 
the  Continental  Powers  to  raise  their  price  for  acquiescence  in  a 
measure  which  their  interests  as  well  as  their  conscience  should  have 
forced  them  to  adopt  immediately.  But,  though  a  cynical  construction 
was  put  upon  the  agitation  by  statesmen  at  the  time  and  by  many 
foreign  historians  since,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  it  was  as  sincere  as 
it  was  ultimately  effectual,  and  that,  without  the  sustained  and  eager 
insistence  of  an  organised  public  opinion  in  this  country,  the  responsible 
statesmen  would  have  allowed  the  iniquitous  traffic  to  continue  under 
the  pretext  that  it  was  impossible  to  do  otherwise. 

Even  as  it  was,  the  Government  found  it  hard  to  convince  the 
country  that  they  had  done  all  that  was  possible.  Fortunately  for  the 
Ministry,  the  return  of  Napoleon,  as  will  be  seen,  led  to  immediate 
Abolition  by  France,  so  that  they  were  able  thenceforth  to  concen- 
trate their  efforts  on  the  Peninsular  Powers. 

With  regard  to  another  important  Question  at  the  Congress, 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  January  26th,  1815.   P.O.  Continent.  10. 

32—2 


5oo       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

Clancarty  represented  Great  Britain  on  the  Commission  which  was 
established  to  regulate  International  Rivers.  Great  Britain  does  not 
seem  to  have  exerted  much  influence  on  these  discussions,  in  which, 
naturally,  the  Continental  Powers  were  much  more  nearly  interested. 
This  Commission  was,  however,  used  by  Castlereagh  to  draw  up  the 
regulations  on  one  question  in  which  his  country  had  a  special  in- 
terest  the  destruction  of  the  fortifications  of  Antwerp,  which  by  the 

Treaty  of  Paris  of  1814  it  had  been  agreed  to  make  a  commercial  port. 
In  the  regulations  drawn  up  by  the  Commission  on  the  rank  of 
diplomatic  representatives  Castlereagh  took  little  interest,  declaring 
that  they  would  raise  as  many  problems  as  they  solved,  though  he 
acquiesced  in  the  wishes  of  the  majority.  An  attempt  was  made  to 
raise  the  question  of  naval  salutes  at  this  Commission — a  sly  hit  at 
some  extravagant  British  pretensions — but  the  objections  of  the 
Admiralty  prevailed  and  the  matter  was  not  formally  considered. 

IV.  THE  RETURN  OF  NAPOLEON  AND  THE  SECOND 
PEACE  OF  PARIS 

As  has  been  seen  above,  Castlereagh  was  by  no  means  satisfied  with 
the  Treaty  of  Fontainebleau,  by  which  Napoleon  was  made  Imperial 
Sovereign  of  Elba.  But  though  he  (and  still  more  strongly,  Lord 
Stewart)  saw  much  reason  for  alarm  in  the  establishment  of  Napoleon 
at  Elba,  yet  he  could,  at  the  moment,  suggest  no  other  suitable  destina- 
tion for  him,  and  consequently  accepted  the  Treaty  so  far  as  the 
territorial  arrangements  for  Napoleon  and  his  family  were  concerned. 
Naturally ,  the  surveillance  of  Napoleon  was  a  considerable  anxiety  to  the 
British  Government  during  his  stay  on  Elba.  The  British  Commissary, 
Sir  Neil  Campbell,  was  provided  with  a  naval  force  expressly  for  the 
supervision  of  the  Emperor,  and  Lord  Burghersh  at  Florence  was 
specially  ordered  to  supervise  from  Tuscany  any  attempts  to  enter  into 
correspondence  with  him.  But  Napoleon  was  still  a  Sovereign  Prince, 
and  his  actions  could  not  be  controlled,  unless  they  amounted  to  an  in- 
fringement of  the  Treaty ;  and  though  the  archives  of  all  the  Powers 
are  full  of  reports  on  his  activities,  nothing  definite  was  known  as  to 
his  designs.  Metternich's  secret  police  watched  all  the  channels  into 
Italy,  and  Talleyrand  had  his  own  spies.  But,  though  some  of  the 
reports  were  alarmist,  they  came  from  discreditable  sources.  Castle- 
reagh appears  to  have  been  chiefly  disturbed  by  the  possibility  of 
collusion  between  Murat  and  Napoleon;  but  their  intercourse  was 
carried  on  through  confidential  agents,  and  there  was  no  definite 


NAPOLEON'S  ESCAPE  FROM  ELBA  501 

proof  of  any  plot.  Thus,  short  of  instituting  a  complete  naval  blockade 
of  the  Mediterranean,  the  British  Government  had  no  alternative 
but  to  trust  to  Campbell's  watchfulness  to  prevent  an  escape. 

There  was,  indeed,  some  talk  at  Vienna  of  removing  Napoleon 
to  a  more  remote  and  more  easily  guarded  situation.  The  point  is 
mentioned  in  one  of  the  first  papers  laid  by  Prussia  before  the  other 
three  Allies1.  But  such  a  plan  was  never  seriously  considered,  and 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Alexander,  and  almost  certainly  Castle- 
reagh  and  Metternich  as  well,  would  have  vetoed  any  such  proposi- 
tion. Talleyrand  was  reduced  to  dally  with  designs  for  the  kid- 
napping of  Napoleon,  and,  as  some  think,  even  assassination  was 
contemplated  by  the  Bourbons,  if  no  seriously  planned  scheme  was 
ever  set  on  foot.  Lewis  XVIII,  however,  refused  to  carry  out  the 
financial  terms  of  the  Treaty  of  Fontainebleau,  by  which  two  million 
francs  were  to  have  been  paid  to  Napoleon.  Castlereagh,  more  than 
once,  warned  Talleyrand  of  the  danger  of  this  infringement  of  the 
Treaty,  and  spoke  strongly  to  Lewis  XVIII  about  it  on  his  passage 
through  Paris.  His  words  were  not  heeded ;  but  Talleyrand  may  have 
remembered  them  when  he  was  reduced  to  begging  for  money  from 
Wellington,  after  his  own  supplies  from  Paris  had  been  cut  off  by 
the  return  of  the  Emperor2. 

During  his  stay  at  Elba,  Napoleon  concealed  with  supreme  skill 
his  intention  of  returning,  which  he  must  have  contemplated  almost 
from  the  beginning  of  his  exile.  He  professed,  indeed,  alarm  at  the 
rumours  that  he  was  to  be  deported  to  St  Helena  or  elsewhere,  as 
well  as  at  the  danger  of  an  attack  by  Barbary  pirates ;  he,  also,  com- 
plained bitterly  of  being  deprived  of  his  wife  and  son,  and  of  the 
financial  straits  to  which  he  was  reduced.  But  Campbell,  no  less  than 
all  Napoleon's  visitors,  many  of  whom  were  English,  was  completely 
deceived  by  the  resigned  attitude  which  he  affected.  The  resolution  at 
which  he  arrived  to  take  advantage  of  Campbell's  absence  in  Tuscany 
for  a  few  days  appears  to  have  been  the  result  of  intuition  rather  than 
of  calculation,  but  it  was  welltimed  so  far  as  France  was  concerned.  So 
easily  was  the  escape  made  that  for  long  it  was  widely  believed  in  Europe 
to  have  been  effected  with  the  connivance  of  the  British  Government. 
Though  Castlereagh  generously  took  the  responsibility,  and  demon- 
strated to  the  House  of  Commons  the  impossibility  of  blockading 

1  See  The  Congress  of  Vienna,  p.  160. 

2  No  credence  should  be  attached  to  Talleyrand's  assertion  that  Castlereagh 
listened  with  approval  to  a  suggestion  that  Napoleon  should  be  removed  to  the 
Azores. 


502        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

effectively  the  island  of  Elba,  it  may  be  questioned  whether  Campbell 
was  sufficiently  alive  to  the  risks  of  his  position. 

However,  the  mischief  was  done,  and  Europe  was  soon  faced  with 
the  fact  that  France  had  accepted  Napoleon's  return  almost  without 
opposition.  At  Vienna,  the  first  step  taken  was  the  memorable  Decla- 
ration of  March  I3th,  which  delivered  Napoleon  to  the  vengeance  of 
the  nations.  No  mention  was  made  in  this  document  of  supporting 
the  Bourbons,  for  it  was  drawn  up  before  the  full  extent  of  Napoleon's 
success  was  known.  When  the  extent  of  the  disaster  was  clear,  there 
was  but  one  voice  among  the  Allies.  The  Treaty  of  Chaumont  had 
been  concluded  expressly  to  guard  against  this  danger.  By  March 
25th,  with  hardly  any  alterations  in  the  original  text,  the  Four  Powers 
had  renewed  their  agreement,  and  six  hundred  thousand  men  were, 
on  paper  at  least,  in  arms  against  France.  Nor,  so  far  as  Napoleon 
was  concerned,  was  this  anything  less  than  the  expression  of  the 
Sovereigns'  deep  emotions  and  those  of  their  peoples  against  the  man 
who  had  so  often  triumphed  over  them.  There  was  never  at  any  time 
any  sign  of  defection.  When  Napoleon  found  the  Secret  Treaty  of 
January  3rd  in  his  archives  and  sent  it  to  Alexander,  it  told  the  latter 
little  more  than  he  already  knew,  and,  though  Castlereagh  had  a 
moment  of  anxiety,  the  revelation  produced  no  effect.  The  Tsar 
indeed,  aware  of  his  own  responsibility  for  the  catastrophe,  was  almost 
too  zealous,  and  it  needed  the  blunt  opposition  of  Wellington  to  make 
him  understand  that  he  could  not  be  the  generalissimo  of  the  new 
Coalition1.  Wellington  himself  approached  nearer  to  that  role,  and 
with  the  Allied  military  authorities  at  Vienna  produced  a  plan  of 
campaign  which  would  ultimately  bring  a  million  soldiers  into  the  field 
against  the  French.  At  the  end  of  March,  he  set  out  for  Brussels  to 
take  command  of  the  army  which  England  was  assembling  in  the 
Netherlands,  of  which,  however,  only  30,000  were  British  troops. 

But,  though  united  against  Napoleon,  the  Powers  were  no  more 
agreed  as  to  who  should  take  his  place  than  they  had  been  in  1814. 
Metternich's  intrigues  with  Fouche  were  doubtless,  as  he  said,  a  mere 
ruse  de  guerre.  But  his  attitude  was  at  least  doubtful,  while  Alexander 
spoke  even  more  bitterly  against  the  Bourbons  than  he  had  in  1814; 
for  they  had  now  added  to  their  other  faults  ingratitude  to  himself. 
Talleyrand  himself  kept  a  free  hand  so  far  as  possible,  and  refused 
to  leave  Vienna  for  the  King's  Court  at  Ghent.  Indeed,  at  Vienna 

1  Wellington  to  Castlereagh,  March  i2th,  1815.  P.O.  Continent.  14;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  312. 


ATTITUDE  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN  503 

Clancarty  was  by  far  the  best  friend  of  the  Bourbons,  and,  when  it  was 
proposed  to  issue  another  Declaration,  now  that  Napoleon  had  assumed 
the  Crown  once  more,  it  was  his  insistence  that  obtained  the  insertion 
in  it  of  some  words  of  a  friendly  nature  towards  Lewis  XVIII,  while,  in 
a  long  interview  with  Alexander,  he  discouraged  the  Tsar's  predilections 
for  Orleans  or  even  a  Republic1.  So  difficult  was  it  to  obtain  agreement 
on  the  question  at  Vienna,  that  the  Declaration  originally  drawn  up 
on  April  i  ith,  was  not  formally  inserted  on  the  Protocol  until  May  1 2th. 
Meanwhile,  though  the  British  Government  were  entirely  at  one 
with  the  Allies  as  regards  Napoleon,  there  was  a  period  of  uncer- 
tainty before  the  War  with  France  became  irrevocable.  Nearly  all 
the  "Mountain"  and  many  of  the  Whigs  were  against  the  War,  and 
almost  until  the  outbreak  of  hostilities  in  Belgium  protested  against  it. 
Castlereagh  had  to  defend  against  hot  attacks  in  the  Commons  not  only 
the  Vienna  Settlement,  so  far  as  it  was  already  known,  but  also  the 
policy  of  the  Allied  Powers  with  regard  to  the  Treaty  of  Fontainebleau. 
In  the  Lords,  Wellesley  as  well  as  Grey  protested  against  the  War, 
though  the  Grenville  party  held  coldly  aloof.  In  these  circumstances, 
the  Ministry,  though  determined  on  war,  in  which  they  were  sup- 
ported by  the  mass  of  the  nation,  could  do  nothing  openly  for  the 
Bourbons.  Their  sentiments  were,  indeed,  unanimous  in  desiring 
Lewis'  return,  and  throughout  they  were  faithful  to  the  confession 
which  Liverpool  had  made  on  February  aoth,  "  The  keystone  of  all 
my  external  policy  is  the  preservation  of  the  Bourbons  on  the 
Throne2."  But,  though  on  March  i2th,  when  the  news  of  Napoleon's 
flight  first  reached  him,  Castlereagh  wrote  to  Wellington  urging  the 
Powers  to  support  Lewis  XVIII,  by  the  i4th  he  had  to  supplement 
this  despatch  by  another  urging  caution.  "We  can  often  do  more 
than  we  can  say3,"  he  wrote;  and  this  sums  up  the  policy  of  his 
Government.  Thus,  though  the  Declaration  of  the  i3th  was  defended 
against  the  attacks  of  the  Opposition,  who  described  it  as  an  incentive 
to  assassination,  the  Treaty  of  March  25th  was  only  accepted  subject 
to  a  declaration  that  it  was  not  intended  to  impose  any  particular 
dynasty  on  France,  and  Clancarty  was  cautioned  against  committing 
his  Government  in  any  way  to  the  cause  of  the  Bourbons. 

1  Clancarty  to  Castlereagh,  April   isth,   1815.    P.O.  Continent.   17;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  325. 

2  Liverpool  to  Castlereagh,  February  2Oth,  1815.  Wellington,  Supplementary 
Despatches,  ix.  573. 

3  Castlereagh  to  Wellington,  March  12th,  I4th,  i6th.  Wellington,  Supplementary 
Despatches,  ix.  592,  595,  597. 


504       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

And,  though  Napoleon's  letter  to  the  Prince  Regent  was  returned 
unopened,  the  Address  moved  in  the  House  of  Commons  on  April 
lyth1,  while  urging  preparation  for  war  and  concert  with  the  Allies, 
did  not,  as  Castlereagh  expressly  allowed,  mean  immediate  war.  But 
the  temper  of  the  nation  gradually  showed  that  Ministers  had  the  whole 
country  behind  them.  Whitbread  could  only  muster  37  votes  against 
220  for  his  amendment  to  the  Address,  and  of  the  London  Press  only 
The  Morning  Chronicle  supported  a  peace  policy.  Napoleon's  bid  for 
British  public  opinion  by  decreeing  the  complete  Abolition  of  the 
Slave-trade  produced  no  effect.  When  the  Treaty  of  March  25th 
became  known  and  had  to  be  avowed,  another  furious  attack  was 
made  by  the  Opposition,  who  taunted  Castlereagh  with  the  futility 
of  the  Treaty  of  Fontainebleau,  as  well  as  with  the  bad  faith  shown  in 
carrying  it  out.  But  this  attack  was  almost  as  easily  repulsed  as  the  other, 
though  the  wisdom  of  the  British  reservation  was  made  clear.  Mean- 
while, the  blockade  had  been  established  and  French  merchantmen 
seized;  preparations  were  made  to  foment  insurrection  in  the  Vendee, 
and  the  army  was  being  rapidly  organised  in  Belgium.  The  Duke  of 
Wellington  was  entrusted  with  the  task  of  making  Subsidy  Treaties 
with  the  smaller  Powers,  so  that  Great  Britain  could  supply  her  quota 
as  laid  down  by  the  Treaty,  and  through  his  agency  gradually  all  the 
petty  States  were  summoned  to  join  in  the  fray.  Sir  Charles  Stuart 
was  instructed  to  represent  the  British  Government  at  the  stately,  if 
penurious,  Court  which  Lewis  kept  up  at  Ghent,  where  also  all  the 
other  Great  Powers  were  represented.  Money,  munitions  and  clothing 
were  sent  to  the  King. 

After  Waterloo,  the  Duke  became  the  arbiter  of  the  destinies  of 
France.  Bliicher  was  no  politician,  and  was  too  fully  occupied  with 
revenge  and  spoliation  to  play  any  important  part  in  the  series  of 
events  that  ensued  on  Napoleon's  abdication  in  favour  of  his  son. 
Lewis  was,  therefore,  able  to  take  Wellington's  advice  and  follow 
closely  the  victorious  Allied  armies,  and  all  northern  France  declared 
for  him  before  Paris  fell.  It  scarcely  needed,  therefore,  the  dexterous 
intrigues  of  Fouche  to  smooth  the  way  for  the  Second  Restoration, 
which  was  accomplished  before  the  Sovereigns  and  their  Ministers 
had  time  to  intervene,  even  if  they  had  wished.  Alexander  had  thus, 
for  a  second  time,  to  accept  the  despised  Bourbons,  and  soon  accom- 
modated himself  to  the  position.  So  swiftly  and  easily  did  all  this 

1  A  very  accurate  summary  of  the  Debate  is  given  in  The  Dynasts,  Part  ill. 
Act  v,  Scene  v. 


SURRENDER  OF  NAPOLEON  505 

take  place,  that  the  wish  of  the  British  Government  was  accomplished 
without  either  Castlereagh  or  Wellington  being  compromised. 

Napoleon  fled  to  the  coast ;  but  British  ships  prevented  the  accom- 
plishment of  his  plan  of  escaping  to  America.  Had  he  succeeded, 
Alexander  wished  the  Allies  to  address  a  Note  to  the  President  to 
surrender  him ;  but  Castlereagh  himself  had  no  expectation  that  much 
advantage  would  be  derived  from  such  a  measure.  However,  Napoleon 
had  really  no  alternative  but  to  surrender  to  Captain  Maitland,  and, 
in  any  case,  he  could  not,  and  probably  did  not,  expect  much  mercy, 
in  spite  of  his  famous  appeal  to  the  generosity  of  the  British  nation. 
Wellington  protested  against  Bliicher's  resolve  to  shoot  Napoleon  if 
he  caught  him;  but  our  Ministers  would  have  welcomed  such  an 
escape  from  an  intolerable  responsibility.  The  Allies  were  only  too 
ready  to  leave  to  the  British  the  ignominy  of  guarding  the  Emperor, 
though,  since  Castlereagh  from  the  first  insisted  on  it  against  the 
wishes  of  the  Cabinet,  they,  by  means  of  Commissaries  nt  St  Helena, 
shared  the  responsibility  of  his  detention.  Castlereagh,  who,  while  still 
ignorant  of  Napoleon's  surrender,  had  lamented  that  the  King  of 
France  had  not  the  will  or  the  power  to  execute  him  as  a  traitor, 
wrote  to  Liverpool  on  hearing  of  his  capture,  "After  fighting  him 
for  20  years,  as  a  trophy  he  seems  to  belong  to  us1."  Since  measures 
were  soon  on  foot  by  his  friends  in  England  to  use  the  machinery  of 
English  law  to  embarrass  the  Government,  he  was  quickly  hurried 
off  to  St  Helena — a  captive,  and  denied,  now  as  ever,  by  the  British 
Government  the  Imperial  title  and  the  attributes  of  royalty. 

Their  Emperor  captive  and  the  Bourbons  restored,  the  French 
nation  had  now  to  be  dealt  with.  So  early  as  March  26th,  Castlereagh 
had  written  to  Wellington  that  though  "France  must  pay  the  price 
of  her  own  deliverance,"  yet  it  was  imperative  that  war  should  not 
degenerate  into  "an  indiscriminate  and  destructive  pillage,"  as  it  had 
in  i8i42.  Wellington  himself  was  most  anxious  to  avoid  measures 
which,  in  the  previous  campaign,  had  impaired  the  efficiency  of  every 
army  but  his  own  and  rallied  the  French  nation  against  the  invaders. 
Accordingly  he  arranged  with  Lewis  XVIII  that  Commissaries  should 
be  appointed  to  accompany  the  Allied  armies  to  regulate  their  rela- 
tions with  the  inhabitants  and  arrange  for  their  subsistence.  But, 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  July  i7th,  1815.  P.O.  Continent.  21 ;  British  Diplo- 
macy, p.  350. 

2  Castlereagh  to  Wellington,  March  26th,  1815.  Wellington,    Supplementary 
Despatches,  ix.  623.  See  also  Sir  Charles  Stuart's  Despatches  in  Malet's  Louis  XVIII 
a  Gand,  vol.  II. 


506       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

though  he  was  able  to  carry  out  this  measure  effectively  with  his  own 
army,  he  could  not  control  the  others.  The  Prussians  paid  scant 
attention  to  the  royal  nominees.  Nor  did  the  annihilation  of  Napoleon's 
army  arrest  the  march  of  the  Allied  troops.  On  the  contrary,  so  soon 
as  all  danger  was  over,  every  country  was  anxious  to  feed  its  troops 
at  the  French  expense,  while  it  continued  to  earn  the  British  subsidies ; 
and,  before  long,  nearly  a  million  soldiers  had  entered  France.  The 
Prussians  who  were  only  prevented  by  Wellington's  influence  from 
the  destruction  of  the  Pont  de  Jena  at  Paris  levied  vast  contribu- 
tions. Castlereagh  had  foreseen  this  danger,  and  took  instant  steps 
to  mitigate  it  and  regularise  the  exactions  of  the  Allies  so  far  as 
possible;  while  Wellington  declared  that  "the  Allies  will  in  a  short 
time  find  themselves  circumstanced  in  France  as  the  French  were  in 
Spain,  if  the  system  pursued  by  the  Prussians  and  now  imitated  by 
the  Bavarians  shall  not  be  effectively  checked1." 

Castlereagh  had,  also,  to  formulate  the  views  of  his  Government  on 
the  Question  of  the  treatment  to  be  meted  out  to  those  who  had  aban- 
doned Lewis's  service  for  that  of  Napoleon  in  1815.  On  this  subject 
the  British  Cabinet  was  vehement.  In  an  Instruction  dated  June  3Oth, 
Liverpool  urged  that  a  severe  example  should  be  made,  not  only  of 
commanding  officers  of  garrisons  and  corps  who  had  deserted  to  Bona- 
parte, but  also  of  civil  functionaries  who  had  gone  over.  He  called 
for  the  penalties  of  High  Treason  to  be  inflicted  and  a  severe 
example  to  be  made2.  This  opinion  was  reiterated,  in  letter  after 
letter,  in  the  early  days  of  July,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
Liverpool  was  expressing  not  merely  his  own  views  but  those  of 
nearly  the  whole  nation.  Castlereagh  and  Wellington  to  some  extent 
shared  these  views.  Wellington,  it  is  true,  in  the  Convention  which  he 
drew  up  with  Fouche,  granted  a  general  amnesty;  yet  he  was  careful 
to  point  out  in  the  later  discussions  that  arose  as  to  Ney's  position, 
that  he  had  no  authority  to  speak  for  the  French  King,  but  only  for 
the  Allied  Commanders.  He  does  not,  however,  appear  to  have  taken 
much  part  in  these  early  discussions.  It  was  Castlereagh  who  urged 
on  Talleyrand  on  July  i3th  "the  importance  of  adequately  vindica- 
ting the  King's  authority,"  and  who,  on  the  lyth,  brought  the  matter 
before  the  Allied  Ministers.  Talleyrand  agreed  with  the  principle, 
or  said  he  did ;  but  how  was  a  Government  which  contained  Fouche 

1  Castlereagh  to   Liverpool,  July   I4th,    1815.     P.O.   Continent.    21;   British 
Diplomacy,  p.  343. 

2  Yonge,  Life  of  Liverpool,  n.  184. 


EXECUTION  OF  NEY  507 

to  condemn  traitors?  Castlereagh  reported  that  "there  is  a  great  re- 
pugnance to  shed  blood,  the  result  in  a  great  measure  of  fear  and 
party  compromise."  In  another  interview,  on  the  iyth,  he  pressed 
the  matter  on  Talleyrand  and  Fouche1.  The  Minister  of  Police  saw 
that  some  concession  must  be  made  to  popular  vengeance;  but  the 
Decree  in  which  the  punishment  was  announced  contained  the  names 
of  those  against  whom  it  was  to  be  applied,  and  their  arrest  was  delayed 
after  this  judicious  advertisement.  Unfortunately,  Ney  and  one  or  two 
others  omitted  to  escape  in  time,  with  the  result  that  they  alone 
suffered.  Many  efforts  were  made  to  save  Ney,  especially  by  Lord 
Holland.  But  Liverpool  and  the  Prince  Regent  were  naturally  ap- 
pealed to  in  vain.  Wellington  also  refused  to  interfere — an  act  for 
which  he  has  been  much  criticised,  inasmuch  as  he  signed  the  Con- 
vention with  Fouche.  But  his  defence  holds  true,  and  while  Welling- 
ton, to  whom  duty  was  the  watchword  of  life,  had  not  a  spark  of 
revengeful  spirit  in  him,  he  was  the  last  man  in  the  world  to  palliate 
what  he  could  not  but  consider  as  a  betrayal.  On  the  Civil  Ministers 
and  Sovereigns  of  all  the  Allied  Powers  must  rest  the  responsibility 
for  an  act  as  impolitic  as  it  was  unjust,  since  the  worst  traitors,  if  they 
were  to  be  considered  such,  escaped;  while  Castlereagh  must  bear 
his  share  of  it,  though  there  are  signs  that  he  would  never  have  pressed 
the  question  so  strongly  if  he  had  not  been  hounded  on  by  his  Cabinet 
and  his  country. 

Of  far  greater  importance,  however,  than  the  fate  of  Ney  or  even 
that  of  Napoleon  himself,  was  the  punishment  that  France  herself  was 
to  suffer.  She  could  not  expect  the  moderate  treatment  that  she  had, 
on  the  whole,  received  in  1814.  It  is  true  that  the  Allies  had  pro- 
claimed war  on  Napoleon,  and  not  on  the  French  people.  But  the 
Emperor  had  received  the  support  of  practically  the  whole  of  the 
nation,  and  France  herself  was,  in  the  eyes  of  all  Europe,  responsible 
for  the  contest  which  had  once  more  called  all  Europe  to  arms.  On 
this  Question,  the  British  Cabinet  and  to  a  large  extent  the  British 
nation  were  influenced  by  the  passions  of  the  moment.  They  were 
quite  ready  to  join  those  Continental  Powers  who  wished,  not  merely 
to  bleed  France  white,  but  to  deprive  her  of  large  portions  of  territory, 
so  as  to  render  her  defenceless  and  impotent  for  the  future.  From  the 
first,  however,  Castlereagh  (and  he  had  throughout  the  sincere  sup- 
port of  Wellington)  took  an  entirely  opposite  view.  He  did  not  deny 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  July  i4th,  lyth,  1815.   F.O.  Continent.  21 ;  British 
Diplomacy,  pp.  344,  347. 


508        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

that  the  Allies  were  entitled  to  exact  an  indemnity  from  France,  and 
he  was  concerned  to  establish  some  means  of  security  for  the  imme- 
diate future.  But,  from  the  first,  he  saw  clearly  the  folly  of  depriving 
France  of  the  conquests  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  of  placing  her 
in  such  a  situation  as  to  make  her  despair  of  her  future.  For  six  weeks, 
supported  only  by  Alexander,  he  fought  a  hard  battle  with  his  Cabinet 
and  the  Allies,  till,  in  the  end,  his  commonsense  and  irresistible  logic 
triumphed,  and  the  terms  actually  offered  to  France  were  almost 
exactly  what  he  had  proposed  in  the  first  instance.  Nor,  in  the  con- 
cessions finally  made  to  the  French  when  Richelieu  succeeded  Talley- 
rand, did  he  play  a  backward  part.  His  despatches  at  this  period  are 
among  the  best  papers  which  he  ever  wrote,  and  scarcely  ever  has  a 
statesman  better  served  his  country  and  Europe.  He  stood  entirely 
unmoved  by  the  outburst  of  emotion  which  swayed  his  colleagues  and 
most  of  his  countrymen,  and  with  rare  statesmanship  carried  out 
coolly,  and  with  infinite  tact  as  well  as  unbending  resolution,  a  policy 
which  events  completely  justified.  He  risked  much,  for  he  had 
nothing  to  gain  as  a  party  leader  (as  St  John  had  in  1713).  He  was 
immensely  helped  by  Wellington,  whose  papers  are  models  of  sound 
reasoning ;  but  only  a  Foreign  Minister  who  had  obtained  a  complete 
ascendancy  over  his  Cabinet  and  was  utterly  indifferent  to  the  passing 
storms  of  popular  passion  could  have  carried  such  a  policy  to  a 
triumphant  conclusion.  Throughout,  he  made  no  appeal  to  senti- 
ment. His  despatches  are  based  entirely  on  an  enlightened  view  of 
British  interests ;  and  their  overwhelming  commonsense  made  it  im- 
possible to  his  colleagues  ultimately  to  resist  his  conclusions. 

The  opinion  of  the  Cabinet  and  the  country  on  this  point  was 
conveyed  to  him  by  Liverpool  in  a  series  of  letters,  which,  if  less  im- 
peratively phrased  than  those  on  the  French  "  traitors,"  were  yet  clear 
and  strong  enough. 

"The  more  I  consider  the  present  internal  state  of  France,"  wrote 
Liverpool  on  July  loth,  "  and  the  little  chance  there  is  of  security  to  Europe 
from  the  character  and  strength  of  the  French  Government,  the  more  I  am 
satisfied  that  we  must  look  for  security  on  the  frontier,  and  in  really 
weakening  the  power  of  France.  This  opinion  is  rapidly  gaining  ground  in 
this  country,  and  I  think,  even  if  Bonaparte  was  dead,  there  would  now  be 
considerable  disappointment  at  any  peace  which  left  France  as  she  was 
left  by  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  or  even  as  she  was  before  the  Revolution1." 

On  the  1 5th,  when  some  news  arrived  of  how  things  stood  at  Paris, 
Liverpool  wrote,  after  a  long  sitting  of  the  Cabinet,  that  the  prevalent 

1  Yonge,  Life  of  Liverpool,  n.  190. 


TEMPORARY  OCCUPATION  OF  FRENCH  TERRITORY   509 

idea  in  the  country  was  that  "we  are  fairly  entitled  to  avail  our- 
selves of  the  present  moment  to  take  back  from  France  the  principal 
conquests  of  Lewis  XIV1."  Castlereagh  was  ordered  to  sound  the 
Allies  on  this  point;  but  at  the  same  time  he  was  authorised,  if  the 
Allies  objected  to  such  strong  measures,  to  agree  to  a  temporary  occu- 
pation of  the  northern  barrier  of  France  until  a  line  of  fortresses  had 
been  built  in  the  Netherlands  at  the  French  expense.  Nothing  would 
have  better  pleased  the  majority  of  Castlereagh's  colleagues  at  Paris  than 
to  have  had  placed  before  them  the  extreme  view  of  the  Cabinet.  Of  the 
Allies  the  Emperor  of  Russia  was  alone  disposed  to  adopt  a  lenient 
policy — more  lenient  indeed  than  what  Castlereagh  himself  advocated, 
for  he  would  have  been  content  to  waive  even  a  temporary  occupation. 
Austria  was  inclined  to  go  considerably  further  than  Castlereagh  in 
depriving  France  of  territory,  while  Prussia  and  the  smaller  German 
Powers  were  demanding  extensive  acquisitions,  including  Alsace  and 
Lorraine  and  the  northern  French  fortresses.  Both  the  Tsar  and  Castle- 
reagh admitted  that  France  must  pay  an  indemnity.  They  wished 
this,  however,  to  be  a  reasonable  sum,  to  be  settled  in  accordance  with 
the  ability  of  France  to  pay  it  within  a  fairly  short  time,  Austria, 
Prussia  and  the  minor  German  States  were  simply  determined  to 
bleed  France,  and  they  had  already  begun  the  process  by  inordinate 
extortions  while  they  were  in  occupation.  Talleyrand,  meanwhile, 
let  it  be  known  that  the  King  and  his  Ministers  would  not  consent 
to  sacrifice  the  slightest  portion  of  French  territory.  In  these  circum- 
stances, Castlereagh  determined  to  come  to  an  agreement  with  the 
Tsar.  In  an  interview  with  him,  he  persuaded  him  to  accept  the 
British  proposal  for  temporary  occupation ;  and  so  close  an  agreement 
was  established  that  the  Tsar  was  induced  to  press  on  Austria  and 
Prussia  a  paper  that  had  been  drawn  up  by  Castlereagh  and  Welling- 
ton in  conjunction  with  the  Russian  Ministers2.  Four  days  later, 
Castlereagh  was  able  to  forward  home  a  plan  of  temporary  occupa- 
tion, drawn  up  by  Wellington,  which  paid  due  heed  to  the  suscepti- 
bilities of  France,  exempting  Lille  andStrassburg3.  Neither  the  Cabinet 
nor  the  Allies  were  pleased  with  these  suggestions.  Castlereagh 
appears  to  have  kept  back  from  the  former  for  two  days  the  Austrian 
and  Prussian  answers,  in  order  that  his  own  arguments  might  have 

1  Liverpool  to  Castlereagh,  July  isth,  1815.  Castlereagh  Correspondence,  x.  431. 

2  But  the  paper  was  in  reality  almost  entirely  inspired  by  the  British  Ministers. 
Sbornik  of  the  Imperial  Russian  Historical  Society,  cxn.  297. 

3  Castlereagh   to    Liverpool,   August    3rd,    1815.   Wellington,   Supplementary 
Despatches,  xi.  123. 


5io        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

time  to  sink  in,  and,  though  his  colleagues  offered  a  good  many 
criticisms,  it  was  not  easy  for  them  to  argue  against  Wellington  on 
specific  points.  Their  opinion,  however,  is  clearly  seen  in  a  final  para- 
graph of  Liverpool's  letter  of  August  nth: 

As  we  have  not  yet  seen  the  Austrian  and  Prussian  projects,  we  do  not 
know  the  extent  of  the  views  of  these  Governments,  but  we  are  informed 
that  they  propose  to  a  certain  degree  the  principle  of  permanent  cessions 
by  France,  at  least  as  far  as  regards  the  external  line  of  fortresses.  We  ought 
not  to  forget  that  these  Governments  have  more  of  common  interest  with 
us  in  the  whole  of  this  question  than  the  Government  of  Russia ;  and,  though 
we  must  all  have  deeply  at  heart  the  consolidation  of  the  legitimate  Govern- 
ment in  France,  we  should  consider  that  our  success  in  this  object  must 
necessarily  be  very  uncertain,  and  that  the  security  of  the  neighbouring 
countries  against  France  may  be  much  more  easily  attained  than  the 
rendering  France  orderly  and  pacific1. 

The  Austrian  and  Prussian  replies  put  forward  schemes  founded 
on  the  same  ideas  as  those  of  the  British  Cabinet.  The  Austrian  paper 
was  indeed  fairly  moderate,  merely  asking  for  a  strip  of  French 
Flanders  and  smaller  cessions  on  the  eastern  frontier.  The  Prussian 
paper,  which  was  prepared  by  their  Army  leaders  (for  Hardenberg,  who 
secretly  agreed  with  Castlereagh  and  told  him  so,  was  no  longer  able 
to  control  the  Prussian  policy),  would  have  deprived  France  of  every 
first-class  fortress  which  she  possessed.  Such  demands  it  was  im- 
possible, in  Castlereagh 's  opinion,  for  the  French  Government  to 
accept.  In  forwarding  these  Memoranda  on  August  i2th,  Castlereagh 
also  sent  one  by  Wellington  which  he  had  already  given  to  the  Allies 
at  Paris  and  which  was  a  conclusive  exposure  of  the  injustice  as  well 
as  the  inexpediency  of  these  propositions.  Wellington,  though  he 
admitted  that  France  was  still  too  strong  for  the  security  of  Europe, 
asserted,  in  direct  opposition  to  the  opinion  of  the  Cabinet,  that  the 
Declarations  of  the  Allies  to  the  French  people  prevented  them  from 
making  any  material  alteration  of  the  French  frontier.  At  the  same 
time,  he  showed  that  justice  coincided  with  the  true  interests  of  the 
Allies,  because  a  policy  of  dismemberment  would  necessarily  make 
France  think  only  of  revenge,  and  result  in  a  state  of  affairs  in  Europe 
little  less  harmful  than  actual  war,  and  he  defended  the  policy  of 
temporary  occupation  with  great  skill.  These  ideas  were  pressed  home 
by  Castlereagh  in  a  series  of  letters  to  which  the  ruthless  behaviour 
of  Prussia  and  the  smaller  German  Powers  added  force  and  fire.  He, 
also,  claimed  that,  by  his  policy,  he  had  prevented  the  Emperor  of 

1  Wellington,  Supplementary  Despatches,  XI.  126. 


CASTLEREAGH  AND  FRENCH  CESSIONS         511 

Russia  from  taking  a  line  of  his  own  and  becoming  the  "  exclusive 
protector  of  France." 

As  to  Austria  and  Prussia,  he  said,  both  these  Courts  require  to  be 
narrowly  watched ...  in  order  that  we  may  not  be  involved  in  a  course  of 
policy  in  which  Great  Britain  has  no  interest  but  rather  the  reverse .... 
No  doubt  the  prevailing  sentiment  in  Germany  is  in  favour  of  territorially 
reducing  France.  After  all  the  people  have  suffered  and  with  the  ordinary 
inducements  of  some  fresh  acquisitions,  it  is  not  wonderful  it  should  be 
so,  but  it  is  one  thing  to  wish  the  thing  done  and  another  to  maintain  it 
when  done1. 

Further,  he  pointed  out  that  France  might  be  a  necessary  and  valuable 
factor  in  the  Balance  of  Power,  if  the  Cabinet's  views  of  Russia  were 
justified.  Castlereagh  was  especially  impressed  by  the  outrageous 
nature  of  the  demands  of  the  Prussian  military  faction,  who,  he  de- 
clared, were  as  bad  Jacobins  as  the  French,  and  he  pressed  this  point 
on  the  Cabinet  in  order  to  awaken  them  to  the  character  of  the  party 
with  which  they  wished  him  to  associate  his  country.  But  the  main 
argument  on  which  he  relied  was  that  there  was  no  alternative  be- 
tween absolutely  destroying  France  or  leaving  her  substantially  intact. 

"We  must  make  up  our  minds,"  he  wrote,  "whether  to  play  a  game 
with  any  portion  of  France  or  against  France  collectively ;  if  the  former,  as 
much  security  need  only  be  demanded  as  is  compatible  with  that  object; 
on  the  contrary,  if  the  other,  in  order  to  gratify  what  I  have  no  doubt  is 
the  prevailing  temper  in  England  as  well  as  in  Germany,  the  Cabinet  ought 
to  instruct  the  Duke  of  Wellington  and  myself  not  to  secure  a  fortified 
town  the  more  or  the  less,  but  to  confer  with  the  other  Allies  how  France 
may  be  effectually  disqualified  for  any  future  attempt  to  assault  Europe. 
I  have  no  doubt  that  the  middle  line  would  be  attended  with  the  most 
&clat\  but  it  is  not  our  business  to  collect  trophies  but  to  bring  back  the 
world  to  peaceful  habits. 

"The  more  I  reflect  upon  it  the  more  I  deprecate  this  system  of 
scratching  such  a  Power.  We  may  hold  her  down  and  pare  her  nails  so 
that  many  years  shall  pass  away  before  she  can  again  wound  us ...  but  this 
system  of  being  pledged  to  a  continental  war  for  objects  that  France  may 
any  day  reclaim  from  the  particular  states  that  hold  them,  without  pushing 
her  demands  beyond  what  she  would  contend  was  due  to  her  own  honour, 
is,  I  am  sure,  a  bad  British  policy." 

His  words  finally  carried  conviction  or  at  least  assent,  though  it 
was  not  till  the  end  of  August  that  he  won  over  the  Cabinet.  In  order 
to  effect  this  and  to  make  some  concessions  to  the  Continental  Powers, 
he  put  forward  the  scheme  of  reducing  the  limits  of  France  to  those 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  August   lyth,   1815.  Castlereagh  Correspondence, 


5i2        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

of  the  year  1790.  This  meant  taking  away  from  her  Landau,  the  Saar 
valley,  and  part  of  Savoy,  while  leaving  to  her  Avignon  and  other 
small  territories,  which  had  in  1789  been  enclaves  in  her  dominions. 
By  the  middle  of  August,  Castlereagh  was  able  to  announce  that 
Alexander  was  ready  to  support  this  scheme.  On  the  24th,  he  sent 
what  was  almost  an  ultimatum  to  his  Cabinet,  together  with  a  long 
memorandum  which  reiterated  all  the  arguments  previously  em- 
ployed, and  Lord  Stewart  was  sent  over  with  the  documents  to 
support  by  word  of  mouth  the  arguments  of  his  brother1.  But  the 
Cabinet  had  already  given  way.  On  the  23rd,  Liverpool  had  already 
sent  a  reluctant  consent.  He  and  his  colleagues  now  professed  them- 
selves entirely  convinced,  and  Castlereagh  was  assured  that  he  would 
be  "most  cordially  and  zealously  supported  and  upheld  by  all  your 
colleagues  in  this  country2."  He  was  thus  able  to  turn  his  artillery 
without  reserve  on  the  recalcitrant  Allies.  On  August  3ist,  he  sent 
an  impressive  memorandum  in  reply  to  the  Austrian  and  Prussian 
notes,  supported  by  a  paper  drawn  up  by  Wellington,  which  con- 
tained a  vigorous  and  indeed  unanswerable  defence  of  the  principle 
of  temporary  occupation,  and  which  also  put  forward  a  practical 
scheme  for  carrying  it  out.  Metternich  was  easily  won  over.  In  fact, 
he  had  from  the  beginning  been  in  sympathy  with  Castlereagh 's 
policy,  but  had  found  it  necessary  to  put  forward  stronger  views  in 
deference  to  German  public  opinion.  The  Prussians  put  up  a  more 
determined  fight,  but  they  could  not  succeed  when  thus  isolated.  As 
for  the  smaller  Powers,  Castlereagh  did  not  mince  matters  with  them. 
To  Gagern,  who  was  carrying  on  an  intrigue  to  transfer  Luxemburg 
to  Prussia  and  compensate  the  Netherlands  with  a  large  slice  of  French 
territory,  he  announced  that  such  a  course  would  mean  the  loss  of  the 
British  guarantee.  "  This  view  of  the  question,"  reported  Castlereagh, 
"appeared  altogether  to  damp  His  Excellency's  appetite  for  such 
acquisitions3."  By  this  means,  and  by  raising  the  indemnity  from 
six  to  eight  hundred  millions,  he  at  last  succeeded  in  producing  agree- 
ment among  the  Allies. 

The  terms  were  presented  to  the  Talleyrand  Ministry  on  Sep- 
tember 1 6th.  Talleyrand  refused  to  consent  to  the  losses  of  territory, 
and  sent  in  an  answer  couched  in  very  strong  terms ;  but  the  discussions 

1  Wellington,  Supplementary  Despatches,  xi.  137. 

2  Liverpool  to  Castlereagh,  August  z8th,   1815.  Castlereagh  Correspondence, 
x.  506. 

8  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  September  4th,  1815.  P.O.  Continent.  26;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  376. 


FRENCH  CESSIONS  AND  INDEMNITY  SETTLED    513 

were  suspended  by  the  dismissal  of  his  Ministry.  The  Ministers  had, 
indeed,  been  subjected  to  ever  increasing  attacks  from  the  Ultras  during 
their  whole  period  of  office.  Reaction  was  now  everywhere  dominant 
in  France,  and  the  White  Terror  reigned  in  some  parts,  Monsieur 
and  the  Due  d'Angouleme  placing  themselves  at  the  head  of  the 
Opposition.  Castlereagh  regarded  the  Ultra  party  with  the  greatest 
distrust.  "At  present  it  is,"  he  wrote,  "a  mere  rope  of  sand, 
without  leaders  habituated  to  office,  without  any  fixed  system,  but 
with  an  inordinate  infusion  of  passion,  resentment  and  spirit  of  in- 
version1." He  preferred  even  Fouche  to  such  a  Government.  The 
dismissal  of  Talleyrand  by  the  King  at  this  moment  he  considered  as 
especially  impolitic,  since  it  threw  on  the  new  Ministry  the  odium  of 
accepting  terms  which  their  predecessors  had  rejected.  Fortunately 
for  France,  at  this  grave  crisis  she  found  in  the  Due  de  Richelieu  one 
of  the  -most  admirable  Ministers  who  ever  represented  her.  He  was 
singularly  free  from  the  baser  elements  of  statesmanship,  while  his 
friendship  for  Alexander  ensured  the  support  of  the  Tsar.  Castlereagh 
was,  indeed,  somewhat  alarmed  at  the  increase  of  Russian  influence 
over  the  French  Government,  but  he  loyally  accepted  the  situation. 
He  told  the  king  bluntly,  however,  that  he  must  abandon  the  line 
which  Talleyrand  had  taken  up,  and  in  the  course  of  a  long  interview 
succeeded  in  convincing  him  of  the  necessities  of  the  case2. 

With  Richelieu,  therefore,  the  negotiations  proceeded  swiftly.  The 
Allies  reduced  their  indemnity  to  seven  hundred  millions  of  francs,  the 
temporary  occupation  was  reduced  to  five  or  possibly  three  years,  and 
the  dismantling  of  some  of  the  fortresses  was  waived.  The  result 
was  to  impose  a  heavy  punishment  on  France,  but  one  not  out  of 
proportion  to  her  situation,  and  which  need  not,  and  in  fact  did  not, 
drive  her  to  a  policy  of  revenge  and  despair.  She  lost  the  territories 
of  Landau,  Saarlouis,  Mariembourg,  Philippeville  and  certain  parts  of 
Savoy,  and  had  to  rase  the  fortifications  of  Huningen.  Out  of  the 
sum  fixed  for  her  indemnity,  200  millions  of  francs,  including  the 
whole  of  Great  Britain's  share,  were  to  be  spent  in  the  erection  of 
fortresses  on  the  north-eastern  frontier.  Moreover,  a  separate  Con- 
vention laid  on  her  the  duty  of  compensating  private  claims  against 
France,  the  exact  amount  of  which  was  not  specified.  The  Prussians 
were,  at  a  later  stage,  to  found  enormous  claims  on  this  Article,  but 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  September  nth,  1815.  F.O.  Continent.  27;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  377. 

2  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  September  25th,  1815.   F.O.  Continent.  28;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  379. 

W.&G.I.  33 


514       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

were  prevented  by  Great  Britain  and  Russia  from  insisting  on  them, 
and  the  total  amount  was  only  240  millions  of  francs.  France  had 
already  been  forced  to  allow  a  large  number  of  the  works  of  art,  of 
which  she  had  plundered  Europe  during  the  Revolution  and  Napoleonic 
Wars,  to  be  returned  to  their  previous  owners.  Castlereagh  had 
strongly  supported  the  measure.  He  had,  however,  refused  to  accede 
to  the  monstrous  suggestion,  which  the  Prime  Minister  made  at  the 
express  order  of  the  Prince  Regent,  that  some  of  these  works  of  art 
should  be  brought  to  London.  They  were  removed,  not  as  a  punish- 
ment, but  as  a  tardy  measure  of  justice  to  their  original  owners,  and, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  British  Government  helped  some  of  the  poorer 
claimants,  including  the  Pope,  to  defray  the  heavy  charges  of  their 
transference  to  their  old  homes.  Lastly,  Castlereagh  obtained  from 
Lewis  XVIII,  though  even  now  only  after  much  hesitation,  the  com- 
plete Abolition  of  the  Slave- trade  which  Napoleon  had  already  granted, 
and  his  consent  to  the  establishment  of  a  Commission  at  London, 
such  as  had  been  proposed  at  Vienna.  He  might,  therefore,  fairly 
claim  that  he  had  brought  home  a  Peace  which  meant  security  for  at 
least  a  period,  and  the  infliction  of  a  considerable  punishment  on 
France  for  her  acquiescence  in  the  return  of  Napoleon.  It  was, 
however,  far  from  fully  expressing  the  sentiments  of  the  nation,  and 
met  with  severe  criticism  when  it  was  discussed  in  Parliament. 

Though  the  outlines  of  the  Treaty  had  been  laid  down  by  October 
ist,  the  details  of  the  Conventions  on  the  occupation  and  the  financial 
questions,  which  accompanied  it,  necessitated  a  series  of  detailed 
negotiations,  and  it  was  not  signed  until  November  2Oth. 

On  this  date  too  was  signed  another  Treaty  between  the  Four 
Great  Powers — a  renewal  of  that  concluded  at  Chaumont,  which, 
however,  now  contained  new  stipulations  of  great  importance .  Castle- 
reagh had,  from  the  first,  intended  to  make  the  exclusion  of  Napoleon 
and  his  family  from  the  Throne  of  France  "part  of  the  permanent 
law  of  Europe." 

"There  can  be  no  doubt,"  he  wrote  so  early  as  July  iyth,  "that,  before 
we  retire,  the  nation  will  have  felt  deeply  what  it  is  to  be  invaded  by  all 
Europe.  If  we  make  a  European  invasion  the  inevitable  and  immediate 
consequence  of  Bonaparte's  succession  or  that  of  any  of  his  race  to  power 
in  France,  I  am  confident  after  the  experience  they  have  had  of  his  im- 
potence against  such  a  confederacy  and  their  own  sufferings,  that  there  is 
not  a  class  in  France,  not  excepting  even  the  army,  that  will  venture  to 
adhere  to  him  at  the  hazard  of  being  again  over-run  by  the  armies  of 
Europe,  with  the  certainty  of  being  dismembered  and  loaded  with  contribu- 


THE  HOLY  ALLIANCE  515 

tions.  We  committed  a  great  error  when  last  at  Paris  in  not  opposing  the 
barrier  of  such  a  stipulation  against  his  return,  for  there  is  no  doubt  he 
had  address  enough  to  make  both  the  nation  and  the  army  believe  that  he 
might  be  restored  and  peace  nevertheless  preserved1." 

Such  a  policy  was  in  his  mind  throughout  all  the  negotiations  of 
the  Treaty  of  Peace,  and  his  belief  that  security  against  a  revival  of 
French  aggression  would  be  better  provided  by  its  means  was  one  of 
the  reasons  why  he  rejected  all  the  plans  of  spoliation  and  dismem- 
berment brought  forward  by  the  Allies.  Before,  however,  this  idea 
could  be  worked  out  in  formal  discussions,  Alexander  startled  the 
Sovereigns  and  statesmen  by  the  proposal  which  is  known  as  the 
Holy  Alliance.  The  idea  of  this  extraordinary  document  had  been 
suggested  to  him  by  Castlereagh's  abortive  proposal  for  a  general 
guarantee  made  at  the  Congress  of  Vienna.  But,  in  the  Tsar's  emo- 
tional mind,  which  was  now  passing  through  an  acute  religious  crisis, 
it  had  assumed  an  entirely  different  shape.  The  document,  which  was 
to  be  personal  to  the  Monarchs  concerned,  contained  no  express 
obligations,  except  that  they  would  regulate  their  conduct  according 
to  the  doctrines  of  the  Christian  religion.  Both  Castlereagh  and 
Metternich  regarded  the  proposal  as  a  ludicrous  one ;  but  they  could 
not  afford  to  offend  the  Tsar.  Castlereagh  told  Liverpool  very 
frankly,  that  Alexander  was  not  quite  right  in  his  head  and  must  be 
humoured2.  Thus,  though  the  forms  of  the  British  Constitution  did 
not  allow  the  Prince  Regent  to  append  his  signature  to  the  Treaty, 
he  sent  a  personal  letter  expressing  his  agreement  with  its  principles, 
which  satisfied  the  expectations  of  the  Tsar.  All  the  other  Sovereigns 
of  Europe  signed  it,  except  the  Sultan  and  the  Pope,  who  were  not 
invited ;  and  the  fact  that  the  terms  of  the  Treaty  made  it  impossible 
for  the  former  to  add  his  name  was  by  many  regarded  as  a  sinister 
design  on  the  part  of  the  Tsar.  He  had,  indeed,  significantly  avoided 
raising  the  issue  of  Turkey  on  which  Castlereagh's  proposal  had 
foundered;  but  there  is  little  doubt  of  his  sincerity.  Nevertheless, 
this  Treaty,  which  Castlereagh  was  soon  forced  to  produce  in  the 
British  Parliament,  caused  infinite  embarrassment  in  later  years,  and, 
despite  the  fact  that  it  was  in  design  one  of  the  most  innocent 
documents  ever  issued,  became  the  symbol  of  Reaction  in  the  mouths 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  July  i7th.   F.O.  Continent.  21 ;  British  Diplomacy  > 

P-  349- 

2  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  September  28th,  1815.  Wellington,  Supplementary 
Despatches,  xi.  175. 

33—2 


5i6        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

of  the  Liberals  of  all  countries,  and  a  specially  powerful  weapon  in 
the  hands  of  the  Opposition  in  England. 

The  Treaty  of  November  2Oth — the  Treaty  of  the  Quadruple 
Alliance — which  expressed  Castlereagh's  own  views,  was  of  a  very 
different  nature.  He  had  already  indicated  its  scope  in  the  Memorandum 
sent  home  by  Lord  Stewart,  which  had  finally  won  the  approval  of 
the  Cabinet  to  his  policy.  Alexander  had  immediately  expressed  his 
particular  approbation  of  the  proposal.  He  had,  indeed,  hastened  to 
anticipate  Castlereagh  by  producing  a  draft  of  such  a  Treaty,  before 
the  British  Minister  had  himself  prepared  one.  To  this  draft  Castle- 
reagh took  immediate  exception.  It  was  drawn  up,  he  said,  in  too 
vague  and  indefinite  shape.  It  bore  on  the  face  of  it  "  too  strong  and 
undisguised  a  complexion  of  interference  on  the  part  of  the  Allied 
Sovereigns  in  the  internal  affairs  of  France,  without  sufficiently  con- 
necting such  interference  with  the  policy  which  a  due  attention  to  the 
immediate  security  of  their  own  dominions  prescribed1 " ;  for  Alex- 
ander had  proposed  that  the  Allies  should  guarantee  both  Lewis  XVIII 
and  the  Charte.  Castlereagh's  project  endeavoured  to  avoid  these 
pitfalls.  With  the  exception  of  the  Sixth  Article,  it  confined  itself  to  a 
promise  to  observe  the  Treaty  quite  recently  concluded  with  France, 
and  to  a  renewal  of  the  Treaty  of  Chaumont  in  terms  which  more 
expressly  excluded  the  return  of  Bonaparte  or  any  of  his  family  to  the 
throne  of  France.  The  only  reference  to  Lewis  XVIII  was  a  promise 
to  adopt  this  necessary  measure  "in  concert  amongst  themselves  and 
with  his  Most  Christian  Majesty2."  Except  for  a  few  verbal  altera- 
tions, the  draft,  as  Castlereagh  presented  it,  was  accepted  by  the 
Cabinet  and  by  his  Allies,  and  it  was  this  Treaty  to  which  he  refers 
whenever  he  speaks  of  the  Alliance.  It  was  simply  a  more  explicit 
statement,  in  the  light  of  the  experience  of  the  Hundred  Days,  of  the 
policy  for  which  he  had  been  contending  ever  since  1813 — the  pro- 
tection of  Europe  by  special  treaty  against  any  renewal  of  aggressive 
war  by  France,  the  return  of  the  Bonaparte  family  being  accepted  as 
implying  the  immediate  renewal  of  such  aggression. 

But  the  Sixth  Article  actually  introduced  into  the  Treaty  a  new 
element  of  great  importance,  and  its  presence  there  appears  to  have 
been  due  to  Castlereagh's  own  express  desire.  It  reveals  the  fact  that 

1  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  October  isth,  1815.    P.O.  Continent.  29;  British 
Diplomacy,  p.  386. 

2  Castlereagh  had  written  in  his  draft  "roi  legitime,"  but  this  phrase  was  aban- 
doned in  deference  to  Liverpool's  criticism  that  it  would  cause  discussions  in 
Parliament. 


ARTICLE  VI  OF  THE  QUADRUPLE  ALLIANCE  TREATY  517 

Castlereagh  proposed  to  institute  a  new  system  of  diplomacy  by 
Conference,  which  he  considered  as  essential  to  the  preservation  of 
the  peace  of  Europe.  Article  VI  in  its  final  shape  runs  as  follows: 

To  facilitate  and  to  secure  the  execution  of  the  present  Treaty,  and  to 
consolidate  the  connexions  which  at  the  present  so  closely  unite  the  Four 
Sovereigns  for  the  happiness  of  the  World,  the  High  Contracting  Parties 
have  agreed  to  renew  their  Meetings  at  fixed  periods,  either  under  the 
immediate  auspices  of  the  Sovereigns  themselves,  or  by  their  respective 
Ministers,  for  the  purpose  of  consulting  upon  their  common  interests,  and 
for  the  consideration  of  the  measures  which  at  each  of  these  periods  shall 
be  considered  the  most  salutary  for  the  repose  and  prosperity  of  Nations, 
and  for  the  maintenance  of  the  Peace  of  Europe. 

This  Article  stands  exactly  as  it  was  drawn  up  by  Castlereagh  in  his 
draft.  In  Alexander's  original  proposal,  the  meetings  had  been  merely 
intended  to  supervise  the  execution  of  the  provisions  in  the  Treaty 
dealing  with  France.  It  was  Castlereagh  who  added  the  words  which 
founded  the  so-called  "  Congress  System" — periodic  meetings  of  the 
statesmen  to  discuss  the  affairs  of  Europe  round  a  table  rather  than  by 
the  old  medium  of  notes  and  documents  interchanged  between  the 
Courts  through  the  medium  of  Ambassadors.  The  application,  there- 
fore, to  a  period  of  peace  of  the  idea  of  diplomacy  by  Conference, 
gradually  brought  into  being  in  the  closing  stages  of  the  War,  was  due 
to  Castlereagh  more  than  to  anyone  else.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
he  attached  the  highest  importance  to  it,  and  regarded  it  as  a  piece  of 
machinery  highly  essential  for  the  maintenance  of  the  peace  of  Europe. 
The  Alliance  constructed  to  protect  Europe  against  French  domination 
was  clearly  thought  by  him  capable  of  extension  into  a  system  of  in- 
formal Conferences,  which,  while  leaving  the  Great  Powers  absolutely 
free  to  decide  every  case  on  its  own  merits,  would  enable  them  to  con- 
tinue the  intimate  relations  established  by  these  among  themselves 
during  the  War.  The  time  was  indeed  not  yet  ripe  for  the  institution  of 
a  formal  system  of  European  Conferences,  which  alone  could  have 
rendered  permanent  so  great  a  conception.  The  institutions  of  the 
various  nations  and  the  ideals  of  their  rulers  were  too  dissimilar  for 
such  a  system  to  maintain  itself ,  especially  since  no  attempt  was  made  to 
support  it  by  the  public  opinion  of  the  nations  concerned.  Yet,  in  de- 
vising it  and  stedfastly  supporting  it  throughout  his  career,  in  spite  of 
the  opposition  of  his  colleagues,  Castlereagh  showed  himself,  in  a  sense, 
the  most  enlightened  statesman  of  his  time.  Blind  as  he  was  to  the  great 
movements  which  were  to  dominate  the  nineteenth  century,  he  was 
yet  far  in  advance  of  all  his  own  countrymen  in  his  recognition  of  the 


5i8        THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

fact  that  new  methods  of  diplomacy  were  necessary,  if  Europe  was 
to  be  preserved  from  the  scourge  of  war.  Nor  was  "the  Concert  of 
Europe/'  the  main  result  of  the  system  which  he  advocated,  without 
its  successes  in  the  century  that  followed1. 


The  reputation  of  Castlereagh  as  a  Foreign  Minister  has  changed 
a  great  deal  in  recent  years.  The  attitude  which  Lord  Salisbury  took 
up  in  1862  and  Lord  Morley  and  Mr  Balfour  were  inclined  to  follow 
in  1891,  has  on  the  whole  been  justified  by  the  researches  of  his- 
torians since  the  diplomatic  papers  of  the  time  have  been  more 
closely  studied.  There  is  some  danger  perhaps  of  the  reaction  going 
too  far  in  an  age  painfully  conscious  of  the  difficulty  of  such  work 
as  Castlereagh  tried  to  accomplish.  Yet  the  courage  and  common- 
sense  of  his  diplomacy  during  the  Pacification  of  Europe  are  such  as 
to  compel  admiration  even  from  those  who  detest  many  of  the  prin- 
ciples for  which  he  stood.  Rarely  has  a  statesman  been  able  to  carry 
out  his  policy  with  such  consistency  and  success.  If  we  compare 
the  legacy,  which  Pitt  left  to  his  pupil,  with  the  results  actually 
obtained,  we  see  that,  throughout  these  critical  years,  Castlereagh 
was  aiming  at  a  definite  and  complete  scheme  of  reorganisation — 
nine-tenths  of  which  he  successfully  accomplished.  Much  of  this 
was  of  course  in  the  nature  of  things,  and  Castlereagh  happened  to 
take  office  just  as  the  tide  of  fortune  turned.  He  reaped  where  other 
men  had  sown — Pitt,  of  course,  and  Canning  in  his  earliest  and 
possibly  most  brilliant  period.  Nevertheless,  his  own  share  in 
bringing  about  the  new  order  of  things  was  no  small  one,  and  the 
persistence  with  which  he  followed  a  definite  line  of  policy  to  its 
logical  conclusion  is  almost  without  parallel  among  diplomatists,  who 
are,  speaking  generally,  opportunists. 

Castlereagh  was,  in  fact,  successful  because  his  policy  was  dictated 
by  principles  which  he  thoroughly  understood  and  believed  in.  Of 
his  complete  success  in  obtaining  all  the  main  objects  for  which  his 
countrymen  had  fought  for  twenty  years  there  can  be  no  doubt.  The 
maritime  and  colonial  supremacy  of  Great  Britain  was  completely 
established.  That  the  Peace  of  Paris,  no  less  than  the  Peace  of  Utrecht, 
might  have  been  used  to  amass  a  few  more  possessions  than  were 
actually  obtained  is  of  course  obvious.  But  who  will  deny  that 

1  See  C.  K.Webster,  "  Castlereagh  et  le  Systeme  des  Congres  ?"  Revue  des  Etudes 
Napoleoniennes,  Jan -Feb.  1919. 


CASTLEREAGH'S  EUROPEAN  POLICY          519 

Castlereagh 's  moderation  in  dealing  with  the  French  and  Dutch 
Colonies  was  anything  but  wise  statesmanship?  By  the  acquisition 
of  the  Cape,  Malta,  and  the  Mauritius  Great  Britain  completed  her 
strategic  control  of  the  trade  routes  of  her  Empire ;  while  sane  policy 
forbade  her  to  aim  at  a  monopoly  of  colonial  possession.  Moreover, 
Antwerp,  Genoa,  and  the  Ionian  Islands  were  all  rendered  innocuous 
for  the  future ;  and,  so  far  as  human  knowledge  and  foresight  could 
be  expected  to  reach,  the  strategic  supremacy  of  Great  Britain  was 
made  complete  in  every  sea. 

How  mistaken  some  of  Castlereagh's  European  plans  were,  the 
history  of  the  nineteenth  century  has  revealed!  But  it  may  be 
doubted  whether  any  others  would  have  served  the  needs  of  the 
moment  so  well.  If  the  idea  of  the  Balance  of  Power  was  merely  the 
application  of  an  outworn  theory  to  an  entirely  fresh  set  of  circum- 
stances, yet  it  still  had  much  in  it  which  was  necessary  to  the  stability 
of  Europe.  When  Castlereagh  insisted  that  the  centre  of  Europe 
must,  at  all  costs,  be  strengthened  against  the  dangers  which  threaten 
it  from  France  and  Russia,  he  was  merely  asserting  a  truth  which 
experience  has  abundantly  confirmed.  That  he  sacrificed  to  it  com- 
pletely the  national  claims  of  Poland,  Italy  and  Belgium  was  regrettable, 
but  in  the  circumstances  of  the  time,  inevitable.  Nor  were  any  of  these 
three  peoples  prepared  to  take  advantage  of  national  independence 
if  it  had  been  then  offered  to  them.  Of  German  unity,  so  far  as  his 
influence  extended,  Castlereagh  was,  of  course,  a  consistent  supporter. 

Castlereagh's  cardinal  error,  indeed,  was,  not  that  he  ignored  the 
principle  of  Nationality,  which  was  not  ready  for  recognition,  but 
that  he  placed  no  faith  in  popular  institutions.  Had  he  made  any 
attempt  to  help  the  new  States  to  retain  or  establish  some  form  of 
Constitutional  government,  there  would  have  been  some  prospect  of 
the  gradual  adaptation  of  the  old  system  to  the  new  forces.  But 
Castlereagh's  influence  was  everywhere  on  the  side  of  autocracy.  He 
seems  sincerely  to  have  believed  that  there  was  no  alternative  to  such 
democracy  as  the  French  Revolution  had  taught  the  aristocrats  of 
his  generation  to  dread.  He  was  indisputably  in  the  right  when  he 
distrusted  the  absurd  Constitutions  which  had  been  erected  in  the 
south  of  Europe.  But  Bentinck,  with  all  his  crudities  and  extrava- 
gances, was  in  closer  touch  with  reality  when  he  attempted  to  associate 
the  people  in  the  work  of  making  the  new  Europe. 

Yet  Castlereagh  was  not  without  his  own  schemes  for  the  main- 
tenance of  his  work.  Against  the  greatest  danger  of  all — Revolu- 
tionary and  Napoleonic  France — he  hoped  that  the  Chaumont  Treaty 


520       THE  PACIFICATION  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 

would  prove  an  adequate  safeguard;  and  he  proved  right  in  the  issue. 
This  was  his  special  contribution  to  the  problem,  and  how  much 
preferable  to  the  wild  schemes  of  plunder  and  spoliation  which 
France's  victims  would  have  liked  to  put  into  force!  French  his- 
torians have  of  recent  years  acknowledged  their  debt  to  the  magna- 
nimity of  Alexander;  but  they  have  scarcely  given  due  credit  to  the 
services  rendered  to  France  by  the  commonsense  and  diplomatic  skill 
of  Castlereagh.  Had  he  followed  the  popular  line,  France  would 
undoubtedly  have  been  deprived  of  ancient  provinces  and  laden  with 
crushing  indemnities,  and  might  easily  have  been  driven  to  a  policy  of 
despair.  For  in  these  matters,  and  especially  in  the  financial  question, 
it  was  the  voice  of  Great  Britain,  her  most  consistent  and  dangerous 
enemy,  that  counted  for  most — and  it  was  only  Castlereagh's  com- 
manding influence  in  the  counsels  of  his  countrymen  which  ensured 
that  Great  Britain  should  speak  for  justice  and  even  mercy,  rather  than 
for  revenge  and  national  greed.  If  France  was  left  with  the  frontier  of 
the  Ancien  Regime ,  a  fleet,  some  Colonies  and  a  debt  incomparably 
lighter  than  that  of  Britain  herself,  it  was  Castlereagh's  wisdom  and 
strength  of  character  that  was  largely  responsible  for  the  result. 

Castlereagh's  larger  schemes  for  the  maintenance  of  the  European 
Peace  will  be  considered  further  in  the  second  volume  of  this  work. 
As  has  been  pointed  out,  the  Congress  system  was  due  more  to  him 
than  to  any  other  man.  That  it  was  devised  mainly  to  give  per- 
manence to  the  new  condition  of  affairs  is  probably  true.  The  ideas 
of  statesmen  had  not  yet  reached  beyond  a  static  Europe.  Yet  Castle- 
reagh, more  than  any  other  statesman  of  his  time,  had  learnt  the 
lesson  that  the  old  system  of  diplomacy  had  proved  to  be  hopelessly 
inadequate.  His  substitute  of  diplomacy  by  Conference  was  an  appli- 
cation of  his  experiences  of  1814-15,  and  revealed  the  weakness  as 
well  as  the  strength  of  his  intelligence.  He  was  a  diplomatist  par 
excellence.  The  informal  Conferences,  by  which  he  had  helped  to  solve 
the  appallingly  difficult  problems  of  the  settlement,  he  regarded  as  a 
new  device  of  immense  value.  What  he  failed  to  see  was  that  such  inven- 
tions must  prove  to  be  unstable  and  unsuccessful,  if  they  depended 
merely  on  the  personal  relations  which  two  years  of  close  intercourse 
with  Continental  statesmen  had  enabled  him  to  establish.  He  failed, 
therefore  (and  the  task  was  indeed  at  that  time  an  impossible  one), 
to  give  to  the  new  ideas  either  the  stability  of  formal  interpretation 
or  the  driving  force  of  public  opinion.  For  the  latter  task,  indeed, 
no  one  could  have  been  less  suitable  than  he;  for  he  despised  and 
ignored,  so  far  as  possible,  the  public  opinion  of  his  countrymen.  He 


THE  HEIGHT  OF  CASTLEREAGH'S  ACHIEVEMENTS  521 

was  bound  to  fail,  therefore,  in  the  attempt  which  he  made  to  conquer 
their  insularity  and  show  them  that  their  own  peace  and  happiness 
was  bound  up  with  that  of  Europe.  Nevertheless,  he  made  an  experi- 
ment of  the  greatest  value  to  posterity  which,  also,  redeemed  the 
statesmanship  of  the  Pacifications  of  something  of  the  reproach  that 
it  had  learnt  none  of  the  lessons  of  its  times. 

Like  all  successful  men  of  action,  however,  Castlereagh  was  apt 
to  place  too  much  trust  in  his  own  contribution  to  human  progress. 
He  was  acutely  aware  that  he  stood  almost  alone  in  England  in 
possessing  a  knowledge  of  Continental  affairs.  It  was  thus  natural 
that  he  should  exaggerate  the  importance  of  the  Foreign  Office  and 
distrust  the  share  which  Parliament  or  public  opinion  might  play  in 
International  policy.  He  was  not  above  intrigue,  as  the  affair  of  Murat 
and  one  or  two  later  passages  in  his  life  reveal,  and  he  had  the  natural 
predilection  of  an  expert  for  methods,  which  he  had  been  able  to 
employ  with  success  and  credit  to  himself.  The  weakness  of  the 
Opposition  which  he  had  to  face  in  the  House  of  Commons  doubtless 
helped  to  exaggerate  these  defects.  Had  Canning  gone  over  to  the 
other  side,  instead  of  weakly  accepting  a  place  under  the  Government 
during  these  critical  years,  Castlereagh  might  have  been  forced  to 
take  a  different  line.  As  it  was,  he  was  never  able  to  make  any  im- 
pression on  the  best  minds  of  his  generation. 

By  the  end  of  1815,  in  fact,  the  greatest  period  of  his  career  was 
closed.  He  had  controlled  the  policy  of  his  country  at  an  all-important 
moment  in  her  history  with  a  firmness  of  purpose  and  consistency 
of  aim  almost  without  parallel.  He  had  seen  to  it  that  her  vital 
interests  had  everywhere  been  protected  and  maintained.  He  had 
by  new  and  ingenious  expedients  attempted  to  associate  her  per- 
manently with  the  European  System.  He  had  established  his  own 
position  among  European  statesmen  and  was  a  power  in  their 
Councils  which  could  not  be  ignored.  But  he  was  the  last  man  to 
cope  intelligently  with  the  new  forces  which  had  grown  up  in  his 
own  country  during  the  years  of  war;  indeed,  few  statesmen  are, 
who  conduct  a  great  struggle  to  its  conclusion.  Though  he  was  some- 
thing more  than  a  skilled  diplomatist — namely,  a  Foreign  Minister 
with  principles  of  action — he  could  do  nothing  to  teach  these  prin- 
ciples to  others.  Thus,  he  died  a  few  years  later,  the  most  lonely  and 
friendless  of  all  the  great  Ministers  of  England — so  hated  and  con- 
temned that  it  has  been  reserved  for  a  later  generation  to  do  justice 
to  the  great  qualities  which  he  undoubtedly  possessed. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  AMERICAN  WAR  AND  THE  TREATY 
OF  GHENT,  1814 

I 

THROUGHOUT  the  period  subsequent  to  the  Peace  of  Amiens 
the  relations  between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  were 
strained  almost  to  breaking-point.  This  condition  of  affairs  was  due, 
very  largely,  to  the  attitude  which  Great  Britain  assumed  as  a 
belligerent  Power,  though  there  were  also  other  causes  of  dispute 
between  the  two  peoples  of  a  serious  nature  which  would  have 
arisen  even  if  Europe  had  remained  at  peace.  Two  reasons  alone 
had  prevented  the  War  which  at  last  broke  out  in  June  1812  from 
beginning  at  a  far  earlier  date — the  wrongs  which  France  had  inflicted 
on  America,  and  the  weakness  of  the  United  States  against  the  over- 
whelming maritime  power  of  Great  Britain.  Indeed,  had  British 
statesmen  shown  themselves  but  a  little  more  prescient  in  the  years 
1809-1812,  they  could  almost  certainly  have  delayed  the  outbreak, 
until  the  course  of  events  in  Europe  would  of  itself  have  prevented 
it.  As  it  was,  the  successes  of  the  later  stages  of  the  Napoleonic  Wars 
were  embittered  by  the  course  of  a  futile  and  inconclusive  struggle 
between  Great  Britain  and  America,  which  in  itself  settled  none  of 
the  points  at  issue.  Rarely  has  there  been  in  history  a  war  fought  with 
such  bitterness  and  determination,  if  with  singular  incapacity  on  both 
sides,  which  has  terminated  without  a  single  one  of  the  original 
causes  of  the  war  appearing  in  the  Treaty  of  Peace.  This  result  was  of 
course  due  to  the  fact  that  the  War  was  a  by-product  of  the  European 
War,  and  the  causes  that  produced  it  ceased  at  the  European  Peace. 
Nevertheless,  men  do  not  easily  give  up  principles  for  which  they  have 
been  ready  to  shed  their  blood.  Fortunately,  in  this  case  Great  Britain, 
the  stronger  Power,  had  never  insisted  on  a  formal  recognition  of  her 
rights.  She  was  content  if  she  was  able  to  refuse  to  surrender  them 
formally.  Moreover,  though  public  opinion  vehemently  supported  the 
War  while  it  was  being  waged  and  there  was  a  far  greater  bitterness 
displayed  in  its  course  than  during  the  Revolution,  yet  for  Great 
Britain  the  War  was  after  all  a  minor  affair.  Her  main  energies  had 


CAUSES  OF  THE  AMERICAN  WAR  523 

been  concentrated  on  Europe,  where  she  had  won  a  more  complete 
triumph  than  her  people  had  ever  hoped  to  attain.  She  could  accept, 
not,  indeed,  without  some  considerable  sacrifice  of  pride,  the  humilia- 
tions and  failures  of  the  American  War ;  and  the  consciousness  that 
they  had  been  able  to  inflict  these  on  the  British  Empire,  flushed  with 
victory,  compensated  the  Americans  for  the  failure  to  establish  the 
principles  for  which  they  had  fought. 

The  two  main  causes  of  the  War  were  the  impressment  of  American 
sailors  by  British  ships  of  War,  and  the  losses  imposed  upon  American 
trade  by  the  British  regulations  as  to  neutral  commerce.  Both  were 
considered  by  the  British  people  absolutely  necessary  to  their  success 
against  Napoleon;  and,  in  actual  fact,  their  view  was  to  a  large  extent 
a  correct  one.  So  long  as  the  methods  then  in  vogue  for  maintaining 
the  naval  power  of  Great  Britain  continued,  it  was  essential  that  no 
easy  refuge  should  be  found  from  the  dangers  and  trials  of  that 
service.  By  1812,  indeed,  the  main  danger  of  the  maritime  war  had 
disappeared,  and  great  concessions  could  undoubtedly  have  been 
made  to  America  without  endangering  British  sea  power.  Neverthe- 
less the  extent  of  the  War  and  the  future  demands  on  the  fleet  could 
not  be  foreseen,  and  one  concession  might  lead  to  another.  Interference 
with  neutral  commerce  was,  also,  in  some  form  essential  to  the  winning 
of  the  war.  Had  Napoleon  been  able  to  use  a  neutral  fleet,  he  could 
almost  certainly  have  successfully  defied  the  maritime  power  of  Great 
Britain,  while  irreparable  injury  would  have  been  inflicted  on  British 
commerce.  Yet  Great  Britain  was  able,  in  June  1812,  to  relax  to  some 
extent  restrictions,  which  had  grown  more  severe  with  every  year  of 
war,  though  too  late  to  avert  the  struggle  with  the  United  States. 

The  long  diplomatic  struggle  that  had  been  carried  on  between 
the  two  Powers  has  been  narrated  in  the  previous  Chapter  of  this 
Volume.  It  dated  in  a  sense,  as  Mahan  points  out,  from  before  the 
War  and, in  one  aspect,  was  a  continuation  of  the  War  of  Independence. 
But,  from  the  outbreak  of  the  War,  the  effort  which  the  United  States 
was  making  to  obtain  a  due  share  of  the  carrying  trade  and  colonial 
commerce  of  the  world  took  upon  itself  a  new  significance.  A  com- 
petition, which  in  peace  time  was  indeed  resented  by  Britain  and 
France  alike,  became  a  vital  factor  in  the  decision  of  the  struggle  in 
Europe.  Since  1794,  when  the  Senate  refused  to  accept  the  few  con- 
cessions which  Jay  had  secured  as  in  any  way  adequate  to  satisfy 
the  pretensions  of  the  United  States,  dispute  had  succeeded  dispute, 
and  incident  incident.  The  Americans  gradually  found  that  their 


524    AMERICAN  WAR  AND  TREATY  OF  GHENT,  1814 

position  as  a  neutral  was  almost  as  difficult  as  if  they  had  been  a 
belligerent.  Every  expedient  was  tried,  even  the  practical  abandon- 
ment of  their  over-seas  commerce,  to  find  an  issue  from  the  position 
in  which  they  were  placed.  But  the  European  War  still  went  on,  and, 
as  it  broadened  and  grew  yearly  more  intense,  the  restrictions  to 
which  the  Americans  had  to  submit  grew  more  and  more  irksome. 

Most  insulting  of  all  to  national  pride  was  the  exercise  of  the 
British  right  of  search.  The  British  navy  was  recruited  by  impress- 
ment, and  it  was  only  natural  that  many  British  sailors  should  seek 
a  freer  and  more  lucrative  career  in  American  ships.  But  Great 
Britain  peremptorily  refused  to  allow  any  such  transference  of  alle- 
giance, and,  alike  in  British  and  Colonial  ports  and  on  the  high  seas, 
they  exerted  their  right  to  force  their  sailors  to  return  to  British  ships. 
No  period  of  naturalisation  was  regarded  as  sufficient  to  relieve  a 
British  sailor  from  his  obligations  to  his  country;  and,  since  the  dis- 
tinction between  Britishers  and  Americans  was  not  great,  and  many 
British  sailors  posed  as  Americans  in  order  to  escape  impressment,  it 
was  inevitable  that  many  Americans  should  be  forcibly  taken  from 
ships  of  their  own  country  and  made  to  serve  in  British  vessels.  The 
right  was  exerted  with  the  greatest  brutality  by  the  British  fleet,  and 
in  1807  the  attack  on  the  American  frigate  ' Chesapeake'  appeared  to 
denote  that  not  even  American  men-of-war  were  to  be  exempt  and 
all  but  led  to  an  immediate  outbreak  of  hostilities.  The  British 
Government  did  not,  indeed,  defend  the  action  of  its  subordinates 
in  this  case;  but  it  refused,  then  as  always,  to  discuss  the  general 
question  of  impressment.  The  right  of  search,  it  was  claimed,  had 
been  exercised  from  earliest  times  by  Great  Britain.  No  expedient 
could  be  devised  to  distinguish  accurately  between  Americans  and 
British.  It  must  be,  therefore,  left  to  the  British  naval  officers  to 
exercise  their  discretion  as  to  how  and  when  they  applied  the 
undoubted  maritime  rights  of  their  country.  The  claim  to  search 
American  vessels  of  war  was,  indeed,  abandoned,  and  offers  of 
compensation  for  the  'Chesapeake'  affair  were  made.  But  these 
were  not  such  as  to  satisfy  the  American  Government.  Erskine's 
conciliatory  policy  was  rejected  by  the  British  Cabinet.  F.J.Jackson, 
who  succeeded  him,  carried  out  his  Instructions  in  so  uncompromising 
a  fashion  that  the  American  Government  refused  to  negotiate  further 
with  him,  and  from  the  beginning  of  1810  to  June  181 1  Great  Britain 
was  only  represented  by  a  Charge  d'affaires  at  Washington.  A.  J. 
Foster  was  then  sent  by  the  British  Government,  and  the '  Chesapeake ' 


CAUSES  OF  THE  AMERICAN  WAR  525 

affair  was  closed  by  an  offer  of  reparation  which  was  accepted.  The 
main  question  still  remained  open.  The  British  Government  in- 
creased American  bitterness  by  attempting  to  prove  that  British  sea- 
men were  detained  against  their  will  on  American  warships.  At 
last,  the  humiliation  could  no  longer  be  borne  by  the  people  of  the 
United  States ;  and  perhaps  the  main  cause  of  the  War  which  was  de- 
clared on  June  i8th  was  the  hopelessness  of  obtaining  any  relief  on 
this  question  except  by  declaring  it.  At  any  rate,  even  when  the  news 
of  the  abandonment  of  the  Orders  in  Council  reached  America  after 
the  Declaration  of  War,  the  United  States  was  prepared  to  continue 
hostilities  because  of  this  question  alone. 

More  serious,  however,  to  the  national  interests  of  the  United 
States  was  the  second  cause  of  the  War — the  interference  by  the  Belli- 
gerentPowers  inEuropewith  hercommerce.  The  destruction  of  French 
maritime  commerce  by  the  British  fleet  had  thrown  open  to  the 
United  States  the  carrying  trade  between  France  and  her  Colonies, 
which  had  hitherto  been  as  jealously  guarded  as  that  of  the  British 
Empire.  But,  by  the  exercise  of  a  right  which  had  first  been  applied 
in  the  Seven  Years'  War  and  hence  was  called  the  "Rule  of  1756," 
Britain  forbade  the  United  States  from  taking  advantage  of  the  oppor- 
tunity thus  offered  to  her.  Such  trade  was  regarded  not  as  a  neutral 
service  but  as  active  assistance  to  the  enemy,  and  was,  therefore,  met 
with  the  full  exercise  of  the  belligerent  right  of  capture.  When  Spain 
and  Holland  became  part  of  the  French  system,  the  rule  was  extended 
to  their  Colonies  likewise.  The  Americans,  at  first,  endeavoured 
to  get  over  the  restriction  by  breaking  their  journey  to  Europe  at 
ports  of  the  United  States ;  but  the  application  by  the  British  Govern- 
ment in  1799  of  the  doctrine  of  "continuous  voyage"  defeated  this 
expedient. 

If  great  loss  was  inflicted  on  their  commerce  by  this  rule,  yet  it 
was  true  that  the  Americans  had  not,  for  the  most  part,  enjoyed  the 
privileges  of  this  trade  in  peace  time.  But  it  was  not  long  before  they 
began,  also,  to  be  prevented  from  carrying  on  the  trade  between  their 
own  country  and  Europe,  which  they  had  maintained  before  the  War. 
By  the  practice  of  "blockade "  Great  Britain,  so  early  as  1799,  forbade 
all  trading  with  ports  controlled  by  France,  and  rendered  all  ships 
sailing  to  them  subject  to  capture.  After  the  peace  of  Amiens,  as 
Napoleon  obtained  control  over  all  Europe  the  area  of  such"  blockade  " 
was  extended.  That  such  measures,  in  part  at  least,  were  merely  re- 
taliatory to  the  paper  "blockades"  established  by  Napoleon  himself, 


526    AMERICAN  WAR  AND  TREATY  OF  GHENT,  1814 

made  no  difference  to  the  extent  of  the  injuries  inflicted  on  the 
United  States.  The  Berlin  and  Milan  Decrees  and  the  Orders  in 
Council  of  1807  and  1809,  which  followed  them,  all  but  excluded 
American  ships  from  European  ports,  and  since  Great  Britain  com- 
manded the  sea,  it  was  Great  Britain  who  appeared  to  be  mainly 
responsible  for  the  injuries  inflicted  upon  them.  The  expedients  of 
the  Non-Intercourse  and  Embargo  Acts,  devised  by  the  Jefferson  and 
Madison  Cabinets  in  1806  and  1808  to  meet  this  situation,  injured 
the  United  States  far  more  than  any  other  country.  Gradually, 
therefore,  all  classes  of  the  nation  were  drawn  into  a  common  hos- 
tility. Nevertheless,  the  measures  of  the  British  Government  were 
just  as  strongly  approved  by  public  opinion  in  England.  Canning 
was  but  expressing  the  feelings  of  most  of  his  countrymen  when  he 
said  that  Great  Britain  could  not  consent  to  "buy  off  that  hostility 
which  America  ought  not  to  have  extended  to  her1."  Various  expe- 
dients were  suggested  for  mitigating  the  rigour  of  the  Orders  but 
almost  all  were  rejected  by  the  British  Government.  The  situation 
was  made  more  serious  by  Napoleon's  pretence  to  suspend  the  Milan 
and  Berlin  Decrees  in  1810.  The  British  Government  with  truth  held 
that  no  such  repeal  had  really  been  made,  and  Foster  offered  to  repeal 
the  Orders  in  Council,  if  the  French  Decrees  could  be  shown  to  be 
wholly  removed.  But  this  could  not  be  done,  as  the  President  himself 
was  very  well  aware.  Nevertheless,  on  June  23rd,  1812,  the  Orders 
in  Council  were  annulled  so  far  as  American  vessels  were  concerned. 
The  cessation  of  the  American  trade  had  inflicted  great  injury  on 
British  commerce,  and  it  was  this  motive  that  induced  the  Government 
to  give  way  rather  than  any  fear  of  hostilities.  The  repeal,  however, 
came  too  late  to  influence  the  decision  of  the  American  Government, 
who  had  declared  war  on  June  i8th. 

The  outbreak  of  the  War  was  due,  almost  entirely,  to  the  two  causes 
which  have  been  discussed.  There  were,  however,  other  causes  opera- 
ting to  produce  friction  between  the  countries,  though  not  of  such 
a  nature  as  to  rank  with  the  other  two.  The  purchase  by  the  United 
States  of  Louisiana,  which  Napoleon  had  forced  Spain  to  transfer  to 
him,  had  caused  much  resentment  in  England,  and,  in  the  dispute 
which  subsequently  broke  out  between  the  United  States  and  Spain 

1  Canning  to  Pinkney,  September  23rd,  1808;  F.  A.  Updyke,  The  Diplomacy  of 
the  War  0/1812,  Baltimore,  1915,  p.  99.  This  work  is  founded  on  a  very  complete 
survey  of  both  the  American  and  British  State  Papers,  as  well  as  on  researches  in 
the  diplomatic  documents  preserved  at  Washington  and  the  Record  Office,  and  the 
writer  is  very  largely  indebted  to  it  in  this  portion  of  his  work. 


AMERICAN  OPINION  AND  THE  WAR  527 

as  to  the  Floridas  British  sympathies  were  entirely  on  the  side  of  the 
latter  country.  It  was  becoming  clear  that  the  United  States  was 
aiming  at  extending  her  power  to  the  Pacific,  and  in  such  a  case 
British  possessions  in  Canada  and  the  West  Indies  might  be  en- 
dangered. To  some  minds,  a  war  appeared  necessary  to  check  the 
growth  of  the  new  nation  whose  future  could  not  be  foreseen.  These 
were,  however,  a  very  small  minority,  and,  though  the  boundaries 
between  Canada  and  the  United  States  were  ill-defined  and  the 
fishing  rights  granted  to  the  Americans  by  the  Treaty  of  1783  ex- 
ceedingly unpopular  among  their  Newfoundland  competitors,  yet 
these  were  not  in  any  way  acute  grievances.  On  the  American  side, 
there  was  a  party  which  both  hated  and  feared  the  power  of  Great 
Britain  and  was  only  too  ready  to  take  advantage  of  her  embarrass- 
ments. But  this  antipathy  was  kept  in  check  by  the  still  more  powerful 
interests  which  had  commercial  ties  with  Britain. 

The  final  stages  of  the  diplomatic  struggle  were  much  influenced 
by  the  fact  that  the  United  States  had  no  Minister  at  London. 
Jonathan  Russell,  the  Chargt  d'affaires,  was  quite  incapable  of  appre- 
ciating all  the  issues  involved,  or  of  keeping  his  own  Government 
accurately  informed  of  the  course  of  events.  That  war  had  been  de- 
layed so  long,  was  due,  not  to  the  diplomacy  of  either  side,  which  was 
almost  always  as  stiff  and  uncompromising  as  possible,  but  to  two  other 
causes.  In  the  first  place,  the  United  States  had  almost  as  great  a 
grievance  against  France  as  against  Great  Britain,  and  to  declare  war 
against  Great  Britain  was,  in  effect,  to  support  Napoleon.  There  were 
indeed  in  the  United  States  a  considerable  number  of  people  who 
remembered  the  indebtedness  of  their  country  to  France.  But,  if  the 
French  Republic  had  only  succeeded  in  alienating  almost  completely 
American  sympathy,  it  was  not  likely  that  an  Emperor,  who  expressed 
in  himself  the  antithesis  of  the  ideals  of  the  United  States,  would 
secure  their  support.  War  with  England  had  therefore  to  be  carefully 
distinguished  from  even  the  semblance  of  an  alliance  with  Napoleon, 
and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  throughout  the  struggle  this  attitude  was 
maintained  with  scrupulous  care.  The  question  of  war  or  peace  was, 
also,  to  a  certain  extent  a  party  issue  in  the  United  States.  The 
*  lC45«ffiGeFats  advocated  the  war  while  the  Federalists  opposed  it. 
The  division  was  largely  a  geographical  one.  The  commercial  States, 
who  had  most  to  lose  from  the  War,  were  mainly  Federalist,  and 
were,  moreover,  bound  to  England  by  greater  ties  of  affection  and 
community  of  outlook  than  the  other  portions  of  the  United  States. 


528    AMERICAN  WAR  AND  TREATY  OF  GHENT,  1814 

But  the  Democrats  rightly  thought  that  the  events  of  1811  had  made 
it  impossible  for  their  opponents  to  resist  the  strong  feeling  which 
was  manifest  everywhere  in  the  United  States.  They  were  proved 
right  by  the  issue.  The  case  that  was  presented  to  Congress  was  an 
overwhelming  one  to  American  eyes;  and,  though  in  States  like 
Massachusetts  and  Connecticut,  opposition  went  as  far  as  passive 
resistance  to  the  measures  of  the  Central  Administration,  yet,  on  the 
whole,  the  mass  of  the  nation  was  behind  the  Government  in  their 
struggle,  however  tardily  they  came  to  understand  the  responsibili- 
ties which  it  threw  on  them. 

In  England  also  the  War  was  popular.  The  commercial  interests 
were,  indeed,  dismayed,  but  the  governing  classes  were  united  in  re- 
garding the  American  Declaration  of  War  as  a  treacherous  attack  on 
a  country  that  was  contending  for  the  liberties  of  the  world.  The 
Whigs, naturally, endeavoured  to  throw  as  much  blame  on  the  Govern- 
ment as  possible ;  but  they  dared  not  deny  the  necessity  of  the  exercise 
of  the  British  rights  which  were  the  cause  of  the  War.  Among  the 
mass  of  the  people  there  was  an  intense  bitterness,  and  they  demanded, 
not  merely  the  maintenance  of  British  rights,  but  the  punishment  of 
the  Americans  for  their  attack  on  Great  Britain  at  the  crisis  of  her 
struggle  with  Napoleon.  The  confiscation  of  all  American  ships  in 
British  ports,  immediately  the  news  of  the  American  Declaration  of 
War  was  received,  was  an  index  of  the  manner  in  which  the  struggle 
would  be  carried  on. 

Nevertheless,  an  attempt  was  made  on  both  sides  to  put  an  end 
to  the  War  almost  as  soon  as  it  was  begun.  Neither  side  had  accurately 
gauged  the  stubbornness  and  passion  with  which  their  opponents 
would  hold  to  their  own  view  of  the  case.  Castlereagh,  however,  who 
had  just  come  into  office  when  the  War  broke  out,  while  rigorously 
maintaining  the  British  case,  was  from  the  first  as  conciliatory  in 
manner  as  possible  in  all  American  questions.  The  British  Govern- 
ment were  under  the  impression  that  the  United  States  would  not 
continue  the  War  for  impressment  alone,  now  that  the  Orders  in 
Council  were  removed.  Accordingly,  Admiral  Warren,  who  was  sent 
out  in  command  of  the  naval  operations  against  America,  was  ordered 
to  offer  an  armistice  with  a  view  to  a  termination  of  hostilities.  No 
concessions  were,  however,  offered— merely  a  threat  that  the  Orders 
in  Council  would  be  reinforced  if  peace  were  not  made.  Monroe, 
Madison's  Secretary  of  State,  however,  insisted  on  the  right  of  im- 
pressment being  given  up  even  before  an  armistice  could  be  con- 


FAILURE  OF  ARMISTICE  NEGOTIATIONS        529 

eluded,  and  refused  to  treat  on  any  other  terms  than  that  this  practice 
should  be  open  to  negotiation1. 

Previously  to  this,  Russell  had  made  an  offer  in  London  by 
order  of  his  Government.  The  Americans  had  hoped  that  Great 
Britain  would  shrink  from  a  new  war  while  they  were  so  deeply 
involved  in  the  European  struggle.  Russell  was  instructed  to  offer  a 
law  against  employing  British  seamen  in  American  vessels,  in  return 
for  the  cessation  of  impressment.  But  the  inability  of  the  Government 
of  the  United  States  to  enforce  any  such  measure  had  been  all  along 
asserted,  and  with  truth,  by  the  British  Government.  Castlereagh 
therefore  rejected  this  overture,  though  he  was  careful  to  add  that, 
if  any  practical  expedient  could  be  found  to  prevent  British  sailors 
being  employed  on  American  ships,  he  would  be  glad  to  discuss  it. 
Further  negotiations  for  an  armistice  by  Russell  were  also  without 
any  result,  except  that  the  issues,  which  divided  the  two  countries, 
were  restated  in  their  most  uncompromising  form2. 

The  War  was  thus  continued ;  but  it  bore  a  very  different  aspect 
in  the  two  countries  concerned.  For  America,  it  became  the  one  vital 
question  on  which  all  others  must  depend.  Her  party  issues,  the 
relations  of  the  States  to  the  Central  Government,  the  ambitions  of  her 
politicians,  the  whole  future  and  prosperity  of  the  country,  depended 
on  the  result.  For  Great  Britain,  dangerous  and  detrimental  to  her 
interests  as  the  War  was,  it  was  yet  completely  subordinate  to  the  far 
vaster  struggle  with  Napoleon,  and  the  reconstruction  of  Europe  that 
followed.  Not  until  the  middle  of  1814  was  she  able  to  direct  her 
full  military  and  naval  strength  towards  it,  and,  even  then,  her  states- 
men were  more  preoccupied  with  European  problems  than  with 
America.  Nevertheless,  she  was  able  to  inflict  far  more  damage  on 
the  United  States  than  she  received.  Her  defeats  at  sea  and  on  the 
Lakes,  and  the  depredations  of  American  privateers  on  British  com- 
merce, were,  in  themselves,  serious  additions  to  the  exhaustion  and 
strain  of  a  long  war.  But  they  were  injuries  that  could  be  easily  borne 
by  an  empire  that  held  the  carrying  trade  of  the  world  in  its  hands.  The 
United  States  on  the  contrary  was  practically  cut  off  from  commerce 
with  the  rest  of  the  world.  Indeed,  as  time  went  on,  communications 
between  the  several  States  which  largely  depended  on  the  sea  were 
seriously  impaired.  The  injuries  went  so  far  that,  towards  the  end  of 
the  struggle,  there  was  at  least  a  possibility  that  some  of  the  States 

1  British  and  Foreign  State  Papers,  I.  1492. 

2  British  and  Foreign  State  Papers,  i.  1473. 

W.&G.I.  34 


530    AMERICAN  WAR  AND  TREATY  OF  GHENT,  1814 

would  break  away  from  the  Federation  and  conclude  a  separate  peace. 
Nor,  without  allies,  could  the  United  States  hope  ultimately  to  force 
her  adversary  to  give  in,  if  events  in  Europe  did  not  bring  about  her 
submission.  But,  in  Europe,  the  situation  grew  daily  more  favourable 
to  Great  Britain  almost  from  the  moment  that  the  War  broke  out.  It 
was  not  long  therefore  before  the  statesmen  of  the  United  States 
were  more  ready  for  peace  than  those  of  Britain. 

The  first  attempt  to  secure  peace  came  through  the  mediation  of 
Russia.  In  1812  Russia  had  become  the  Ally  of  England,  and  had 
therefore  an  interest  in  endeavouring  to  put  an  end  to  a  conflict  which 
lessened  the  ability  of  Great  Britain  to  help  her  against  Napoleon. 
By  British  influence,  Russia  had  been  able  to  negotiate  agreements 
with  Turkey  and  Sweden  at  the  critical  moment  of  her  struggle  with 
Napoleon.  She  might  now  hope  to  render  similar  services  in  return. 
Moreover,  it  was  but  likely  that  the  United  States  would  be  disposed 
to  view  favourably  an  offer  of  mediation  from  Russia,  since  the  latter 
Power  had  been  a  devoted  champion  of  Neutral  Rights.  There  was, 
indeed,  in  Russia  a  party  which  viewed  the  alliance  with  Great  Britain 
with  great  dislike,  and  Count  RomantzofT,  who  was  chief  of  it,  held 
the  office  of  Chancellor  until  the  end  of  1813,  though  he  remained 
at  Petrograd  deprived  of  all  real  power.  At  the  Russian  capital,  the 
United  States  was  represented  by  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  her 
statesmen,  John  Quincy  Adams,  later  the  author  of  the  Monroe 
doctrine  and  President  of  the  United  States.  Though  he  deplored  the 
war,  yet  he  hated  and  distrusted  Great  Britain.  "The  English  talk," 
he  noted  in  his  diary  in  1812,  "much  about  their  honor  and  national 
morality — sometimes  without  meaning,  but  generally  with  a  mixture 
of  hypocrisy  and  self  delusion  in  about  equal  proportions.  Dr  John- 
son, in  one  of  his  poems,  honestly  avows  that  in  his  lifetime  English 
honor  had  become  a  standing  jest;  and  it  has  assuredly  not  since  then 
improved1."  Adams  was  also  fond  of  comparing  impressment,  which 
Britain  was  so  determined  to  maintain,  with  the  Slave  Trade,  which 
she  was  anxious  to  abolish.  Count  Romantzoff  thus  found  him  a 
congenial  companion,  and  Adams  was  easily  able  to  convince  the  Chan- 
cellor that  the  United  States  had  no  desire  for  any  connexion  with 
France.  The  result  was  an  offer,  in  September,  of  the  mediation  of 
Russia  to  settle  the  dispute.  This  offer  did  not  reach  Washington  till 
the  beginning  of  March  1813,  when  the  American  Government 
showed  the  greatest  eagerness  to  accept  it2.  Despite  some  notable 

1  Memoirs  of  John  Quincy  Adamsy  n.  400. 

2  British  and  Foreign  State  Papers,  l.  1533. 


RUSSIAN  MEDIATION  REJECTED  531 

victories  at  sea,  the  Americans  had  failed  lamentably  in  Canada,  and 
events  in  Europe  were  not  propitious.  The  offer  was  therefore  imme- 
diately accepted  and  Albert  Gallatin,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
and  Bayard,  a  Senator  of  experience,  were  dispatched  forthwith  to 
Petrograd  to  join  Adams  in  negotiating  a  peace  through  the  mediation 
of  Russia .  Bayard  was  a  man  of  but  moderate  parts  and  moreover 
disliked  Adams,  but  Gallatin  was  an  especially  suitable  appointment. 
Of  Swiss  origin,  he  was  able  to  combine  a  devotion  to  America  with 
an  understanding  of  the  European  point  of  view.  He  had  great  charm 
of  manner  as  well  as  great  abilities  and  he  possessed  many  friends  in 
England.  Ultimately  it  was  more  due  to  his  wisdom  and  ingenuity 
than  to  any  other  cause  that  peace  was  concluded.  The  Instructions 
which  the  Plenipotentiaries  received,  however,  insisted  on  the 
American  view  of  impressment,  blockade  and  other  matters  in  dis- 
pute, and  showed  little  signs  of  concession.  But  the  mediation  had 
already  been  rejected  by  Great  Britain  before  the  American  Envoys 
arrived  in  Europe. 

It  was,  indeed,  impossible  on  many  grounds  for  such  an  offer  to 
be  accepted.  A  dispute  with  America  was  still  regarded  as  an  almost 
domestic  question  in  which  Foreign  Powers  could  have  no  concern. 
To  begin  negotiations  for  peace  under  Russian  mediation  might  per- 
haps provide  an  opportunity  to  bring  British  maritime  rights  into 
the  general  discussions — and,  as  has  been  seen,  British  statesmen  were 
determined  to  exclude  them  completely.  Nor  could  Russia  be  re- 
garded as  a  suitable  mediator,  since  she  had  herself  previously  shown 
that  she  agreed  with  the  position  which  the  United  States  had  taken 
up.  The  mediation  was  therefore  rejected,  and  Instructions  to  that 
effect  were  sent  to  Cathcart.  Since,  however,  Alexander  had  ceased 
to  correspond  with  Romantzoff  on  public  affairs  and  was  anxious  to 
force  him  to  resign,  no  official  notification  was  sent  to  Petrograd. 
The  American  Commissioners  were  thus  placed  in  a  peculiarly  per- 
plexing and  humiliating  position,  though  Romantzoff  endeavoured  to 
conceal  his  own  impotence  by  an  attempt  to  make  a  second  offer 
through  Lieven,  which  that  Ambassador  refused  to  deliver.  Gallatin's 
position  was  made  still  more  difficult  by  the  fact  that  the  Senate  re- 
fused to  ratify  his  appointment,  because  he  still  retained  his  post  as 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  Gallatin  had,  however,  not  been  idle. 
He  got  in  touch  with  friends  in  Europe  to  whom  he  wrote  conciliatory 
letters,  and,  in  particular,  with  Alexander  Baring  of  the  famous 
banking  house  in  London.  Baring,  in  a  very  frank  letter,  explained  the 

34—2 


532    AMERICAN  WAR  AND  TREATY  OF  GHENT,  1814 

views  of  the  British  Government  on  mediation1.  At  the  same  time 
he  suggested  that  a  direct  negotiation  at  London  might  be  substituted 
with  success,  provided  that  the  American  view  of  impressment  was 
not  finally  insisted  upon.  These  were,  in  substance,  Gallatin's  own 
opinions  and  he  hastened  to  urge  them  on  his  Government  at  the 
same  time  making  preparations  for  a  journey  to  London. 

Meanwhile,  Castlereagh  had  been  taking  steps  to  bring  forward  a 
similar  proposal.  He  pressed  on  Cathcart  the  necessity  of  excluding 
the  American  War  and  all  maritime  questions  from  Continental  affairs. 
But  he  was  anxious  for  direct  negotiations  at  London  or  elsewhere ; 
and  he  asked  the  Emperor  to  press  this  view  on  the  Americans2.  In 
September,  as  a  result  of  conversations  with  Lieven,  he  returned  to 
the  question  even  more  warmly.  There  had  been  rumours,  which 
had  seriously  alarmed  the  British  Government,  that  Napoleon  in- 
tended to  press  for  the  introduction  of  American  Commissioners  to 
the  Prague  Conferences.  The  subject  might  well  be  used  to  sow  dis- 
sensions between  Great  Britain  and  her  Allies ;  and  Castlereagh  was 
determined  to  rule  the  matter  out  of  discussion  at  once. 

"The  whole  question  with  America...,"  he  wrote  to  Cathcart  on 
September  zyth3,  "is  one  not  of  principle  but  of  practice,  the  oppressions 
alleged  to  be  committed  in  impressing  Americans  as  British  subjects 
[arise]  from  the  impossibility  of  discrimination.  To  this  the  British  Govern- 
ment has  always  professed  their  willingness  to  apply  a  remedy  so  far  as 
they  could  do  so  without  essential  prejudice  to  their  naval  service  and  to 
the  Right  itself — but  this  cannot  by  any  possibility  be  a  point  of  difficulty 
with  other  nations,  and  it  is  one  which  Great  Britain  and  America  are  alone 
competent  to  settle. 

I  have  been  induced  to  say  thus  much  on  this  point,  as  there  prevails 
much  misconception  and  prejudice  on  this  subject,  from  which  I  think 
the  Count  de  Lieven  is  himself  not  altogether  exempt.  I  am  confident  that 
he  has  no  wish  to  revive  any  of  those  questions  which  have  been  happily 
settled  with  the  Northern  Powers.  It  is  only  an  impatience  of  the  war 
going  on  with  America  to  the  inconvenience  of  general  commerce  which 
weighs  with  him ;  but  if  this  should  be  the  case  let  America  who  chooses  to 
stir  these  questions  answer  for  the  consequences.  We  stand  on  our  long 
established  practice  from  which  we  never  deviated  till  the  decrees  of  France 
led  to  the  adoption  of  the  retaliating  Orders  in  Council,  and  by  which 
ancient  practice  we  propose  to  consider  ourselves  at  all  times  implicitly 
bound,  except  towards  a  Power  that  renounces  all  principles  of  law  for  the 
purpose  of  attempting  our  destruction." 

1  A  Great  Peace  Maker.  The  Diary  of  James  Gallatin,  ed.  by  Count  Gallatin, 
1914,  Appendix  i. 

2  Castlereagh  to  Cathcart,  July  5th,  1 8 1 3 .  F.O .  Russia,  83 .  British  Diplomacy,  p .  6 . 
P.O.  Supplementary,  343.  British  Diplomacy,  p.  33. 


BRITISH  OFFER  OF  DIRECT  NEGOTIATIONS      533 

It  was  the  wish  to  avoid  embarrassment  in  the  Continental  diplo- 
macy that  led  Castlereagh  to  make  a  direct  offer  to  the  United  States. 
Gallatin's  letters  to  Baring  had,  however,  revealed  the  fact  that  the 
American  Commissioners  were  unable  to  open  direct  negotiations 
without  new  Instructions  from  their  Government.  In  order,  therefore, 
to  allow  a  negotiation  to  begin  as  soon  as  possible  and  thus  prevent 
any  attempt  to  associate  it  with  the  European  Peace,  Castlereagh 
himself  on  November  4th,  1813,  made  an  offer  to  the  American 
Government  to  enter  into  direct  negotiations  lt  Though  the  Note 
showed  no  sign  of  yielding  on  the  points  of  issue,  the  offer  was  accepted 
by  Madison  and  new  Instructions  were  despatched.  To  the  two  Com- 
missioners already  in  Europe  were  added  Henry  Clay,  a  young  and 
brilliant  representative  of  Kentucky, and  Russell,  who  had  been  Charge 
d'affaires  at  London  on  the  outbreak  of  the  war.  Gallatin  was  subse- 
quently added  to  the  Commission,  when  it  was  found  that  he  had  re- 
mained in  Europe — no  objection  being  now  offered  to  his  nomination, 
as  he  had  resigned  his  post  on  the  Administration.  His  presence  was 
extremely  fortunate ;  for,  though  two  at  least  of  the  four  Americans 
were  men  of  the  highest  capacity,  none  of  them  possessed  the  know- 
ledge of  European  habits  of  mind  or  the  faculty  for  compromise  which 
Gallatin  had  in  the  highest  measure.  They  were,  moreover,  all  jealous 
and  suspicious  of  one  another,  as  well  as  of  their  enemy.  The  Com- 
missioners were  not  allowed  to  conduct  the  negotiations  in  London 
as  the  British  Government  had  desired.  Gothenburg  was  accordingly 
designated  as  the  place  of  meeting.  But  a  long  delay  ensued  before 
the  Commissioners  could  come  together;  and,  meanwhile,  the  aspect 
of  affairs  on  the  Continent  had  completely  changed. 

It  was  April  before  Clay  and  Russell  arrived  from  America,  and 
Adams  did  not  reach  Stockholm  until  May  25th.  Meanwhile,  Gallatin 
and  Bayard  had  proceeded  by  way  of  Amsterdam  to  London.  There 
they  found  the  War  with  France  concluded  and  the  British  Government 
occupied  with  the  European  negotiations.  The  omens  for  peace  were 
not  favourable.  It  was  thought  that,  now  the  Continental  War  was  over, 
Britain  might  direct  all  her  efforts  against  America  and  inflict  a  severe 
punishment  upon  her.  The  naval  forces  were  increased  and  prepara- 
tions immediately  made  to  ship  Wellington's  veterans  to  America. 
Nevertheless,  the  commercial  classes  were  beginning  to  be  tired  of  the 
War,  and  the  affairs  of  the  Continent  were  not  yet  decided.  But  the 
Government  showed  no  anxiety  for  the  negotiations  to  begin.  They 

1  British  and  Foreign  State  Papers,  i.  1543. 


534    AMERICAN  WAR  AND  TREATY  OF  GHENT,  1814 

considered  that  the  reinforcements  despatched  to  America  must  im- 
prove their  position  there  and  thus  exercise  a  favourable  effect  on  the 
discussions.  Gallatin  was  pressed  to  consent  to  a  removal  of  the  place 
of  meeting  to  Ghent,  as  being  nearer  London ;  and  he  succeeded  in 
obtaining  Clay's  consent  to  this  proposal  before  Adams  arrived.  The 
American  Commissioners,  therefore,  gradually  assembled  at  Ghent  in 
June  and  the  early  days  of  July.  Even  then  the  British  Commissioners, 
who  were  not  appointed  until  May  27th,  were  slow  to  put  in  an  appear- 
ance. The  Government  was,  indeed,  occupied  with  the  visits  of  the 
Continental  Sovereigns  and  statesmen  and  the  preparations  for  the 
coming  Congress ;  but  the  delay  was  not  altogether  accidental.  Gallatin 
stayed  at  London  long  enough  to  obtain  an  interview  with  Alexander, 
who,  however,  told  him  he  could  give  no  help.  "England  will  not 
admit  a  third  party  to  interfere  in  her  disputes  with  you,"  and  he  in- 
timated that  this  was  on  account  of  "the  former  Colonial  relations." 
Gallatin ,  therefore ,  set  off  for  Ghent  without  very  high  hopes  of  success l . 
The  personnel  of  the  British  Commissioners  was  so  inferior  to 
that  of  the  American,  that  it  appeared  as  if  the  British  Government 
did  not  attach  much  importance  to  the  negotiations  and  wished  them  to 
fail.  The  first  Plenipotentiary  was  Lord  Gambier,  a  sailor  of  no  great 
capacity  and  entirely  ignorant  of  the  matter  which  he  hadTnow  to 
discuss.  The  real  head  of  the  mission  was  Henry  Goulburn,the  Under- 
secretary of  State  for  War  and  Colonies,  who  was  later  to  be  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer  in  two  Administrations.  He  was,  however,  a  man 
of  but  small  reputation  at  this  time,  and,  though  not  without  a  certain 
capacity,  was  pedantic  and  narrow  minded  and  entirely  incapable  of 
appreciating  the  great  issues  which  were  about  to  be  discussed.  The 
third  member  of  the  Commission  was  William  Adams,  a  lawyer  who 
had  a  deep  knowledge  of  maritime  law,  but  was  in  no  sense  a  diplo- 
matist. Such  men  could  not  compare  with  Gallatin  and  Adams,  or 
even  with  Clay  and  Bayard.  They  had  not,  of  course,  to  bear  the  same 
responsibility  as  the  Americans,  since  they  could  easily  be  furnished 
with  the  Instructions  of  the  Government.  They  became,  indeed, 
for  the  most  part  little  more  than  messengers,  through  whom  the 
Cabinet's  decisions  could  be  conveyed  to  the  American  Commissioners. 
They  did  not  arrive  at  Ghent  until  August  6th,  having  kept  the 
Americans  waiting  a  month.  The  interval  had  not  improved  the 
temper  of  men  like  Adams  and  Clay,  and  neither  side  appeared  to 
expect  a  successful  issue  of  the  discussion. 

1  Diary  of  James  Gallatin,  p.  25. 


PEACE  CONFERENCE  OPENED  AT  GHENT        535 

II 

As  has  been  stated  in  the  previous  section  the  negotiations  which 
began  at  Ghent  on  August  6th  were  not  viewed  hopefully  by  either 
side.  The  Americans  were  dismayed  at  the  long  delay  in  opening  the 
Conferences,  and  the  personnel  of  the  British  Mission  appeared  so 
inferior  to  their  own  that  they  could  scarcely  believe  the  British 
Government  to  intend  serious  discussion.  Goulburn,  on  the  other 
hand,  immediately  detected  in  the  American  Commissioners  an  ob- 
stinate adherence  to  their  own  point  of  view,  which  ill  became  the 
representatives  of  a  weaker  nation  in  its  transactions  with  the  British 
Empire.  The  negotiations  were  also,  from  the  outset,  rendered  difficult 
by  the  fact  that  the  Instructions  with  which  the  two  Missions  were 
severally  furnished  for  the  most  part  dealt  with  quite  different  subjects. 

The  British  Instructions,  dated  July  z8th,  I8I41,  were  drawn  up 
under  the  influence  of  the  great  successes  in  Europe.  They  show  that 
the  British  Government  considered  itself  now  so  much  stronger 
than  the  Americans  that  it  could  dictate  terms.  These  went  far 
beyond  the  causes  of  the  War,  and  seized  the  opportunity  to  place 
British  power  in  North  America  in  a  far  stronger  position  than  in 
1812.  The  Instructions  were  divided  into  four  main  heads.  In  the 
first  place,  no  concessions  whatever  were  to  be  made  on  the  questions 
of  British  maritime  rights — whether  impressment,  or  the  "Rule  of 
1756."  Secondly,  under  the  pretence  of  protecting  our  Indian  allies 
a  large  Indian  zone  was  to  be  removed  from  the  sovereignty  of  the 
United  States  and  made  into  a  sort  of  " buffer"  State.  Thirdly,  exten- 
sive rectifications  of  frontier  were  demanded,  which  were  urged  as 
necessary  on  the  grounds  of  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana  and  part  of 
the  Floridas  by  the  United  States  and  their  intention,  made  manifest 
during  the  war,  of  conquering  Canada.  Last,  the  special  rights  given  to 
the  United  States  in  the  Newfoundland  Fisheries  by  the  Treaty  of  1783 
were  declared  to  be  abrogated  by  the  war.  Nevertheless,  the  strategy 
of  the  British  Government  was  not  ill-conceived,  however  unskilful 
were  its  tactics.  They  were  in  fact  determined  to  exploit  the  military 
advantages  which  they  considered  the  European  Peace  had  given  them. 
They  were  disappointed  in  their  hopes ;  but  the  Peace  which  they  even- 
tually secured  was  no  worse  than  what  they  could  have  obtained  at  the 
outset,  though  it  was  only  secured  at  the  expense  of  a  diplomatic  defeat. 

1  Castlereagh  Correspondence,  x.  67.  An  earlier  draft,  as  well  as  some  corre- 
spondence between  the  Commissioners  and  Castlereagh,  was  published  by  Mr  Ford 
in  the  Transactions  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  December  1914 — January 
1915,  pp.  138-164. 


536    AMERICAN  WAR  AND  TREATY  OF  GHENT,  1814 

The  British  could  of  course  refer  to  their  Court  and,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  did  so  on  every  occasion  before  they  committed  themselves; 
but  the  Americans  could  only  obtain  further  Instructions  after  a  long 
lapse  of  time.  This  inability  was  not  altogether  a  disadvantage  in  the 
manoeuvring  for  position  which  formed  the  first  part  of  the  nego- 
tiations. Throughout  the  negotiations,  the  case  of  the  Americans  was 
handled  with  far  greater  skill  than  that  of  the  British.  The  stiff  and 
pedantic  Goulburn  was  no  match  for  men  like  Gallatin  and  Adams, 
and  was  betrayed  into  admissions  which  were  used  with  great  effect 
in  America.  The  Government  were  indeed  responsible  for  large  claims 
made  by  Britain  at  the  outset  of  the  negotiations;  but  Goulburn 
throughout  let  slip  no  opportunity  of  stating  his  case  in  as  harsh  and 
uncompromising  a  manner  as  possible,  and  his  inept  diplomacy  was 
to  have  considerable  effect  on  the  public  opinion  of  both  countries, 
when  Madison  published  the  first  series  of  Notes  exchanged. 
Neither  he  nor  his  Government  grasped  the  difficulty  of  negotiating 
with  a  country  like  the  United  States,  where  the  Executive  Power 
was  to  so  great  an  extent  controlled  in  its  conduct  of  foreign  relations, 
not  only  by  public  opinion  but  by  the  Constitution  itself.  The  British 
Commissioners  were,  also,  less  well  informed  as  to  the  legal  and 
historical  aspects  of  their  case  than  the  American,  with  results  some- 
times unfortunate  for  our  side. 

The  original  American  Instructions  had  been  drawn  up  for  the 
negotiation  under  the  mediation  of  Russia,  and  were  dated  April  i5th, 
1813.  They,  naturally,  dwelt  mainly  upon  the  subject  of  impressment 
and  made  satisfaction  on  that  point  a  sine  qua  non  of  the  Peace.  The 
American  view  of  other  neutral  rights,  such  as  a  definition  of  Blockade 
and  the  "Rule  of  1756,"  was  also  urged,  but  these  were  treated  as 
subordinate  points,  which  could  be  waived,  if  necessary.  To  all  other 
matters  the  principle  of  status  quo  antea  was  to  be  applied.  These 
Instructions  were  supplemented  by  various  letters  to  the  Commis- 
sioners, in  which  the  same  high  tone  was  maintained  until  June  25th 
and  zyth,  when,  the  news  of  the  European  Peace  having  reached 
America,  Instructions  were  addressed  to  the  Commissioners  which 
allowed  them,  as  a  last  resource,  to  allow  the  subject  of  impressment 
to  be  entirely  omitted  from  the  Treaty1. 

The  Americans,  on  the  whole,  handled  their  case  exceedingly  well. 
They  drew  from  the  British  Commissioners  their  extremest  demands 
and  then  proceeded  to  reply  to  them  in  Notes,  which  were  written  for 
1  British  and  Foreign  State  Papers,  i.  1552. 


THE  BRITISH  DEMANDS  537 

publication  at  home,  and  produced  exactly  the  impression  which  was 
desired.  By  this  means,  the  negotiation  was  made  to  serve  important 
political  ends.  The  chief  weakness  of  the  American  Delegation  lay  in 
their  distrust  and  dislike  of  one  another.  But  Gallatin  gradually 
obtained  something  like  an  ascendancy  over  his  colleagues,  and  Adams 
was  too  patriotic  and  high-minded  not  to  submit  to  him.  In  the  end, 
Gallatin,  by  judicious  conciliation  at  critical  moments,  was  always  able 
to  prevent  the  negotiations  from  being  broken  off;  and  the  Peace  must 
be  considered  as  largely  due  to  his  unremitting  efforts. 

The  first  meeting  at  the  house  of  the  British  Mission — (a  circum- 
stance which  caused  the  Americans,  always  more  sensitive  as  to  their 
dignity  than  representatives  of  monarchical  States,  much  searching 
of  heart) — resulted  in  the  British  opening  their  demands1.  The 
Americans  were  dismayed  at  their  extent,  and  replied  at  a  second 
meeting  that  their  Instructions  did  not  permit  them  to  discuss  the 
questions  of  the  Indians  or  the  Fisheries,  while  asking  for  more 
explicit  information  as  to  the  British  intentions.  These  were  given 
them  in  a  third  meeting  on  August  iQth.  The  British  then  demanded 
that  the  Americans  should  be  entirely  excluded  from  maintaining 
any  naval  force  on  the  Lakes,  the  natural  frontier  between  Canada 
and  the  United  States,  and  that  they  should  grant  to  the  British 
a  direct  route  from  Halifax  to  Quebec,  which  meant  extensive  cessions 
of  territory,  and  also  access  to  the  Mississippi  from  Lake  Superior. 
The  Indian  stipulations  had  already  been  made  a  sine  qua  non  of 
peace  by  the  British  Commissioners,  in  accordance  with  their  In- 
structions, and  they  supplied  such  phrasing  to  their  territorial 
demands  as  to  make  them  seem  "equally  necessary"  to  the  con- 
clusion of  peace.  In  this,  they  went  much  further  than  the  Cabinet, 
or  at  any  rate  Liverpool  and  Castlereagh,  had  intended.  Castle  - 
reagh  visited  Ghent  on  his  way  to  the  Vienna  Congress.  He  did 
not  interfere  in  the  negotiations;  but,  though  Goulburn  assured 
him  that  the  Americans  were  disposed  both  to  treat  and  sign  the 
proposed  frontier  and  Indian  arrangements,  he  disapproved  of  the 
peremptory  tone  adopted  in  the  British  Notes2.  Stated,  however,  as 
they  were,  they  gave  a  fine  opportunity  to  the  American  Com- 
missioners. Even  Gallatin  now  despaired  of  peace.  "Great  Britain 
wants  war  in  order  to  cripple  us,"  he  wrote  to  Monroe,  "she  wants 

1  British  and  Foreign  State  Papers,  I.  1578. 

2  Castlereagh  to  Liverpool,  August  28th,    1814;  Wellington,   Supplementary 
Despatches,  ix.  192. 


538    AMERICAN  WAR  AND  TREATY  OF  GHENT,  1814 

aggrandisement  at  our  expense.  I  do  not  expect  to  be  longer  than 
three  months  in  Europe1."  Gallatin,  indeed,  softened  the  answer  of 
the  Commission  somewhat,  for  he  had  no  wish  to  break  off  relations 
until  the  British  had  thoroughly  exposed  their  hand.  But  the  American 
Note,  despatched  on  August  25th,  was  sufficiently  explicit  to  awaken 
Goulburn  to  the  real  state  of  affairs  and  to  impress  Castlereagh  and 
Liverpool.  Goulburn  now  wrote  that  "the  rupture  has  in  effect 
taken  place."  Castlereagh  saw,  however,  that  the  American  Note  was 
"evidently  intended  to  rouse  their  people  upon  the  question  of  their 
independence,"  and  pressed  for  an  effective  answer,  while  Liverpool 
admitted  that  the  British  Commissioners  "  had  taken  a  very  erroneous 
view  of  our  policy,"  and  that  it  was  imperative  to  avoid  breaking  off 
negotiations  at  this  stage2.  He  was  anxious,  on  the  contrary,  to  throw 
the  responsibility  for  the  rupture  on  the  Americans.  Nevertheless, 
the  British  Government  still  had  high  hopes  of  military  success,  and 
the  answer,  which  was  despatched  on  September  4th,  therefore  still 
insisted  on  acquisition  of  territory.  It  endeavoured  to  compare  the 
United  States  to  Revolutionary  France,  in  its  character  of  a  Power 
which  was  prepared  to  advance  its  own  frontiers — as  the  expansion 
in  the  South  and  the  attack  on  Canada  had  shown — but  in  whose 
eyes  its  own  territory  was  inviolable.  The  Americans  were,  however, 
far  too  wary  to  break  off  negotiations  at  this  stage.  Their  reply,  of 
September  Qth,  pointed  out  that  the  Indians  would  be  restored  to  the 
same  condition  as  before  the  War,  and  that  boundary  lines  which 
could  be  shown  to  be  undefined  might  be  discussed.  Further  dis- 
cussion was  thus  necessary.  The  Cabinet,  when  faced  with  the  position 
of  continuing  the  war  for  the  creation  of  an  Indian  "Barrier" 
recoiled.  In  further  Notes  of  September  igth,  the  sine  qua  non  as 
regards  the  Indians  was  restated  in  a  form  which  really  amounted 
to  little  more  than  the  status  quo,  and  the  Americans,  influenced 
perhaps  by  the  news  of  the  capture  of  Washington,  which  reached 
England  on  September  zyth,  were  able  to  accept  an  article  of  this 
nature. 

On  the  other  points,  however,  both  parties  were  as  uncompromising 
as  ever.  Goulburn  had  done  everything  in  his  power  to  bring  matters 
to  a  head ;  but  the  Cabinet  kept  a  firm  check  on  him,  and  all  the  British 
Notes  were  drafted  in  London.  Such  alterations  as  the  Commis- 

1  Diary  of  James  Gallatin,  p.  29. 

)  September  2nd>  l8l4J  Wellington,  Supplementary 


PROGRESS  OF  THE  NEGOTIATIONS  539 

sioners  were  allowed  to  make  were  invariably  in  the  direction  of 
stiffening  the  terms.  Even  Goulburn,  however,  succumbed  to  the 
fascination  of  Gallatin,  who,  he  said,  was  not  in  the  least  like  an 
American.  The  Prime-Minister,  moreover,  was  anxious  for  peace. 
The  discussions  at  the  Congress  of  Vienna  were  now  beginning  to 
cause  the  Cabinet  anxiety  and  henceforward  exercised  an  increasing 
influence  in  the  direction  of  peace.  Nevertheless,  the  Cabinet  could  not 
ignore  the  fact  of  the  British  successes.  Accordingly,  on  October  aist 
a  new  turn  was  given  to  the  negotiations  by  an  attempt  to  make  the 
principle  of  uti  possidetis  the  basis  of  the  territorial  settlement1.  The 
Cabinet  hoped  thus  to  profit  largely  from  the  expected  British 
advance  on  the  Northern  frontier.  The  British  view  of  the  Fisheries 
question  was  also  insisted  upon.  The  American  answer  (October  24th) 
which  refused  the  acceptance  of  this  basis  as  beyond  their  powers, 
made  Liverpool  abandon  hope  of  concluding  peace,  though  he  was 
still  anxious  for  the  discussions  to  proceed2.  To  this  decision  he  was 
urged  by  the  first  news  of  the  defeat  of  the  British  on  the  Lakes  which 
arrived  about  this  time.  Accordingly,  the  Americans  were  asked  to 
put  forward  a  contreprojet  (October  3ist). 

The  Americans  took  ten  days  to  prepare  their  answer,  which  was 
delayed  by  lengthy  discussions  and  recriminations  among  them- 
selves ;  and,  meanwhile,  the  opinion  of  the  Cabinet  underwent  a  very 
important  change.  Preparations  were  being  made  for  the  despatch  of 
further  reinforcements  to  America.  It  also  occurred  to  the  Cabinet 
that,  if  Wellington  were  sent  out  in  command,  not  only  would  there 
be  more  chance  of  military  success,  but  any  peace  that  might  be  made 
would  be  protected  by  his  prestige  and  authority.  They,  accordingly, 
offered  Wellington  the  command  as  an  alternative  to  his  relieving 
Castlereagh  at  Vienna;  for  rumours  of  plots  to  assassinate  him  in- 
creased their  wish  to  move  him  away  from  Paris.  Wellington's  sense  of 
duty  never  allowed  him  to  refuse  to  serve  his  country  in  any  position, 
however  unwelcome.  But  his  letters  left  no  doubt  as  to  how  distasteful 
the  command  would  be  to  him,  and  he  seized  the  opportunity  to  review 
the  strategic  position  for  the  benefit  of  the  Cabinet.  His  opinion, 
stated  without  reservation,  that  the  military  position  was  by  no  means 
sufficient  to  justify  the  claims  that  had  been  put  forward  at  Ghent 
awakened  the  Cabinet  to  a  sense  of  reality,  and  they  were  thus  ready 

1  British  and  Foreign  State  Papers,  i.  1633. 

2  Liverpool  to  Wellington,  October  28th,   1814;  Wellington,  Supplementary 
Despatches,  ix.  384. 


540    AMERICAN  WAR  AND  TREATY  OF  GHENT,  1814 

to  consider  the  American  counter-project  in  a  far  more  yielding 
spirit  than  had  seemed  possible1 

The  American  Projet  (November  loth)  was  the  result  of  a  violent 
discussion ;  but  it  was,  in  the  main,  the  work  of  Gallatin  and,  therefore, 
while  it  stated  the  American  case  strongly,  avoided  needless  offence  and 
made  one  or  two  suggestions  towards  compromise .  The  basis  ofutipossi- 
detis  was  again  refused  and  that  of  the  status  quo  offered ;  but  boundary 
commissions  were  suggested  as  a  means  to  settle  the  main  territorial 
points  in  dispute.  Access  to  the  Mississipi  was,  also,  offered  in  ex- 
change for  British  acquiescence  in  the  new  Louisiana  boundaries.  The 
American  attitude  on  the  Fisheries  question  was  maintained.  Articles 
were  also  suggested  on  impressment  and  blockade.  Indemnities  were 
demanded  for  the  irregular  captures  of  American  ships  before  the  out- 
break of  War,  and  for  the  acts  contrary  to  International  Law  committed 
during  its  course.  This  last  article  was  an  attempt  to  obtain  damages 
for  the  destruction  of  the  Government  buildings  at  Washington. 

Goulburn's  comments  on  the  Projet  amounted  to  a  refusal  of 
almost  the  whole  of  it ;  but  the  Cabinet  viewed  the  matter  in  a  different 
light.  The  unsatisfactory  state  of  the  negotiations  at  Vienna  and 
Wellington's  letter  had  determined  them  to  abandon  all  claims  for 
increase  of  territory2.  The  publication  of  the  first  part  of  the  negotia- 
tions by  Madison  was,  also,  a  diplomatic  stroke  of  great  value.  It 
roused  the  spirit  of  the  American  nation,  Federalists  and  Democrats 
alike  indignantly  rejecting  the  idea  of  cession  of  territory,  while  it 
also  caused  strong  criticism  in  Great  Britain.  Alexander  Baring  gave 
expression  to  these  sentiments  in  a  debate  in  the  House  on  November 
2ist,  and  the  Government  were  forced  to  declare  that  they  had  never 
meant  to  make  territorial  cessions  a  sine  qua  non  of  peace.  The  reply, 
therefore,  which  the  Cabinet  sent  to  Ghent  on  November  22nd  was 
meant,  if  possible,  to  obtain  agreement.  The  basis  of  uti  possidetis 
and  the  control  of  the  Lakes  were  completely  abandoned  and  the 
way  to  peace  thus  opened,  much  to  the  dismay  of  Goulburn.  That 
most  of  the  other  American  demands  were  refused  was  of  small  conse- 
quence, since  on  none  of  these  were  the  Americans  prepared  to  break 
off  negotiations.  The  proposals  as  to  boundary  commissions  was 
accepted,  while  access  to  the  Courts  of  either  country  was  suggested 

1  Liverpool  to  Castlereagh,  November  4th,  1814;  Liverpool  to  Wellington, 
November  4th,  1814;  Wellington  to  Liverpool,  November  7th,  gth,  i8th,  1814; 
Wellington,  Supplementary  Despatches,  ix.  405,  406,  422,  424,  436. 

2  Liverpool  to  Castlereagh,  November  i8th,  1814;  Wellington,  Supplementary 
Despatches,  ix.  438. 


THE  TREATY  OF  GHENT  SIGNED  541 

instead  of  indemnities  for  damages.  An  article  for  the  payment  of 
the  expenses  of  prisoners  of  war  was  also  added,  and  it  was  further 
suggested  that  the  hostilities  should  cease  only  on  the  ratification  of 
the  Treaty.  Possibly,  this  last  stipulation  was  made  in  order  to  give 
time  for  the  expedition  preparing  against  New  Orleans  to  obtain  its 
objective,  but,  considering  the  part  played  by  the  Senate  in  Foreign 
Affairs,  it  was  not  one  to  which  the  American  Commissioners  could 
object.  On  the  receipt  of  this  Note,  Gallatin  felt  that  peace  was  really 
in  sight  and  did  his  utmost  to  get  his  colleagues  to  meet  the  British 
demands  as  far  as  possible.  The  Americans,  therefore,  now  withdrew 
their  demands  as  to  impressment,  leaving  the  matter  open.  Gallatin 
even  succeeded  in  obtaining  the  consent  of  the  majority  of  his 
colleagues  to  granting  access  to  the  Mississipi  on  condition  of  the 
American  view  of  the  Fishery  rights  being  accepted.  At  the  same 
time,  the  Americans  asked  for  a  conference  and  the  Commissioners 
thus  met  again  officially  after  an  interval  of  almost  three  months.  Now 
that  verbal  discussions  could  be  substituted  for  written  communica- 
tions, affairs  went  on  much  more  quickly  and  smoothly.  Where 
deadlocks  occurred,  the  matter  could  generally  be  solved  by  omitting 
altogether  the  question  in  dispute.  In  this  way,  eventually,  both  the 
Mississipi  Claims  and  the  Fisheries  question  were  removed  from  the 
Treaty  and  reserved  for  future  discussions.  The  possession  of  some 
insignificant  islands  in  Passamaquoddy  Bay  was  adjusted  by  a 
judicious  compromise  by  which  neither  side  gave  up  any  substantial 
claim.  The  Americans  accepted  an  article  condemning  the  Slave  Trade. 
These  discussions  occupied  another  three  weeks.  They  were  con- 
ducted with  the  utmost  secrecy ;  for,  when  the  Americans  saw  that 
peace  was  really  to  be  obtained  they  were  anxious  that  nothing  should 
interrupt  the  harmony  of  the  proceedings.  At  last,  on  December  24th, 
the  Treaty  was  signed  with  more  expressions  of  mutual  goodwill 
than  had  at  one  time  seemed  possible.  The  document  is  a  curious  com- 
mentary on  the  four  months'  discussions.  Scarcely  any  of  the  subjects 
about  which  there  had  been  such  violent  controversy  were  mentioned 
in  it.  Since  these  include  the  points  for  which  the  United  States  had 
gone  to  war,  the  Treaty  was,  in  a  sense,  a  victory  for  Great  Britain, 
who  never  demanded  that  other  countries  should  recognise  her  mari- 
time rights  in  theory  but  only  insisted  on  them  in  practice.  But,  since 
the  War  was  now  over,  the  Americans  could  claim  that  it  was  no 
longer  necessary  to  continue  to  fight  against  abuses  which  had  ceased 
to  exist.  All  that  was  now  left  of  the  British  demands  brought 


542    AMERICAN  WAR  AND  TREATY  OF  GHENT,  1814 

forward  in  August  was  an  innocuous  clause  restoring  peace  to  the 
Indians.  In  the  same  way,  the  Americans  had  had  to  abandon  their 
claims  for  damages.  Apart  from  the  clause  on  the  Abolition  of  the 
Slave  Trade,  which  was  put  in  the  most  general  way,  the  rest  of  the 
Treaty  merely  consisted  of  clauses  referring  all  the  disputed  boundary 
questions  to  special  commissioners. 

The  British  Commissioners  had  added  at  the  last  moment  a  clause 
that  the  Ratifications  must  be  made  without  any  change  or  reserva- 
tion, if  peace  was  to  result.  For  this  they  were  criticised  by  the  Govern- 
ment; but  the  result  showed  that  they  were  right.  In  the  United 
States  the  ratification  was  hastened  so  that  Peace  might  ensue.  It  did 
not,  however,  take  place  in  time  to  prevent  the  Americans  from 
defeating  the  British  expedition  to  New  Orleans.  On  the  whole,  the 
Treaty  was  very  well  received  in  the  United  States,  and  the  American 
Commissioners  were  welcomed  home  as  men  who  had  conducted  a 
difficult  negotiation  to  the  credit  of  their  country.  Despite  the  fact 
that  they  had  obtained  no  satisfaction  for  any  of  the  grievances  to 
avenge  which  they  had  fought  the  War,  the  American  people  in- 
stinctively felt  that  they  had  escaped  a  great  danger  by  successfully 
resisting  without  Allies  the  might  of  the  British  Empire  at  the  height 
of  its  power  and  prestige. 

In  England  opinions  were  less  favourable.  The  old  Tory  school 
was  incensed  that  no  castigation  had  been  inflicted  for  the  treacherous 
attack  which,  they  considered,  had  been  made  on  them  at  the  crisis  of 
the  Great  War.  But  the  feeling  did  not  go  very  deep.  The  commercial 
interests  were  delighted,  and  other  critics  might  reflect  that  the 
maritime  principles  which  had  produced  the  defeat  of  France  had 
been  preserved.  The  return  of  Napoleon  diverted  the  thoughts  of 
the  nation  to  other  dangers  in  the  midst  of  which  it  could  not  but  be 
thankful  that  peace  had  been  concluded  with  America.  On  the  whole, 
while  the  jealousy  and  bitterness  roused  by  the  War  lasted  for  genera- 
tions, there  was  immediately  a  very  powerful  body  of  opinion  in  both 
countries  which  was  determined  that  it  should  not  recur.  A  high  Tory 
like  Alison  could  indeed  write  even  as  late  as  1842:  "Little  doubt 
remains  that  out  of  premature  and  uncomplete  pacification  the  germs 
of  a  future  and  calamitous  war  between  the  two  countries  will  spring1." 
Yet,  before  a  century  had  elapsed,  every  subject  in  dispute  at  Ghent 
had  either  been  relegated  to  oblivion  or  amicably  settled  by  mutual 
concessions. 

1  Alison,  History  of  Europe,  x.  749. 


Appendixes  to  Chapters  II — III 

APPENDIX  A 
THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  RUPTURE  WITH  FRANCE 

P.O.  Holland,  41.  GRENVILLE  to  AUCKLAND. 

Whitehall,  Nov.  23,  1792. 

H.M.'s  satisfaction  at  the  effect  of  the  British  Declaration  to  the  Estates 
of  Holland.  Auckland  is  to  keep  up  their  resolution.  "I  am  strongly 
inclined  to  believe  that  it  is  the  present  intention  of  the  prevailing  party 
in  France  to  respect  the  rights  of  this  country  and  of  the  [Dutch]  Republic ; 
but  it  will  undoubtedly  be  necessary  that  the  strictest  attention  should  be 
given  to  any  circumstances  which  may  seem  to  indicate  a  change  in  this 
respect1." 

Ibid.  NAGEL  to  GRENVILLE. 

Londres,  Nov.  29,  1792. 

"  La  situation  critique  ou  se  trouve  la  Republique  des  Provinces  Unies, 
non  seulement  depuis  1 'invasion  et  la  conquete  que  M.  Dumourier  vient 
de  faire  des  Pays  Bas  Autrichiens,  mais  aussi  par  la  Resolution  que  le 
Conseil  Executif  de  France  vient  de  prendre  le  16  du  courant  relative  a 
la  navigation  libre  de  1'Escaut  et  de  la  Meuse,  m'impose  le  devoir  de 
rappeller  sans  cesse  la  sollicitude  de  Votre  Excellence  sur  le  danger  pressant 
qui  menace  un  Allie  fidele;  et  sans  vouloir  anticiper  sur  les  ordres  que 
je  pourrai  recevoir  de  mes  Maitres,  je  croirois  n'avoir  point  satisfait  a  la 
fidelite  que  je  Leur  dois,  ni  a  la  confiance  dont  Us  m'ont  honore,  si  je  ne 
priois  pas  Votre  Excellence  d 'observer: 

"i.  Que  le  General  Dumourier,  en  voulant  ouvrir  le  passage  de 
1'Escaut,  veut  violer  le  territoire  de  la  Republique,  intention  que  Leurs 
Hautes  Puissances  etoient  parfaitement  d 'accord  avec  S.M.B.  de  nullement 
attribuer  a  aucune  des  Puissances  Belligerentes,  comme  il  (constate  ?)  par 
leur  reponse  a  la  Declaration  faite  le  16  du  courant  par  Son  Excellence  My 
Lord  Auckland. 

"2.  Que  le  Conseil  Executif  de  France  par  sa  Declaration  du  16  du 
courant  a  manifeste  ouvertement  ses  desseins  centre  les  Interets  de  la 
Republique,  tout  en  brisant  les  obligations  les  plus  sacrees  que  la  France 
avoit  contractees  par  le  Traite  de  Fontainebleau  en  date  du  8  Novembre 

1785 Ces  observations,  My  Lord,  je  n'en  doute  pas,  ont  deja  etc  faites 

par  les  Ministres  de  S.M.  et  je  ne  saurais  non  plus  envisager  comme 

1  Grenville  had  not  then  heard  of  the  French  Decrees  of  November  i6th,  igth. 
For  other  letters  between  Auckland  and  Grenville  see  Dropmore  Papers,  vol.  n.  and 
Journal... of  Lord  Auckland,  vol.  u. 


544       CAUSES  OF  THE  RUPTURE  WITH  FRANCE 

problematiques  les  bonnes  intentions  de  la  Grande  Bretagne,  vis-a-vis  de 
son  plus  ancien  Allie,  pour  lequel  Elle  a  non  seulement  fait  les  efforts  les 
plus  genereux,  mais  encore  a  qui  Elle  a  garanti  sa  tranquillite  interieure  et 
exterieure.  Ainsi  je  ne  puis  craindre  qu'il  puisse  paroitre  indiscret  de  ma 
Part  de  renouveller  les  instances,  faites  et  Jeudi  et  Dimanche  passes,  aupres 
de  Votre  Excellence  pour  qu'il  plaise  a  S.M.B.  de  faire  veiller  tres-exacte- 
ment  sur  ce  qui  se  passe  dans  les  Ports  d'Ostende  et  de  Dunkerque ;  et  si 
a  cette  Bonte  Elle  vouloit  ajouter  le  rassemblement  d'une  escadre  aux 
Dunes  ou  a  Gravesend,  qui  put  se  porter  directement  vers  la  Hollande,  en 
cas  de  besoin,  les  Etats  Generaux  en  seroient  justement  reconnoissants, 
ceux  qui  veulent  Leur  nuire  seroient  peut-etre  contenus,  et  la  tranquillite 
publique  ainsi  heureusement  conservee " 

Ibid.  AUCKLAND  to  GRENVILLE. 

Hague,  Nov.  30,  1792. 

". .  .The  Dutch  Ministers  are  anxious  to  learn  the  sentiments  of  the 
King  and  of  his  Ministers.  It  is  their  object  in  the  meantime  to  temporize 
as  far  as  may  be  practicable  without  essential  disgrace  or  detriment;  and 
the  Grand  Pensionary  assures  me  that  great  activity  continues  to  be  used 
in  preparing  two  or  three  frigates,  with  gun-boats  and  floating  batteries." 

Ibid.  SAME  to  SAME. 

Hague,  Dec.  25,  1792. 

He  advises  the  issue  of  a  British  Declaration  stating  our  love  of  peace 
and  order,  and  our  resolve  both  to  support  Holland  (if  attacked)  and  to  aid 
other  peoples  to  maintain  "their  religion,  constitution,  property  and  inde- 
pendence." 

Brit.  Mus.  Add.  MSS.  34,446. 

GRENVILLE  to  AUCKLAND. 

Whitehall,  Dec.  29,  1792. 

He  sends  his  despatches  for  Whitworth  and  Stratton  under  flying  seal, 
so  that  Auckland  may  peruse  them  and  inform  the  Dutch  Ministers  of 
their  contents.  "H.M.'s  Ministers  are  sensible  that  much  doubt  may  be 
entertained  respecting  the  real  views  of  the  Court  of  Petersburg  in  the 
overture  they  have  made.  But  it  has  been  felt  that  these  could  in  no  manner 
so  well  be  ascertained  as  by  acceding  to  the  proposal  in  the  manner  now 
adopted.  If  either  the  original  intention  or  the  effect  of  this  step  on  our 
part  induces  the  Empress  to  take  an  active  share  in  a  war  which  seems  so 
little  likely  to  be  avoided,  a  great  advantage  will  be  derived  from  it  to  the 
common  cause.  If  she  withdraws  the  sort  of  overture  she  has  made,  no 
inconvenience  can  result  from  the  measure  taken  by  the  King  at  all  to  be 
put  in  comparison  with  the  benefit  of  success.  It  appears  probable  that, 
either  on  the  result  of  my  answer  to  M.  Chauvelin  or  of  the  answer  to  be 
given  in  Holland  to  the  French  agent  there,  or  perhaps  by  actual  aggression 
against  the  [Dutch]  Republic,  the  present  situation  will  be  brought  to  its 
crisis  before  the  answer  from  the  different  Courts  can  be  received.  In 


APPENDIX  A  545 

that  event  it  would  be  of  the  utmost  importance  that  we  should  be  enabled 
to  bring  forward  to  the  public  view  without  delay  the  papers  alluded  to 
in  Your  Excellency's  last  despatch1,  so  as  to  prove  to  this  country  that, 
at  the  very  moment  when  M.  Chauvelin  was  giving  here  fresh  assurances 
respecting  the  neutrality  of  the  Republic,  and  was  endeavouring  to  repre- 
sent the  Scheldt  as  the  only  cause  of  war,  the  French  agents  in  Holland, 
and  even  the  ostensible  Minister  of  the  soi-disant  Republic  of  France,  were 
forming  plans  of  attack  and  urging  the  French  general  to  execute  them 
without  delay." 

P.O.  Prussia,  27.  EDEN  to  GRENVILLE. 

Berlin,  Jan.  i,  1793. 

General  Mollendorf  will  soon  proceed  to  the  East  to  take  command  of 
the  Prussian  expedition  against  Poland.  "This  business  is  no  longer  a 
mystery  here,  and  it  is  publicly  said  that  the  four  bailiwicks  of  which  he  is 
to  take  possession  in  Great  Poland  were  the  promised  price  of  H.P.M.'s 
interference  in  the  affairs  of  France,  and  that  he  has  now  exacted  the 
discharge  of  the  promise  with  threats  of  otherwise  making  a  separate  peace 
with  France.  Russia,  it  is  added,  consents  with  reluctance,  induced  prin- 
cipally by  fear  of  the  Turks.  I  mention  this  as  the  public  report.  Having 
more  than  once  represented  to  the  Prussian  Ministers  the  extreme  in- 
justice of  this  measure,  and  even  impolicy  at  this  awful  crisis,  and  having 
been  answered  only  by  miserable  elusions,  it  appears  unnecessary  to  say 
anything  further  on  the  subject." 

Brit.  Mus.  Add.  MSS.  34,446. 

GRENVILLE  to  AUCKLAND. 

Whitehall,  Jan.  4,  1793. 

"»..  .There  is  still  the  strongest  reason  to  apprehend  a  disposition  in 
France  to  proceed  to  every  extremity  rather  than  to  give  to  this  country 
and  to  Holland  the  satisfaction  which  we  have  a  right  to  expect  on  the 
different  points  in  question  between  us.  No  account  has  yet  been  received 
here  of  the  light  in  which  my  answer  to  M.  Chauvelin  has  been  considered 
or  of  the  effect  it  has  produced."  He  believes  that  Dumouriez's  journey 
to  Paris  has  been  "to  pursue  his  plan  against  the  Dutch  Republic,  about 
which  the  Executive  Council  had  expressed  hesitation." 

Ibid.  SAME  to  SAME. 

Whitehall,  Jan.  5,  1793. 

"Having  this  day  received  the  enclosed  extract  of  a  communication 
made  to  the  National  Convention  by  M.  Le  Brun,  I  lose  no  time  in  trans- 
mitting it  to  Your  Excellency  in  order  that  the  Dutch  Government  may 
be  informed  without  delay  (supposing  they  have  not  received  this  account 
directly  from  Paris)  of  the  great  probability  which  this  circumstance  affords 
of  an  immediate  rupture  with  France."  In  no  case  must  the  Dutch  supply 
naval  stores  to  the  Frerch. 

1  See  Dropmore  Papers,  n.  360. 
W.&G.  i.  35 


546       CAUSES  OF  THE  RUPTURE  WITH  FRANCE 

P.O.  Prussia,  27.  EDEN  *>  GRENVILLE. 

[Cypher.]  Berlin,  Jan.  5,  1793. 

"The  Allies  mean  to  continue  the  war  and  persevere  in  the  Resolution 
set  forth  in  the  Duke  of  Brunswick's  manifesto,  of  restoring  the  monarchical 
form  of  government  in  France  under  such  limitations  as  may  be  prescribed 
by  a  free  Assembly  of  the  States,  and  re-instating  the  German  Princes  in 
their  rights,  and,  what  has  not  hitherto  been  openly  avowed,  declaring 
that  they  mean  to  require  a  compensation  for  the  expences  of  the  war. 
A  firm  hope  is  expressed  that  H.M.  will  become  a  party  in  the  war." 

P.O.  Sardinia,  n. 

GRENVILLE  to  TREVOR  (at  Turin). 

Whitehall,  Jan.  10,  1793. 

". .  .HJVL's  conduct  in  abstaining  from  all  interference  in  the  internal 
affairs  of  France,  and  the  neutrality  which  H.M.  had  observed  in  the 
present  War,  have  not  had  the  effect  which  the  King  was  so  justly  entitled 
to  expect.  The  present  rulers  in  France  have,  notwithstanding  those  cir- 
cumstances, adopted  measures  likely  to  excite  in  H.M.'s  mind  the  strongest 
jealousy  and  uneasiness.  Their  conduct  has  been  such  as  to  indicate  a 
fixed  design  of  hostility  against  H.M.  and  his  Allies,  and  views  of  aggression 
and  aggrandisement  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  general  tranquillity  and 
security  of  Europe.  Under  these  circumstances  H.M.  feels  himself  called 
upon  by  the  most  important  interests  of  his  subjects  to  adopt  such  measures 
as  may  be  necessary  for  the  security  of  his  own  dominions  and  those  of 
his  Allies  and  for  the  general  interests  of  Europe.  And  H.M.  is  desirous, 
as  far  as  possible,  to  adopt  a  system  of  concert  with  the  different  Powers 
who  have  a  common  interest  with  H.M.  on  this  subject  or  who  are  still 
more  strongly  concerned  in  opposing  a  barrier  to  the  progress  of  French 
arms  and  French  principles. 

"At  the  time  when  the  conduct  of  France  had  already  been  judged  by 
H.M.  to  be  such  as  to  call  for  vigorous  preparations  on  his  part,  H.M. 
received  from  the  Court  of  Petersburg  an  overture  expressive  of  the  sense 
which  the  Empress  entertained  of  the  danger  with  which  all  Europe  was 
threatened  from  the  designs  openly  avowed  by  France  and  from  the  recent 
progress  of  the  French  arms,  and  conveying  to  H.M.  the  wish  of  H.I.M. 
that  a  concert  might  be  established  on  this  subject  between  the  Courts  of 
London  and  Petersburg  with  a  view  to  provide  for  the  general  security  of 
Europe.  H.M.  was  pleased  to  direct  that  in  answer  to  this  overture  I  should 
assure  the  Minister  of  H.I.M.  that  the  sentiments  and  wishes  of  the  King 
were  conformable  to  those  of  the  Empress,  and  that  H.M.  was  disposed 
to  enter  into  such  a  concert,  confining  it  to  the  object  of  opposing  the  views 
of  aggression  and  aggrandisement  entertained  by  France,  without  any 
view  to  an  interference  in  the  internal  affairs  of  that  country.  And  I  ex- 
pressed H.M.'s  wish  that  some  person  here  might  be  fully  instructed  and 
authorized  by  the  Empress  to  arrange  the  detail  both  of  the  objects  to  be 
pursued  and  of  the  measures  to  be  adopted  for  their  attainment.  Com- 


APPENDIX  A  547 

munications  of  a  similar  tendency  have  been  made  to  the  two  Courts  of 
Vienna  and  Berlin;  and  it  is  H.M.'s  pleasure  that  you  should  state  to  the 
Sardinian  Ministers  the  purport  of  what  I  have  already  mentioned  and 
express  H.M.'s  wish  that  the  fullest  instructions  and  powers  may  be  given 
to  such  person  here  as  H.S.M.  shall  be  pleased  to  chuse  for  that  purpose, 
in  order  that,  if  occasion  should  arise,  the  King  may  be  enabled  to  concert 
with  H.S.M.  either  with  respect  to  terms  of  pacification  or  as  to  operations 
of  war,  if  the  continuance  and  extension  of  hostilities  should  become  un- 
avoidable. H.M.  wishes  in  the  present  moment  not  to  make  to  H.S.M.  any 
specific  proposal  with  respect  to  either  of  these  two  points,  because  he  is 
sensible  that  the  determination  of  H.S.M.  with  respect  to  them  must  in 
a  great  degree  depend  on  a  concert  with  those  Powers  with  whom  he  is 
joined  in  the  war. . . . 

"The  general  outline  of  such  a  plan  would  be  that  the  Powers  now  at 
war  with  France  should  enable  the  neutral  Powers  engaged  in  this  concert 
to  propose  to  France  terms  of  accommodation  and  peace.  That  the  basis 
of  such  pacification  should  be,  that  France  should  withdraw  her  troops 
within  the  limits  of  her  own  territory,  should  annul  all  acts  injurious  to 
the  rights  or  governments  of  other  countries,  and  should  give  some  un- 
equivocal pledge  and  security  of  her  determination  to  abstain  from  fomenting 
troubles  in  any  other  country  or  from  intermeddling  in  any  manner  in  the 
internal  affairs  of  other  Governments.  In  return  for  this,  the  Powers  at 
war  with  France  might  consent  on  their  part  to  disavow  expressly  and 
unequivocally  any  interference  in  the  internal  government  of  France,  and 
might  even  consent  to  establish  in  the  usual  mode  a  correspondence  and 
intercourse  with  such  Power  in  France  with  whom  they  might  conclude 
such  an  agreement " 

F.O.  France,  41.  CHAUVELIN  to  GRENVILLE. 

Londres,  Jan.  n,  1793. 

"...La  Republique  Fran?aise  ne  peut  considerer  la  conduite  du  Gou- 
vernement  Anglais  [on  the  Aliens  Bill]  que  comme  une  infraction  manifeste 
au  Traite  de  Commerce  conclu ;  qu'en  consequence  elle  cesse  de  se  croire 
elle-meme  obligee  par  ce  Traite,  et  qu'elle  le  regarde  des  a  present  comme 
rompu  et  annulle." 

F.O.  Prussia,  27. 

UNSIGNED  DRAFT  IN  GRENVILLE'S  WRITING. 

[Whitehall],  Jan.  12,  1793. 

"In  the  conversations  which  I  had  this  day  with  Count  Stadion  and 
Baron  Jacobi,  they  both,  after  delivering  the  written  answers  of  their  two 
Courts,  informed  me  that  they  had  a  further  communication  to  make,  but 
that  they  had  agreed  to  do  it  verbally  only,  and  in  such  a  manner  that  my 
reply  to  it  (if  I  made  any)  might  not  form  part  of  the  official  answer  to  be 
given  to  their  written  communications.  They  then  explained  that  they  had 
received  information  from  their  respective  Courts  that,  with  a  view  to 
indemnifying  them  for  the  expenses  of  the  war,  a  project  had  been  brought 

35—2 


548       CAUSES  OF  THE  RUPTURE  WITH  FRANCE 

forward  by  which  Prussia  was  to  obtain  an  arrondissement  on  the  side  of 
Poland,  and  in  return  was  to  withdraw  any  opposition  to  the  exchange 
formerly  proposed  of  the  Low  Countries  and  Bavaria.  Count  Stadion 
read  me  a  paper  which  contained  only  reasonings  on  this  subject  to  prove 
that  the  acquisition  was  beneficial  to  Austria  only  as  an  arrondissement, 
and  that  it  would  be  a  sacrifice  in  point  of  revenue,  while  such  an  arrange- 
ment would  on  the  other  hand  better  answer  the  views  of  the  Maritime 
Powers  with  respect  to  a  barrier  against  France.  Baron  Jacobi  read  out 
a  despatch  to  him  in  which  this  plan  was  stated,  but  as  a  project  which  still 
required  discussing  (particularly  with  Russia)  to  ripen  it,  and  on  which 
therefore  H.P.M.  trusted  the  King  and  his  Ministers  would  observe  the 
most  profound  secrecy. 

"  I  told  them  both  that  I  was  glad  they  had  mentioned  this  project  in 
the  form  they  had  chosen ;  that  I  was  much  better  satisfied  not  to  be  obliged 
to  enter  into  any  formal  or  official  discussion  on  the  subject  of  Poland. 
But  that  I  thought  it  due  to  that  open  communication  which  I  wished  to 
be  established  between  our  respective  Courts  not  to  omit  saying  at  once 
and  distinctly  that  the  King  would  never  be  a  party  in  any  concert  or  plan, 
one  part  of  which  was  the  gaining  a  compensation  for  the  expenses  of  the 
war  from  a  neutral  and  unoffending  nation.  That  the  King  was  bound  by 
no  engagement  of  any  sort  with  Poland,  but  that  neither  would  H.M.'s 
sentiments  surfer  him  to  participate  in  measures  directed  to  such  an  object, 
nor  could  he  hope  for  the  concurrence  or  support  of  his  people  in  such  a 
system. 

"With  respect  to  indemnification  I  explained  to  them  the  outlines  of 
the  plan  which  Mr  Whitworth,  Mr  Stratton  and  Sir  Jas.  Murray  are  in- 
structed to  propose,  and  added  that,  if  such  an  offer  were  made  to  France 
and  refused  by  her,  it  did  not  seem  unreasonable  that,  in  the  further 
prosecution  of  the  war,  which  would  then  avowedly  be  ascribeable  only 
to  views  of  aggrandisement  on  the  part  of  France,  some  compensation 
should  be  looked  to  by  the  Powers  engaged  in  it...." 

Brit.  Mus.  Add.  MSS.  34,447. 

GRENVILLE  to  SIR  JAMES  MURRAY. 

Whitehall,  Jan.  20,  1793. 

Expects  that  rupture  will  come  with  France  as  the  French  Government 
insists  on  terms  entirely  inconsistent  with  the  Government  of  this  country 
and  H.M.'s  dignity  and  honour.  H.M.  is  making  strenuous  preparations 
and  hopes  to  concert  plans  with  Prussia  and  Austria. 

P.O.  France,  41.  LfiBRUN  to  GRENVILLE. 

Paris,  Jan.  25,  1793. 

"Le  citoyen  Chauvelin,  Ministre  Plenipotentiaire  de  la  Republique 
Fransaise,  ayant  re$u  1'ordre  de  se  rendre  a  Paris1,  j'ai  1'honneur  de  pre- 

1  This  proves  that  Lebrun  recalled  Chauvelin  before  he  heard  of  the  British 
order  for  his  withdrawal ;  also,  that  Maret  in  his  so-called  mission  had  no  official 
authorisation  to  touch  on  la  haute  politique. 


APPENDIX  B  549 

venir  Votre  Excellence  que  le  citoyen  Maret,  qui  aura  celui  de  lui  remettre 
cette  Lettre,  se  rend  a  Londres  pour  veiller  aux  papiers  de  la  Legation  et 
de  les  mettre  en  ordre.  Je  prie  Votre  Excellence  de  vouloir  bien  lui  accorder 
son  appui  et  sa  bienveillance  dans  les  circonstances  ou  il  croira  necessaire 
de  les  reclamer." 


APPENDIX  B 

BRITISH  WAR  POLICY 
(February  1793  to  April  1795) 

Brit.  Mus.  Add.  MSS.  34,447. 

MINUTE  OF  THE  EAST  INDIA  COMPANY. 

Jan.  28,  1793. 

The  French  islands  in  the  Indian  Ocean  depend  almost  entirely  on 
the  Cape  for  provisions.  Fear  that  the  Cape  may  be  taken  by  the  French 
owing  to  dissensions  there.  Some  means  must  be  taken  for  its  security 
and  that  of  St  Helena.  Mauritius  and  Bourbon  should  be  taken,  as  the 
best  means  of  safeguarding  India. 

Ibid.  34,448.  AUCKLAND  to  GRENVILLE. 

Hague,  Feb.  8,  1793. 

The  Dutch  army  equalled  nearly  50,000  men,  but  was  wholly  inex- 
perienced. The  chief  ruler  is  lethargic. 

P.O.  Prussia,  27.  GRENVILLE  to  EDEN  (at  Berlin). 

Whitehall,  Feb.  5,  1793. 

"...Since  M.  Chauvelin's  departure,  an  overture  has  been  received 
by  Lord  Auckland  from  M.  Dumouriez,  with  a  proposal  for  an  interview 
between  them  as  likely  to  afford  the  means  of  maintaining  peace.  Many 
difficulties  were  felt  in  the  way  of  this  proposal,  especially  as  an  embargo 
has  now  actually  taken  place  on  our  vessels  in  the  French  ports.  It  was 
however  on  the  whole  thought  right  to  consent  to  the  proposed  interview, 
as  it  might  afford  the  means  of  knowing  the  utmost  extent  to  which  France 
is  disposed  to  go  in  facilitating  an  accommodation,  and  as  the  delay  would 
at  all  events  be  in  many  respects  advantageous  to  us,  and  particularly  with 
reference  to  the  defence  of  the  Dutch  territory." 

An  objection  to  the  plan  was  that  it  might  cause  jealousy  to  those  with 
whom  we  wished  to  frame  a  concert  (which  perhaps  might  be  the  cause 
of  the  proposal).  Eden  will  explain  at  Vienna  that  H.M.  will  not  be 
led  "to  depart  from  the  views  and  principles  stated  in  the  correspondence 
with  M.  Chauvelin":  and  will  seek  to  restore  a  general  peace  "on  such 
terms  as  the  Emperor  may  justly  expect."  H.M.  is  ready  to  frame  a  formal 
engagement  with  Austria  and  Prussia  on  the  principles  which  have  been 
opened  to  those  Powers.  He  will  not  conclude  peace  unless  France  abandons 


550 


BRITISH  WAR  POLICY 


all  her  conquests,  and  renounces  "  all  views  of  interference  on  her  part  in 
the  interior  of  other  countries  and  all  measures  of  aggression  or  hostility 
against  them;  provided  that  the  Emperor  shall  on  his  part  engage  that,  if 
France  shall  within  the  space  of  two  months  from  this  time  agree  to  make 
peace  on  the  terms  above  stated,  adding  to  them  stipulations  for  the  per- 
sonal security  of  Her  Most  Christian  Majesty  and  her  family,  the  Emperor 
will  consent  to  such  a  peace." 

Also  that  if  the  war  continues,  both  Sovereigns  will  not  make  peace 
save  by  common  consent,  "on  any  terms  short  of  the  abandonment  of  all 
conquests  which  France  has  made  or  shall  hereafter  make,"  and  of  renun- 
ciation of  all  policy  of  interference  in  affairs  of  other  States.  A  similar 
proposal  will  be  made  to  Prussia.  H.B.M.  objects  strongly  to  the  proposals 
concerning  Poland,  but  will  not  oppose  them  by  force. 

Brit.  Mus.  Add.  MSS.  34,448. 

GRENVILLE  to  AUCKLAND. 

Whitehall,  Feb.  13,  1793. 

As  war  had  been  declared  by  France,  H.M.  orders  that  "you  should 
confine  yourself  to  the  hearing  any  proposal  which  M.  Dumouriez  may 
have  to  make,  without  expressing  in  any  manner  an  opinion  what  terms 
of  conciliation  would  now  be  deemed  satisfactory  under  circumstances 
which  have  so  materially  varied.  And  you  will  expressly  state  that  you  are 
now  only  authorized  to  hear  his  proposals,  to  ascertain  under  what 
authority  they  are  made,  and  to  transmit  them  home  for  H.M.'s  considera- 


Ibid.  AUCKLAND  to  GRENVILLE. 

Hague,  Feb.  15,  1793. 

Joubert  arrived  with  a  passport  from  Dumouriez  and  stated  that  "de 
Maulde  on  arriving  at  Antwerp  found  Commissioners  of  the  French  Con- 
vention who  brought  a  requisition  for  Dumouriez  to  recall  de  Maulde 
and  to  march  against  those  [the  Dutch]  Provinces;  that  Dumouriez  was 
preparing  to  obey  and  that  de  Maulde  had  set  out  for  Paris  on  the  i3th." 

F.O.  France,  41. 

PETITION  FROM  FRENCH  PLANTERS  OF  SAN  DOMINGO 
(through  the  medium  of  M.  Malouet)1. 

Londres,  Feb.  25,  1793. 

"  Les  Proprietaires  de  S.  Domingue  soussignes,  considerant  Toppression 
et  1'anarchie  qui  devorent  la  colonie  et  leurs  proprietes,  autorisent  Mon- 
sieur Malouet,  Tun  d'eux,  de  solliciter  aupres  du  Gouvernement  anglais 
la  protection  et  les  secours  necessaires  pour  les  en  delivrer,  s'en  rapportant 
a  ses  lumieres  sur  les  details  et  adoptant  d'avance  les  moyens  qu'il  prendra 
pour  parvenir  au  succes  de  leur  voeu."  [About  70  signatures.] 

These  letters  etc.  are  not  printed  in  the  Memoir es  de  Malouet  (Paris,  2  vols. 
1874)  which  contain  scarcely  a  reference  to  this  episode. 


APPENDIX  B  551 

P.O.  France,  42.  GRENVILLE  to  MALOUET. 

Whitehall,  April  3,  1793, 

"  Je  vous  envoye,  Monsieur,  conformement  a  ce  que  vous  avez  desire, 
la  Minute  ci-incluse  de  ce  qui  a  etc  convenu  dans  les  conversations  que 
nous  avons  eu  1'honneur,  M.  Pitt  et  moi,  d 'avoir  avec  vous  par  rapport  a 
la  position  de  Ste.  Domingue,  et  au  voeu  manifeste  par  les  proprietaires  de 
la  partie  Fran£aise  de  cette  Isle  de  recourir  a  la  protection  du  Roi." 

Ibid.  MALOUET  to  GRENVILLE. 

Londres,  78  Titchfield  St.,  April  4,  1793. 

"La  Minute  de  1'acte  que  vous  avez  la  bonte  de  me  communiquer  et 
les  additions  qui  y  ont  etc  faites  sont  parfaitement  conformes  aux  sentimens 
que  je  vous  ai  exprimes,  aux  propositions  que  j'ai  eu  1'honneur  de  vous 
faire  et  me  laissent  dans  la  ligne  dont  je  n'ai  pas  du  m'ecarter.  Agreez  done, 
My  Lord,  mes  remercimens  et  la  priere  que  je  vous  fais  de  vouloir  biert 
me  renvoyer  1'acte  signe  avant  le  depart  deM.de  Charmilli  qui  doit  avoir 
lieu  Samedi.. . ." 

Ibid.  MINUTE  SIGNED  BY  GRENVILLE. 

April  5,  [1793]. 

After  stating  that  Malouet  was  deputed  to  the  British  Government  by 
the  planters  of  St  Domingo  he  continues — "Les  Colons  sollicitent  tres 
humblement  de  S.M.B.  protection  et  secours  a  Teffet  de  chasser  de  Ste 
Domingue  les  usurpateurs  de  la  puissance  publique,  d'y  retablir  un 
gouvernement  legal  sous  ses  auspices,  et  de  conserver  la  Colonie,  jusqu'a 
ce  que  son  sort  futur  soit  regie  a  la  conclusion  de  la  paix  entre  1'Angleterre 
et  la  France,  epoque  a  laquelle  les  Colons  Fran9ais  selon  les  conditions  de 
cette  paix  rentreront  sous  la  domination  d'une  autorite  legitime  en  France 
ou  continueront  d'obeir  a  S.M.B.  comme  a  leur  souverain,  et  deviendront 
sujets  de  rEmpire  Britannique.  Les  dites  propositions  ayant  etc  mises 
sous  les  yeux  de  S.M.B.,  S.M.  a  bien  voulu  y  acceder  et  donner  aux  dits 
Colons  1'assurance  de  son  Intention  d'employer  ses  forces  a  1'effet  ci-dessus 
mentionne  au  premier  moment  que  les  circonstances  le  lui  permettront." 

Ibid.  GRENVILLE  to  LEBRUN. 

[Draft.]  Whitehall,  May  18,  1793. 

He  received  on  the  26th  his  letter  and  declined  to  give  passports  to 
any  person  until  convinced  by  the  most  satisfactory  proofs — "qu 'elles  (les 
Autorites)  ont  entierement  change  de  Principes  et  de  conduite  a  1'egard 
des  autres  Nations.  S.M.  ne  juge  pas  apropos  de  se  departir  en  ce  moment 
de  sa  determination  de  ne  pas  reconnoitre  dans  les  circonstances  actuelles 
une  nouvelle  forme  de  gouvernement  en  France.  Mais  si  on  y  est  reelle- 
ment  dispose  a  terminer  la  Guerre  qu'on  a  injustement  declaree  a  S.M. 
et  a  ses  Allies,  et  a  leur  donner  une  juste  satisfaction,  surete,  indemnisation, 
on  pourra  transmettre  par  ecrit  aux  Generaux  des  Armees  sur  la  Frontiere 
les  propositions  que  Ton  aura  a  faire  a  cet  erTet;  ce  moyen  de  communica- 


552  BRITISH  WAR  POLICY 

tion  eviteroit  les  difficultes  de  forme,  et  Ton  pourroit  alors  juger  de  la 
nature  de  ces  propositions  et  de  1'esprit  qui  les  dirige." 

Brit.  Mus.  Add.  MSS.  34,44$. 

GRENVILLE  to  STARHEMBERG. 

Whitehall,  June  26,  1793. 

Lord  Beauchamp  will  go  to  the  Headquarters  of  H.P.M.  for  an  intimate 
concert  on  the  war,  so  as  to  pursue  it  with  vigour.  Hopes  for  an  alliance 
with  Prussia  on  the  same  terms  as  with  Austria  and  the  Dutch  Republic. 
The  promise  of  the  restoration  of  the  conquests  formerly  made  by  France 
on  Austria  may  entail  heavy  exertions;  but  H.M.  gladly  makes  them  for 
H.I.M.  and  hopes  for  a  new  barrier  for  his  Belgic  lands,  but  will  not  bind 
himself  to  secure  this. 

Ibid.  GRENVILLE  to  EDEN  (at  Vienna). 

Whitehall,  July  26,  1793. 

Signature  of  Convention  with  Prussia  between  Lord  Yarmouth  and 
Lucchesini  on  same  basis  as  that  with  Russia.  Lucchesini  said  that,  after 
taking  Mainz,  the  combined  armies  would  separate — 64,000  Austrians 
and  nearly  20,000  Germans  being  under  the  Emperor  and  a  limited 
co-operation  only  would  take  place. 

P.O.  Spain,  27.  GRENVILLE  to  ST  HELENS. 

[Secret.]  Whitehall,  July  19,  1793. 

The  chief  bar  to  Anglo- Spanish  friendship  is  the  jealousy  at  Madrid 
about  the  West  Indies.  England  will  seek  indemnities  for  the  expenses  of 
this  war,  and  they  will  probably  come  in  part  from  the  West  Indies.  Spain 
must  surmise  that.  St  Helens  will  avoid  entering  into  details,  but  state 
the  general  principle  of  indemnity.  If  this  be  well  received,  "Your  Ex- 
cellency may  then  try  the  ground  of  pointing  the  views  of  that  Court  to 
acquisitions  on  its  own  frontiers  as  preferable  to  distant  conquests,  es- 
pecially in  the  West  Indies,  where  Spain  is  already  possessed  of  territory 
far  beyond  what  the  capital  or  industry  of  its  subjects  will  enable  them  to 
cultivate."  No  details  to  be  discussed  until  the  Allies  have  further  succeeded. 

French  politics  are  so  confused  that  no  views  can  be  stated  with  profit. 
"Under  these  circumstances  any  declaration  on  the  part  of  the  Allied 
Powers  in  favour  of  a  particular  party  or  of  a  particular  form  of  Govern- 
ment in  the  interior  would  tend  only  to  unite  all  those  who  were  opposed 
to  that  system,  but  could  not  be  looked  to  as  affording  a  reasonable  prospect 
for  the  establishment  of  solid  peace  and  permanent  security. 

"The  acknowledgment  of  the  authority  claimed  by  Monsieur  as  Regent 
is  evidently  a  measure  of  the  nature  which  I  have  described,  and  as  such 
has  been  avoided  here " 

St  Helens  is  to  point  Spain  towards  French  territory  in  preference 
to  the  West  Indies,  or  even  to  Corsica,  and  to  keep  out  of  discussion  our 
views  in  the  West  Indies  unless  there  should  be  a  certainty  that  Spain  may 


APPENDIX  B  553 

be  brought  to  concur  in  them,  which  seems  little  probable;  and  to  prevent 
the  Court  of  Madrid  from  committing  itself  with  any  description  of  emigres 
or  any  party  in  the  interior  [of  France]. 

Ibid.  SAME  to  SAME. 

Whitehall,  Aug.  i,  1793. 

The  Nootka  differences  ought  to  be  adjusted  without  difficulty1. 

"  H.M.  has  no  intention  of  making  a  settlement  at  Nootka,  nor  is  there 
any  peculiar  advantage  in  that  port  which  should  render  Spain  desirous 
of.  establishing  herself  there.  It  appears  from  the  reports  of  Lieutenants 
Broughton  and  Mudge  that  the  port  of  Nootka  is  clearly  situated  on  an 
island,  and  gives  therefore  no  access  to  the  Continent;  that  it  is  by  no 
means  a  better  port  for  shipping  or  trade  than  many  others  on  the  same 
coast,  and  that  the  furs  are  neither  better  in  quality  nor  so  abundant  in 
quantity  as  on  other  parts  of  that  coast  and  of  the  islands  adjacent.  The 
national  honour  of  Great  Britain  will  be  satisfied  and  the  rights  (as  first 
disputed  by  Spain)  of  the  King's  subjects  to  settle  on  those  coasts  [will] 
be  sufficiently  established  by  the  actual  restitution  of  any  tract  however 
small,  provided  it  is  understood  that  the  intention  of  the  Court  of  Spain 
in  making  such  restitution  is  to  restore  thereby  all  that  was  actually  possessed 
by  the  British  subjects,  and  that  the  restitution  itself  is  not  accompanied 
by  unjustifiable  reserves,  or  by  claims  of  exclusive  possession  in  the  lands 
immediately  adjacent,  which  render  it  nugatory."  Nootka  shall  be  con- 
sidered as  .a  port  "where  it  shall  be  free  for  the  subjects  of  both  nations 
occasionally  to  resort  and  to  make  temporary  buildings  for  their  accommo- 
dation, during  the  time  of  their  being  there,  but  where  neither  [Power] 
is  to  make  any  permanent  settlement  or  to  establish  any  claim  of  territorial 
sovereignty  or  dominion  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other,  but  mutually  to 
assist  each  other  in  maintaining  such  free  resort  and  liberty  of  commerce 
and  residence  against  any  other  nation  that  shall  attempt  to  establish  there 
any  claim  of  sovereignty  or  dominion." 

P.O.  Austria,  34.  EDEN  to  GRENVILLE. 

Vienna,  Aug.  31,  1793. 

The  Austrian  Minister,  Lehrbach,  in  a  first  interview  with  Lucchesini, 
suggested  the  Belgic-Bavarian  exchange  as  an  equivalent  to  the  Prussian 
gains  in  Poland,  and  as  indemnifying  Austria  for  the  expenses  of  the  war. 
Lucchesini  expressed  great  surprise,  as  Austria  had  promised  to  give  up 
that  project.  If  it  were  pressed,  H.P.M.  would  object  to  any  serious 
diminution  of  the  power  of  France  as  upsetting  the  balance  of  Europe. 

P.O.  Genoa,  6.  PAOLI  to  DRAKE  (at  Genoa). 

Murato  di  Nebbio,  Oct.  7,  1793. 

" . . .  Si  S.M.B.  veut  accepter  la  Corse  sous  sa  domination  directe,  alors 
la  forme  du  Gouvernement  pourra  etre  reglee,  autant  qu'il  sera  possible, 
d'une  maniere  analogue  a  celle  de  la  Grande  Bretagne,  dont  les  lois 

1  For  the  dispute  about  Nootka  Sound,  in  Vancouver  Island,  see  Rose,  Pitt,  I. 
ch.  xxv. 


554 


BRITISH  WAR  POLICY 


garantissent  aux  citoyens  la  liberte  la  plus  assuree  et  la  plus  tranquille." 
The  Government  of  Ireland,  or  that  of  some  of  the  British  colonies,  might 
serve  as  model. 

P.O.  Austria,  36.  GRENVILLE  to  EDEN. 

Whitehall,  Jan.  3,  1794. 

Grenville  acknowledges  Eden's  despatch  stating  that  Austria  would 
now  fulfil  her  original  promise  of  sending  5000  men  to  Toulon.  Doubtless 
"if  the  first  promise  had  been  fulfilled,  agreeable  to  the  expectation  which 
H.M.  was  justified  in  forming,  the  assistance  of  such  a  body  of  disciplined 
troops  would  have  sufficed  to  ensure  the  defence  of  that  important  post ; 
and  the  injury  which  the  common  cause  has  sustained  on  this  occasion 
can  be  ascribed  only  to  the  tardiness  and  indecision  which  so  strongly 
characterise  the  Austrian  government."  Eden  is  not  to  expostulate  but 
to  try  to  infuse  more  vigour,  and  to  get  at  last  some  definite  plan  about 
the  Flemish  campaign.  Only  by  renewed  efforts  will  he  succeed  in  getting 
this  settled.  H.I.M.'s  journey  to  Flanders  should  be  expedited,  as  negotia- 
tions depend  on  that.  The  return  of  Mack  would  inspire  confidence  which 
at  present  is  not  felt  here.  But  something  must  be  settled  and  at  once. 
Hopes  that  Malmesbury's  mission  at  Berlin  may  be  helped  "by  the  part 
which  the  Empress  of  Russia  appears  to  have  taken." 

Ibid.  EDEN  to  GRENVILLE. 

Vienna,  Jan.  4,  1794. 

News  of  Toulon  causes  consternation,  especially  owing  to  weakness  of 
Piedmontese  army  and  the  defencelessness  of  Italy.  Austrian  troops  and 
engineers  were  now  being  sent  to  examine  and  fortify  the  passes  of  Alps. 
Delay  in  Emperor's  departure  for  Flanders.  Austria  will  now  limit  her 
offensive  plans  to  Flanders  and  la  Vendee.  The  retreat  of  Wurmser's  and 
Brunswick's  armies  on  the  Rhine  is  alarming.  Lucchesini  behaves  pettily, 
also  at  times  imperiously  and  with  intrigue.  Prussia  ought  now  to  co- 
operate honestly.  Thugut  has  ability  and  experience  but  he  has  no  family 
influence,  and  nobles  scorn  and  often  thwart  him. 

Ibid.  SAME  to  SAME. 

Vienna,  Jan.  18,  1794. 

Prussia's  demand  for  financial  support  from  Austria  will  probably  be 
declined.  Prussian  Ministers  say  that,  as  French  principles  are  no  longer 
dangerous,  peace  need  not  be  delayed.  Thugut  declares  that,  if  the  Prussian 
King  is  at  head  of  a  great  army  and  gains  successes,  he  will  urge  terms  of 
peace  hurtful  to  Austria.  The  Prussians  ought  to  be  split  up  in  corps  and 
be  included  in  the  Austrian  armies. 

Ibid.  GRENVILLE  to  EDEN. 

Downing  Street1,  Feb.  18,  1794. 

Mack  has  conferred  with  Ministers  on  next  campaign,  the  plan  of 
which  had  been  sent  by  Coburg  after  the  conference  at  Brussels.  That 

1  After  mid- January  1794,  the  P.O.  despatches  are  dated  from  Downing  Street. 


APPENDIX  B  555 

plan  is  generally  approved.  But  Flanders  must  not  be  defended  solely 
by  troops  in  British  pay.  Part  of  these  must  take  part  in  the  advancing 
army  of  25,000  men  on  the  right  of  the  Austrian  main  army,  the  rest,  with 
Austrians,  being  left  for  defence  of  Flanders.  British  objections  to  the 
command  of  Arch- duke  Charles  are  waived,  as  tending  to  delay  the  cam- 
paign. If  Coburg  retires  (as  is  desirable)  then  Mack  may  really  direct 
under  the  Emperor.  Clerfait,  and  next  to  him  Cornwallis,  might  possibly 
command  the  Flanders  army. 

F.O.  Prussia,  32. 

GRENVILLE  to  MALMESBURY  (at  Berlin)1. 

Downing  St.,  March  7,  1794. 

Rebuts  Prussia's  financial  demands  for  her  army.  Austria  and  the 
Empire  will  also  decline.  "  By  treaty  with  Great  Britain,  Russia  and  Austria 
H.P.M.  is  bound  to  consider  the  present  war  as  one  of  common  cause  and 
to  prosecute  it  with  vigour  as  a  principal.  Instead  of  this  he  proposes  to 
charge  the  other  confederates  with  the  whole  expense  of  his  efforts,  which 
he  is  to  make  only  as  an  auxiliary.  By  his  defensive  alliances  with  Great 
Britain,  Holland  and  Austria  he  is  bound  to  furnish  as  an  auxiliary  52,000 
men  besides  his  contingent  to  the  Empire,  which  cannot  be  less  than  7000 
men,  which  he  is  to  maintain  at  his  own  charge,  the  requiring  parties 
finding  bread  and  forage  except  for  the  contingent  to  the  Empire."  But 
he  now  asks  Allies  to  supply  bread  and  forage  for  all  his  100,000  men 
besides  £2,000,000  towards  the  pay.  This  must  be  refused.  Fear  that 
H.P.M.  is  protracting  this  dispute  so  as  to  prevent  the  Allies  preparing 
their  defence.  We  will  raise  his  subsidy  to  £1,000,000;  but  Malmesbury 
will  resist  further  demands.  Means  may  be  taken  to  fill  the  gap  caused  by 
the  withdrawal  of  the  Prussians,  though  the  time  is  very  late;  but  this 
"would  be  infinitely  preferable  to  a  disunion  of  the  other  confederates.'* 

Ibid.  EDEN  to  GRENVILLE. 

Vienna,  March  u,  1794. 

H.I.M.  will  set  out  for  Pays  Bas  early  in  April,  and  be  nominally  in 
command.  England  must  therefore  not  press  the  question  of  the  commands. 
Mack  was  now  found  to  have  departed  from  his  instructions,  (i)  to  wage 
a  defensive  war  from  Basle  to  Luxemburg,  and  (2)  not  to  reckon  on 
Prussian  succours  beyond  the  number  stipulated  to  Austria. 

F.O.  Prussia,  33.  GRENVILLE  to  MALMESBURY 

Downing  St.,  March  28,  1794. 

Austria's  refusal  to  Prussia's  demands  breaks  up  the  extended  plan  of 
co-operation.  We  object  to  the  plan  of  employing  the  Prussian  army 
(subsidized  by  the  Maritime  Powers)  between  the  Moselle  and  Rhine, 
and  H.P.M.  also  objects  to  it  after  what  had  passed  between  him  and 
Austria.  She  should  not  dictate  to  the  Maritime  Powers  where  that  army 

1  See  Malmesbury's  other  despatches  in  his  Diaries,  HI.  pp.  70  et  seq. 


556  BRITISH  WAR  POLICY 

should  be  employed.  Her  other  proposals  are  equally  unreasonable.  If 
she  persists,  these  Powers  must  defend  themselves  in  their  own  way. 
This  will  bring  her  to  reason  and  she  will  then  admit  the  Dutch  demand 
for  indemnity  and  make  some  contribution  towards  bringing  forward  the 
Prussian  force.  In  that  case  the  Allied  conquests  in  Flanders  might  go  to 
her  in  return  for  a  contribution  towards  the  expense  of  the  war.  He 
approves  Malmesbury's  plan  of  securing  the  more  limited  co-operation  of 
Prussia.  Much  caution  is  needed. 

Ibid.  SAME  to  SAME. 

[Private.]  Downing  St.,  April  4,  1794. 

Approves  his  plan  of  making  the  treaty  for  the  duration  of  the  war. 
Hopes  of  a  happy  issue;  chief  difficulty  will  be  to  arrange  with  Austria 
any  general  distribution  offeree:  as  she  wants  to  "keep  the  Prussians  back 
from  any  effective  share  in  military  operations  which  can  lead  to  acquisi- 
tions." 


SAME  to  SAME. 

[Draft.]  Downing  St.,  April  21,  1794. 

Directs  him,  after  signing  Conventions,  to  return  from  the  Hague  to 
London  to  inform  Ministers  on  many  points  which  he  may  learn  at  Brussels, 
and  to  advise  how  the  Prussian  co-operation  may  take  place  with  the  least 
friction,  "in  the  most  efficient  manner  but  on  separate  plans  of  attack." 
Hope  that  the  weakness  and  slowness  of  Austria's  policy  may  end  with  the 
arrival  of  the  Emperor,  which  will  at  least  shorten  the  time  of  framing 
plans.  Whoever  commands  her  forces,  should  be  impressed  with  the  gravity 
of  the  crisis  and  "the  necessity  of  a  solid  and  substantial  union  of  the 
Principal  Powers."  The  Duke  of  York  will  inform  Malmesbury  of  the 
inconsistent  way  in  which  Austria  has  acted  with  respect  to  the  plan 
framed  by  Colonel  Mack  and  agreed  to  in  London.  Her  gains  in  the  Low 
Countries  must  be  discussed,  also  the  Dutch  demands  for  indemnity 
which  she  has  so  unjustly  resisted.  All  bears  on  "  the  main  object  of  H.M.  — 
the  keeping  together  by  influence  and  weight  that  great  Confederation 
by  which  alone  the  designs  of  France  can  be  resisted,  and  which,  if  left 
to  itself,  would  be  too  likely  to  fall  to  pieces  from  the  jarring  interests  of 
the  Powers  engaged  in  it."  No  opinion  yet  quite  formed  here  as  to  the 
best  line  of  operation  for  the  Prussian  army:  but  Ministers  favour  the 
line  of  the  Meuse  if  the  line  Mosel-Rhine  can  be  fitly  defended. 

Ibid.  MALMESBURY  to  GRENVILLE. 

London,  May  7,  1794. 

He  reached  Brussels  on  April  26,  and  saw  Thugut  and  Mercy.  He 
read  to  them  the  treaty  of  the  Maritime  Powers  with  Prussia  but  (as  it 
was  not  ratified)  did  not  give  them  a  copy.  Mercy  spoke  sensibly  of  the 
need  of  vigour  and  union  and  declared  this  treaty  to  be  one  of  the  best 
ever  signed.  Its  use  would  depend  on  the  good  faith  of  H.P.M.  and  of 
his  advisers,  whom  he  suspected.  If  the  Prussians  acted  along  with  the 


APPENDIX  B  557 

Austrians  "they  would  inevitably  palsy  each  other."  He  thought  the 
Belgic  provinces  a  heavy  charge  to  Austria  and  so  would  any  conquests  be 
on  that  side. 

Thugut  was  complimentary,  but  full  of  jealousy  of  Prussia  and  of  so 
many  Prussians  acting  together  near  them.  Malmesbury  tried  to  show  that 
H.P.M.  was  less  dangerous  employed  than  unemployed.  If  not  with  us, 
he  might  be  against  us. 

At  Cateau,  Malmesbury  dined  with  the  Duke  of  York,  and  then  saw 
H.I.M.  at  Catillon,  who  highly  approved  the  treaty  and  hoped  the  Prussian 
army  would  be  placed  on  the  borders  of  Luxemburg  with  its  left  on  Treves 
and  its  right  stretching  to  the  Meuse .  H  .1  .M .  then  said ,  * '  We  want  nothing 
here  but  a  few  more  men  to  put  an  end  to  this  war;  and  (with  the  most 
spirited  animation  he  said)  we  must  spare  neither  force  nor  money  in  the 
prosecution  of  it.  We  saw  the  day  before  yesterday  (turning  to  the  Duke  of 
York)  to  what  the  British  cavalry  is  equal,  and  their  intrepidity  and  example 
will  be  followed  by  us  all1.  The  resources  of  my  monarchy  are  great.  I  trust 
I  may  rely  on  the  love  and  fidelity  of  my  subjects,  and  I  cannot  call  upon 
them  for  a  proof  of  that  allegiance  and  affection  more . . .  than  to  come 
forth  on  this  occasion.  I  have  already  made  great  efforts.  I  am  ready  to 
make  more  and  shall  never  consider  any  as  too  great  in  this  cause.". . « 

P.O.  Austria,  37.  GRENVILLE  to  STARHEMBERG. 

Dropmore,  June  24,  1794. 

Ministers  have  always  wished  to  have  the  Prussian  subsidized  army 
in  Flanders  where  it  is  much  needed:  hopes  it  will  soon  move  there: 
"  Je  suppose  que  Tidee  de  ne  pas  separer  les  troupes  Prussiennes  et  d'em- 
ployer  avec  les  62,000  hommes  les  20,000  que  S.M.P.  doit  fournir  a  S.M.I, 
par  leur  traite d'Alliance,seratres-acceptable  a  S.M.P., mais  c'esta  la  courde 
Berlin  a  en  juger.  Nous  ne  pouvons  avoir  aucune  raison  de  nous  y  opposer." 

The  placing  of  the  Prussian  army  must  be  decided  on  the  spot  by 
military  reasoning.  England  can  do  no  more  to  help  the  Austrian  loan. 
If  there  are  any  difficulties  they  only  arise  from  the  rumours  occasioned 
by  the  departure  of  H.I.M.  from  the  army. 

Ibid.  SAME  to  SAME. 

Dropmore,  June  28,  1794. 

Good  news  from  army.  Moira's  force  has  arrived  at  Ostend.  All  is 
being  done  to  hasten  the  march  of  the  Prussians  to  the  Low  Countries, 
but  many  difficulties  arise,  and  (in  part)  from  the  Austrian  Generals  them- 
selves. England  can  spare  no  more  troops  for  that  part. 

P.O.  Austria,  38. 

GRENVILLE  to  SPENCER  AND  T.  GRENVILLE. 

Downing  St.,  July  19,  1794. 

Need  of  an  explanation  at  once  with  the  Austrian  Court  so  as  to  frame 
a  close  concert  for  stopping  the  French  advance  and  resume  offensive 

1  Battle  of  le  Cateau  (April  26,  1794). 


558  BRITISH  WAR  POLICY 

operations  this  year  or  next  spring,  on  an  effective  scale.  Prince  of  Coburg 
is  unequal  to  the  command,  and  real  command  has  rested  on  Mack, 
Hohenlohe  or  Waldeck.  The  last  has  not  the  confidence  of  the  Austrian 
army,  or  the  British  H.Q.,  owing  to  constant  retreats.  Suspicion  even 
of  disloyalty  to  the  plan  arranged  with  England  for  defence  of  Pays  Bas. 
Complete  change  is  needed.  Would  Arch-duke  Charles  (with  Mack)  do 
well?  General  Browne  also  is  trusted. 

Ibid.  SAME  to  SAME. 

Downing  St.,  Sept.  14,  1794. 

News  had  arrived  of  the  disgraceful  surrender  of  Valenciennes  and 
Conde.  This  event  will  not  greatly  alter  the  plans  formed  by  the  Duke  of 
York  and  Clerfait  for  rest  of  campaign :  but  a  forward  move  is  still  thought 
desirable  so  as  to  regain  part  of  the  Pays  Bas  and  improve  the  Allied  posi- 
tion for  winter.  Poor  prospects  for  next  campaign.  There  is  little  induce- 
ment to  help  Austria  in  the  Netherlands.  It  is  therefore  desirable  to  limit 
the  operations  there  (as  Thugut  often  hinted)  and  leave  Austria  freer  to 
act  more  in  Italy  and  on  the  Rhine.  "Instead  therefore  of  proposing  a 
great  addition  of  Austrian  force  to  serve  in  the  Low  Countries  under  an 
English  General,  in  return  for  the  transfer  of  the  Prussian  subsidy  to 
Austria,  it  will  be  desirable  that  you  should  confine  your  proposals  to  the 
continuance  of  the  present  force  in  the  Netherlands,  only  stipulating  for 
its  being  completed  to  its  full  establishment.  This  may  be  stated  roughly 
at  100,000  Austrians,  50,000  British  etc.,  and  about  10,000  Dutch." 

This  force  of  160,000  men  could  recover  and  hold  the  Netherlands  in 
next  campaign  and  attack  the  barrier  where  suitable.  The  guarantee  of 
Austria's  loan  entitles  H.B.M.  to  require  that  her  force  be  kept  up  to 
100,000  men.  "In  this  situation  of  things  above  all  others,  it  is  evident 
that  no  propositions  of  peace  can  hold  out  the  smallest  prospect  of  security." 
The  Allies  would  now  get  bad  terms;  but  when  circumstances  at  Paris 
render  peace  a  matter  open  to  question,  England  will  forego  her  plan  of 
acquiring  French  land  for  Austria  in  Flanders,  and  will  only  guarantee 
the  restitution  of  the  conquests  made  by  the  French,  if  she  will  vigorously 
proceed  with  the  war.  England's  separate  conquests  will  not  be  used  so 
as  to  procure  better  terms  for  Austria. 

P.O.  Prussia,  35.  MALMESBURY  to  GRENVILLE. 

Frankfort,  Sept.  26,  1794. 

"Part  of  the  Prussian  army  had  actually  put  itself  in  march  on  the 
1 9th  in  order  to  support  the  intended  attack  on  Treves. .  .when  on  the 
preceding  day  intelligence  arrived  of  the  success  of  the  French  on  the 
Ourthe  and  letters  from  General  de  la  Tour  to  Generals  Nauendorf  and 
Melas,  directing  them  to  give  up  all  thoughts  of  moving  towards  Treves. 
These  letters. .  .expressed  great  apprehensions  for  the  consequences  of 
this  defeat  and  doubts  as  to  the  position  which  was  next  to  be  taken. 
Marshal  Mollendorf,  finding  he  was  not  to  be  supported  by  the  Austrians, 
did  not  hold  himself  obliged  to  make  the  attack  alone,  although  there  is, 


APPENDIX  B  559 

I  believe,  very  little  doubt  but  his  force  was  fully  equal  to  it,  and  that  if 
he  had  undertaken  it  cordially  and  with  spirit,  it  would  have  been  attended 
with  compleat  and  easy  success.  Fortunately  Prince  Hohenlohe  had  carried 
into  effect  that  part  of  the  plan  which  fell  to  his  share . . .  his  conduct  on 
this  occasion  deserves  great  praise. 

"The  day  after. .  .1  got  accounts  that  the  army  under  Pichegru  had 
made  a  forward  movement ...  it  was  also  confidently  reported  that  the 
enemy  had  actually  passed  the  Meuse ...  I  did  not  lose  a  moment  in  re- 
presenting through  Baron  de  Hardenberg  to  Marshal  Mollendorf,  the 
critical  situation  of  the  United  Provinces  and  the  urgent  necessity  of  the 
army  under  his  command  taking  some  immediate  steps  to  preserve  them. . . . 

"Baron  Hardenberg  joined  with  us  in  lamenting  the  complexion  and 
principles  of  the  Prussian  H.Q.  He  is  extremely  anxious  to  counteract 
this  and  endeavours  to  persuade  himself  and  me  also  that  on  the  King  of 
Prussia's  return  (which  is  to  be  to-day)  all  will  go  right 

"As  the  moment  draws  nigh  for  the  subsidy  ending,  the  Court  of 
Berlin  grows  apparently  more  tractable.  To  this  consideration,  which  from 
what  I  know  of  its  general  character  I  am  sure  is  the  governing  one,  may 
be  added  the  disgraceful  termination  of  the  siege  of  Warsaw,  the  in- 
creasing insurrection  in  South  Prussia  and  above  all  an  extreme  jealousy 
from  Lord  Spencer's  mission  to  Vienna  that  we  are  drawing  towards 
Austria.  This. .  .is  the  clue  of  their  whole  conduct  and  it  will  serve  to 
explain  as  well  what  Count  Haugwitz  may  say  to  Mr  Paget  as  what  Baron 
Hardenberg  says  to  me " 

Ibid.  SAME  to  SAME. 

Frankfort,  Oct.  13,  1794. 

"  . .  .Three  days  previous  to  the  arrival  of  Hertslet  with  Your  Lord- 
ship's letter  of  the  3oth  inst.  Marshal  Mollendorf  had  received  an  estafette 
from  Baron  Jacobi  acquainting  him  with  a  conference  he  had  had  with 
Mr  Pitt  and  in  which  he  had  been  told . . .  that  the  subsidy  for  the  month 
of  October  would  be  suspended.  I  found  therefore  Baron  Hardenberg 
fully  prepared  on  this  point  (although  he  had  not  mentioned  his  being  so 
to  me)  and  I  need  not  say  that  Baron  Jacobi,  in  his  reports,  had  not 
softened  the  conversation  he  had  with  Mr  Pitt.  Thus  circumstanced  it  was 
impossible  for  me  to  suppress  any  part  of  my  instructions 

I  called  to  Baron  Hardenberg's  recollection  the  state  of  supineness  in 
which  the  Prussian  army  had  remained  from  the  moment  of  my  arrival 
near  it  to  this  day  and  the  harsh  inattention  Marshal  Mollendorf  had 
thought  proper  to  show  to  the  repeated  representations  my  colleague  and 
myself  had  made  on  this  subject.". 

F.O.  Prussia,  37  SPENCER  to  GRENVILLE. 

Berlin,  Jan.  20,  1795. 

" . .  .The  greatest  variety  of  opinion  prevails  here  among  the  different 
advisers  of  H.P.M.  relative  to  the  present  negotiations  with  the  French. 
General  Bischoffswerder  openly  differs  with  Prince  Henry  on  the  proba- 


560  BRITISH  WAR  POLICY 

bility  of  success,  and  Count  Haugwitz  said  the  other  day  that  if  the  present 
overtures,  which  he  heartily  condemns,  should  not  meet  with  a  completely 
favourable  reception,  H.P.M.  would  be  beyond  measure  anxious  to  enter 
into  a  concert  for  prosecuting  the  war  with  the  utmost  vigour. . . 

Ibid.  SAME  to  SAME. 

Berlin,  Feb.  28,  1795. 

"Though  I  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  this  Court  is  less  deeply 
committed  with  the  French  than  I  stated. .  .yet  so  great  is  H.P.M.'s 
personal  eagerness  to  make  another  campaign  that  I  believe  it  would  be 
still  possible  to  carry  that  point  in  opposition  to  Prince  Henry  of  Prussia 
and  all  the  ministers  if  I  were  to  receive  immediate  instructions  for  that 
purpose.. .  .1  have  found  means  to  insinuate  to  H.M.. .  .that  it  was  of  the 
highest  importance  to  wait . . .  before  any  completely  decisive  step  should 
be  taken  at  Basel.  The  news. .  .of  the  spirited  exertions  of  our  government 
and  above  all  the  vote  for  150,000  seamen  produced  a  very  great  effect 
here  both  on  the  public  in  general  and  on  the  king  in  particular.  Ever 
since  the  receipt  of  this  intelligence  H.M.'s  manner  with  me  has  been 
unusually  gracious  and  in  his  private  society  he  constantly  expresses  his 
determination  to  wait  as  long  as  possible  for  our  proposal.  This  he  has 
indeed  done  in  so  marked  a  manner  that  I  am  convinced  he  wishes  it 
should  be  repeated  to  me.  Prince  Henry  of  Prussia,  who  probably  wishes 
to  destroy  every  degree  of  connection  between  our  two  Courts,  took  an 
opportunity  the  other  day  of  entering  with  me  into  a  long  discussion  on 
the  war,  in  the  course  of  which  he  vented  his  spleen  against  our  ministers, 
our  officers,  our  soldiers  and  our  whole  conduct,  and  concluded  by  telling 
me  that  England  had  forced  the  French  to  make  war  and  could  not  now 
make  peace  if  she  were  inclined  to  it ;  that  the  continental  powers  had  not 
an  interest  to  continue  the  war,  that  their  resources  were  exhausted  and 
that  though  by  new  subsidy  treaties  it  might  enable  them  to  keep  their 
troops  in  the  field,  it  would  not  make  the  country  amends  for  the  losses 
it  occasioned.  This  unfriendly  language. .  .is  totally  inconsistent  with  the 
daily  professions  of  H.P.M. . . . " 

Ibid.  SAME  to  SAME. 

Berlin,  April  21,  1795. 

"Colonel  Calvert  arrived  here  last  night  and  brought  me  the  three 
despatches  from  Mr  Dundas.  Had  I  received  them  a  few  days  sooner  I 
may  venture  to  assert  that  England  would  have  had  at  her  disposal  the  best 

appointed  army  in  Europe At  present  this  is  out  of  the  question,  but  as 

I  have  not  yet  officially  learned  the  conclusion  of  the  treaty  with  France, 
as  I  know  that  the  king  is  at  heart  extremely  vexed  at  the  success  of  the 
negotiation,  and  as  the  Duke  of  Brunswick  gave  his  opinion  that  a  partial 
communication  of  my  instructions  would  certainly  produce  a  good  effect, 
I  have  determined  to  endeavour  to  obtain  a  private  interview  with  H.P.M. 
for  that  purpose.  Should  this  be  granted  I  shall  mention  in  general  terms 
the  wish  entertained  by  my  Court  to  renew  its  connection  with  Prussia 
and  shall  proportion  my  further  communications  to.  the  encouragement 


APPENDIX  C  561 

I  may  receive  from  H.M.  At  all  events  the  overture  will  make  a  very 
favourable  impression  on  his  mind.  It  will  relieve  him  from  the  suspicions 
he  has  long  entertained  of  H.M.  being  entirely  abandoned  by  England 
and  sacrificed  to  the  two  Imperial  Courts,  and  it  will  delay  if  not  wholly 
prevent  the  alliance  which  he  feels  himself  under  the  necessity  of  con- 
tracting with  France " 


APPENDIX  C 

THE  SPANISH  CRISIS 
(April  1795 — September  1796) 

Those  from  Grenville  are  all  from  Downing  Street ;  those  from  Bute  are  from  Madrid. 

P.O.  Spain,  37-42. 

GRENVILLE  to  BUTE. 

April  13,  1795. 

In  spite  of  the  ill  humour  and  despondency  of  Spain,  he  hopes  that  she 
will  persevere  to  the  end  of  the  war.  Bute  must  seek  to  infuse  vigour, 
especially  after  the  recent  Spanish  successes  in  Catalonia.  Spain  should 
renew  her  claims  to  indemnity  from  France,  which  we  favour  in  proportion 
to  the  exertions  and  successes  of  Spain  in  war.  Bute  will  protest  amicably 
against  any  negotiations  with  France.  It  is  not  probable  that  Spain  will 
propose  the  renewal  of  the  English  alliance  in  an  active  form. 

"The  nature  and  limits  of  the  respective  acquisitions  of  the  two 
countries  in  S.  Domingo  are  not  sufficiently  ascertained  to  enable  me  to 
authorize  Your  Excellency  in  the  present  moment  to  propose  any  specific 
agreement  to  the  Spanish  Court  with  respect  to  the  boundaries  to  be 
established  to  our  respective  possessions  in  that  island." 

JACKSON  to  GRENVILLE. 

Aranjuez,  April  15,  1795. 

The  Spanish  Government  inclines  to  reciprocate  the  wishes  for  peace 
recently  expressed  at  Paris.  Overtures  made  in  Switzerland,  also  between 
opposing  Generals  in  Catalonia.  Owing  to  distress  in  Spain,  Alcudia 
favours  them.  Recently  he  said  to  Jackson  "that  H.B.M.  ought  to  have 
abstained  from  any  interference  in  S.  Domingo,  upon  the  whole  of  which 
H.C.M.  had  a  well-founded  claim ;  or  that  if  any  enterprize  was  undertaken 
there  by  Great  Britain,  it  should  have  been  in  the  way  of  auxiliary  to 
Spain,  in  order  to  restore  to  her  her  ancient  possessions  in  the  West 
Indies." 

GRENVILLE  to  BUTE. 

June  12,  1795. 

Encloses  instructions  for  Malouet,  who  has  been  appointed  British 
Commissary  in  S.  Domingo,  to  arrange  the  claims  of  the  inhabitants  in 
the  British  part.  Desire  to  satisfy  the  claims  of  Spain  there. 

w.  &G.  i.  36 


562  THE  SPANISH  CRISIS 

GRENVILLE  to  BUTE. 

June  15,  1795. 

Death  of  Lewis  XVII  does  not  alter  their  conviction  that  "the  restora- 
tion of  monarchy  in  France,  if  it  can  be  effected,  would  afford  the  best 
prospects  of  tranquillity  both  to  that  country  and  to  the  rest  of  Europe"; 
but  Monsieur  will  not  be  recognized  as  Regent  until  a  sufficient  party  in 
his  favour  is  formed  in  France. 

SAME  to  SAME. 

Dec.  25,  1795. 

Wish  to  avoid,  if  possible,  a  rupture  with  Spain  despite  her  arming 
and  her  evident  partiality  to  the  French.  We  will  not  make  peace  through 
her.  She  now  complains  of  our  plan  to  attack  them  in  S.  Domingo,  as  if 
it  were  Spanish  and  not  French.  Whose  is  it?  She  should  not  complain 
of  our  balancing  French  successes  on  the  Continent  by  our  successes  in 
the  French  colonies. 

BUTE  to  GRENVILLE. 

May  10,  1796. 

He  protested  against  French  squadron  continuing  at  Cadiz.  A  Spanish 
fleet  will  soon  sail  for  West  Indies.  Spain  is  urging  Sweden  to  revive  the 
Armed  Neutrality.  Denmark  seems  to  agree. 

SAME  to  SAME. 

May  18,  1796. 

Godoy  (Prince  of  the  Peace)  says  Spanish  preparations  due  to  rumours 
of  British  schemes  against  Buenos  Ayres  and  Mexico.  Bute  denies  these, 
and  asks  about  the  reported  Franco- Spanish  alliance.  Godoy  says  it  "is 
perhaps  not  far  distant."  Spain  must  seek  help  from  France.  Bute  reports 
plan  of  the  French  squadron  to  leave  Cadiz  with  a  Spanish  fleet. 

GRENVILLE  to  BUTE. 

June  3,  1796. 

Alarm  at  Godoy 's  words.  England  desires  friendly  relations  with  Spain. 
Denmark  and  Sweden  now  reluctant  to  join  an  Armed  Neutrality  though 
French  victories  in  Italy  assist  that  scheme. 

SAME  to  SAME. 

June  18,  1796. 

We  have  no  designs  on  Mexico  or  Buenos  Ayres.  When  S.  Domingo 
becomes  French,  we  may  attack  it.  We  must  stamp  out  French  principles 
in  the  West  Indies  because  they  sap  the  foundation  of  all  European  colonies. 

BUTE  to  GRENVILLE. 

June  22,  1796. 

Godoy  spoke  to  him  of  the  necessary  connexion  of  Spain  with  France. 
Bute  said  that  implied  war.  He  expects  a  rupture,  as  the  French  control 
Godoy. 


APPENDIX  C  563 

GRENVILLE  to  BUTE. 

July  15,  1796. 
We  wish  still  to  conciliate  Spain,  but  her  conduct  points  to  a  rupture. 

BUTE  to  GRENVILLE. 

July  22,  1796. 

He  thinks  that  "Spain  is  actuated  by  her  fears.  Those  fears  engage 
her,  much  against  her  inclination,  to  go  to  war  with  England.  She  will 
postpone  it  as  long  as  the  perpetual  threats  of  the  French  will  admit,  and 
even  then,  unless  we  force  it,  [will]  not  absolutely  engage  until  the  several 
preparations  are  completed,  which  will  be  carried  on  in  the  same  slow 
negligent  manner."  He  encloses  Godoy's  private  appeal  that  the  late 
treaty  [of  S.  Ildefonso]  with  France  may  not  lead  to  war. 

GRENVILLE  to  BUTE. 

Aug.  26, 1796. 

Though  Spain  has  let  out  the  French  squadron  under  the  protection 
of  a  Spanish  force,  we  will  await  the  result  of  the  overtures  at  Madrid 
which  give  Spain  a  chance  of  reconsidering  her  resolve  which  can  only 
benefit  France.  Bute  must  not  leave  Madrid  without  fresh  instructions 
from  London  or  orders  from  Court  of  Madrid. 

H.  DUNDAS  to  MAJOR-GENERAL  FORBES  (at  S.  Domingo). 

Aug.  28,  1796. 

"  Intelligence  has  been  received  of  the  departure  of  a  squadron  con- 
sisting of  7  French  and  19  Spanish  ships-of-the-line  from  Cadiz  on  the  4th 
of  this  month,  of  which  number  9  at  present  and  2  more  after  touching  at 
Carthagena  are  supposed  to  be  destined  for  S.  Domingo.  The  prevailing 
influence  of  French  Councils  at  Madrid,  the  unfriendly  disposition  mani- 
fested on  several  late  occasions  by  that  Court  towards  this  country  and 
particularly  the  departure  of  their  fleet  in  company  with  that  of  H.M.'s 
enemies  afford  the  strongest  grounds  to  apprehend  an  approaching  rupture 
with  Spain."  The  commander  is  to  be  on  his  guard  against  Spain;  but  he 
is  to  avoid  all  hostilities  (unless  attacked),  until  authentic  news  arrives  of 
hostilities. 

BUTE  to  GRENVILLE. 

Sept.  10,  1796. 

Godoy  stated  that  "  Should  Spain  be  obliged  to  draw  her  sword  against 
England,  one  comfort  remained — it  could  not  be  for  any  length  of  time; 
he  hoped  soon  to  see  revive  the  most  intimate  union."  He  would  never 
wish  Bute  to  leave  Spain.  Bute  asked  "Was  it  impossible  to  make  matters 
up?  Why  not  at  once  form  some  agreement?"  Godoy  said  Spain  had 
many  insults  that  might  justify  war,  but  the  war  (if  it  came)  could  not  last, 
for  they  ought  to  be  friends. 


36—2 


564  ANGLO-AUSTRIAN  RELATIONS 

APPENDIX  D 

ANGLO-AUSTRIAN  RELATIONS 

(November  1795 — November  1797) 
Grenville's  despatches  are  from  Downing  Street ;  those  from  Eden  are  from  Vienna. 

EDEN  to  GRENVILLE. 

Nov.  10,  1795. 

Thugut  says  Austria  cannot  wage  an  active  war  unless  (i)  Great 
Britain  support  her  with  a  loan  of  £3,000,000,  (2)  Russia  help  on  the 
Rhine,  (3)  the  Empire  form  an  army  on  the  Lower  Rhine.  Otherwise 
she  will  act  defensively,  "waiting  the  effect  which  the  distresses  and  dis- 
tractions of  France  may  produce." 

SAME  to  SAME. 

Dec.  5,  I7Q51. 

News  of  Allied  defeat  at  Loano.  He  will  help  Trevor  at  Turin  reassure 
that  Court  of  Austria's  desire  to  regain  its  lost  territories.  Else  it  may 
make  peace  with  France  in  hope  of  securing  part  of  Milanese. 

SAME  to  SAME. 

Jan.  28,  1796. 

"A  jealousy  of  the  views  and  sentiments  of  the  Sardinian  Government 
has  long  existed  here,  and  M.  Thugut  now  expressed  his  conviction  that, 
if  the  plan  of  concluding  a  separate  peace  be  pursued  at  Turin,  it  is  with 
the  view  of  obtaining  some  compensation  on  the  side  of  the  Milanese  for 
the  loss  of  at  least  Savoy,  the  recovery  of  which  he  considers  as  unattain- 
able  And  he  expressed  the  wish  that,  if  the  King  of  Sardinia  persisted 

in  his  negotiation,  the  arrears  of  the  subsidy  due  to  him  from  England 
should  be  withheld,  on  the  principle  that  he  has  not  on  his  part  fulfilled 
the  conditions  engaged  for,  and  to  prevent  his  having  the  means  increased 
of  acting  against  this  country." 

SAME  to  SAME. 

Feb.  27,  1796. 

Thugut  thought  that  the  proposed  Anglo-Austrian  Declaration  might 
produce  favourable  effects  on  the  French  nation,  but  did  not,  from  the 
principles  of  the  present  rulers  in  France,  expect  that  it  would  be  met  by 
any  conciliatory  step  on  their  part. 

GRENVILLE  to  EDENS. 

March  i,  1796. 

Much  concerned  that  the  mission  of  M.  de  Castel  Alfer  from  Turin 
to  Vienna  had  aroused  "  distrust  and  resentment  in  the  minds  of  the 

1  For   Grenville's  important  despatch  of  Dec.  22,   1795  to  Eden  see  Rose, 
Napoleonic  Studies,  pp.  47-9. 

2  See  also  documents  in  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.,  April,  1903. 


APPENDIX  D  565 

Austrian  Ministry."   The  defection  of  Sardinia  would  be  a  serious  blow. 
She  had  striven  loyally,  and  Eden  was  to  represent  this. 

EDEN  to  GRENVILLE. 

[Most  secret.]  March  2,  1796. 

Though  H.I.M.  declined  making  at  this  moment  the  declaration  pro- 
posed by  H.M.,  yet  it  was  H.I.M. 's  intention,  at  the  same  time  he  put  an 
end  to  the  Armistice,  to  issue  a  similar  paper,  stating  that  H.I.M.  took 
that  step  in  consequence  of  being  actuated  by  the  same  sentiments  as  the 
King. 

SAME  to  SAME. 

March  5,  1796. 

H.I.M.  was  gratified  by  the  frankness  of  the  British  Government.  "  No 
reliance  whatever  could  be  placed  on  the  most  solemn  assurances  of  the 
Prussian  Government,"  and  it  behoved  the  two  Governments  to  guard 
against  its  bad  faith.  The  assembly  of  a  Prussian  army  in  Westphalia  was 
merely  that  Prussia  might  act  as  arbiter  in  case  of  peace.  H.I.M.  would 
strive  to  regain  his  Netherlands  along  with  Liege ;  but  failing  that  he  must 
seek  another  indemnity.  "  He  (Thugut)  intimated  for  this  purpose  the  ex- 
change of  the  Belgic  provinces  for  part  of  Bavaria,  or  even  for  the  Duchy  of 
Wurtemberg ;  in  which  case  these  should  be  guaranteed  to  the  prince  put  in 
possession  of  them."  Eden  dissented. 

SAME  to  SAME. 

March  12,  1796. 

"Wretched  evasion"  shown  by  Russia  in  her  offers  of  help.  She  was 
absorbed  in  preparations  for  a  Persian  war — a  probable  prelude  to  an 
attack  on  Turkey. 

GRENVILLE  to  EDEN. 

April  12,  1796. 

Eden  is  urged  to  press  on  cordial  co-operation  with  the  Court  of  Turin 
as  any  "  relaxation  in  the  efforts  of  either  Court  might  lead  to  consequences 
the  most  fatal  to  the  future  peace  and  safety  of  Europe." 

SAME  to  SAME. 

April  29,  1796. 

An  advance  of  £100,000  may  be  made  to  Austria  at  once,  to  relieve  the 
"immediate  and  pressing  distress"  of  that  army. 

EDEN  to  GRENVILLE. 

July  21,  1796. 

The  late  unexpected  disasters  have  produced  no  panic  at  Vienna. 
Resolve  that  Belgium  must  not  remain  in  French  hands.  Austria  grateful 
for  our  help  and  promise  of  its  continuance.  England  need  not  fear  an 
armistice  by  Austria,  unless  it  became  absolutely  inevitable. 


566  ANGLO-AUSTRIAN  RELATIONS 

SAME  to  SAME. 

[Most  secret.]  July  27,  1796. 

After  a  conference  with  the  Emperor,  Thugut  was  very  dejected ;  said 
the  disasters  had  shaken  the  alliance;  rumours  current  that  Austria  was 
the  dupe  and  tool  of  England.  The  Emperor  however  speaks  with  dignity 
and  firmness.  Financial  distress  of  Austria. 

GRENVILLE  to  EDEN. 

Aug.  2,  1796. 

Hammond's  mission  to  Berlin  to  be  explained  fully  to  Thugut,  as 
arising  solely  from  the  urgent  need  of  bringing  in  Prussia  so  as  to  stop  the 
French.  Hammond  will  open  this  subject  at  once  to  H.P.M.  without 
waiting  for  Austria's  consent,  but  any  arrangement  will  depend  entirely 
on  her  consent. 

Hammond  is  directed  to  find  out  whether  H.P.M.  wishes  for  indemni- 
ties in  Germany  or  in  the  Netherlands.  Eden  must  seek  to  reconcile 
Thugut  to  one  of  these  alternatives;  for  no  advantageous  peace  can  be 
made,  either  jointly  or  separately,  without  the  aid  of  Prussia. 

SAME  to  SAME. 

Sept.  7,  1796. 

Failure  of  our  negotiation  at  Berlin ;  but  it  ought  to  convince  Austria  of 
our  wish  to  help.  Dark  military  outlook;  the  only  hope  is  from  union, 
firmness  and  vigour.  As  Eden  had  failed  to  convert  Thugut  to  British 
views,  H.M.  will  seek  to  influence  the  Empire  through  the  King  of  Den- 
mark. In  view  of  the  advanced  season  H.M.  must  make  an  effort  for  a 
general  peace;  and  if  the  French  Government  sends  passports,  Jackson 
will  be  sent  to  Paris  with  Instructions ;  he  is  authorized  to  discuss  terms 
of  general  pacification  at  some  neutral  place,  where  the  Emperor's  repre- 
sentative would  be  invited.  This  has  been  found  to  be  the  only  effectual 
means  of  restoring  peace  to  Europe.  If  France  accepts,  she  will  probably 
bring  in  Holland.  If  she  refuses,  Jackson  will  try  to  bring  this  also  to  a 
clear  issue,  and  in  writing. 

With  a  view  to  facilitating  peace,  H.M.  is  ready  to  restore  as  many  of 
his  overseas  conquests,  "as  may  be  judged  reasonable  in  consideration 
of  advantages  to  be  procured  to  his  Allies  and  particularly  to  Austria."  The 
principle  uti  possidetis  to  be  taken  as  a  general  basis,  so  as  to  regulate  re- 
ciprocal cessions  and  to  maintain  the  influence  of  Austria  and  oppose 
French  efforts  at  further  conquests  on  the  Continent.  The  Pays  Bas  must 
be  restored  to  Austria,  "an  arrangement  which  the  King  would  be  willing 
to  purchase  at  the  price  of  very  considerable  sacrifices  on  his  part  of  the 
nature  above  stated." 

SAME  to  SAME. 

Sept.  20,  1796. 

Proposal  (through  Vorontzoff)  of  Catharine  to  offer  60,000  troops  against 
France  for  next  campaign,  if  England  pays  them  by  a  subsidy.  No  answer 
yet  given  to  this  last  condition,  as  our  finance  is  heavily  drained  by  Austria. 


APPENDIX  D  567 

SAME  to  SAME. 

Oct.  7, 1796. 

Russia  expects  nearly  £8,000,000, — an  impossible  sum;  the  utmost 
would  be  about  £3,000,000;  even  that  depends  on  consent  of  Parliament, 
which  will  not  be  granted  unless  objects  of  war  are  deemed  to  warrant  it. 

Though  Great  Britain  and  Austria  desire  to  see  the  restoration  of 
monarchy  in  France,  it  is  believed  that  they  do  not  "mean  to  bind  them- 
selves to  continue  the  war  for  that  object,  supposing  that  terms  of  peace 
in  other  respects  reasonable  and  acceptable  can  be  established  on  a  secure 
and  solid  foundation."  If  this  negotiation  with  Russia  fails,  Thugut  will 
probably  claim  the  full  amount  for  Austria.  This  must  be  resisted. 

On  Wednesday  a  resolution  of  the  Directory  arrived  from  Paris.  There- 
fore Lord  Malmesbury  would  be  sent  in  about  a  week ;  but  he  will  reject 
at  once  "all  idea  of  separating  H.M.'s  interest  from  that  of  Austria  or  of 
treating  for  any  other  than  a  general  peace."  This  last  is  very  doubtful ;  but 
a  failure  would  give  new  spirit  both  to  Great  Britain  and  Austria. 

SAME  to  SAME. 

Oct.  14, 1796. 

Long  delay  in  Eden's  despatches.  Nevertheless  Malmesbury  would 
set  out  this  evening  for  Paris.  His  Instructions  enclosed.  The  substance 
of  them  may  be  told  to  Thugut;  but  no  copy  be  given  or  allowed.  It  is 
known  that  France  longs  for  peace.  Hope  for  close  union  with  Austria. 

SAME  to  SAME. 

Oct.  18, 1796. 

Glad  at  Austrian  successes.  Thugut  seems  to  fear  our  overture  will 
encourage  France  and  that  Catharine  may  find  in  it  an  excuse  for  with- 
drawing her  help.  But  we  know  that  it  greatly  embarrasses  the  Directory, 
which  tries  to  elude  the  King's  demand,  while  pretending  to  consider  it. 
If  French  ambition  and  obstinacy  continue  the  war,  both  Great  Britain 
and  Austria  will  make  greater  efforts  than  before.  We  are  seeking  to  prepare 
for  them  on  a  great  scale,  as  she  ought  to  recognize.  But  before  making 
them,  we  want  to  know  as  to  possibility  of  peace.  If  war  continues,  then 
Russia's  help  will  certainly  be  of  high  value. 

SAME  to  SAME. 

Oct.  28,  1796. 

Malmesbury  will  soon  see  Delacroix.  Malmesbury  had  said  that  we 
would  act  in  close  concert  with  Austria  for  a  general  peace.  Austria  should 
decide  on  her  terms.  Naples  has  made  peace  with  France  at  Paris.  Spain 
is  said  to  have  declared  war  on  us,  and  this  is  probable. 

SAME  to  SAME. 

Nov.  7,  1796. 

Delacroix's  note  leaves  small  chance  of  peace.  It  demands  the  produc- 
tion of  full  powers  from  H.I.M.  before  any  negotiation  begins  in  which 
Austria  is  concerned.  Great  Britain  and  Austria  must  obviously  not  place 


568  ANGLO-AUSTRIAN  RELATIONS 

difficulties  in  the  way  of  such  a  negotiation  for  which  France  seems  rather 
more  disposed  than  before.  But  if  France  is  disposed  to  break  off  the 
negotiation,  we  must  still  try  to  bring  it  to  a  clear  issue.  She  may  cavil 
as  to  place,  time  and  mode  of  the  negotiation.  Austria  must  be  informed 
that,  if  she  declines  the  negotiation,  "it  might  eventually  become  necessary 
for  H.M.  to  go  even  one  step  further  and  conclude  peace  with  France, 
securing  only  to  his  Ally  the  offer  at  the  same  time  of  such  terms  as  the 
faith  of  treaties  and  the  King's  regard  to  the  general  interests  of  Europe 
would  in  such  case  induce  him  to  require  from  France.  This  extreme  case 
would  not  be  resorted  to  by  H.M.  without  the  utmost  reluctance  and 
concern."  But  it  may  become  necessary,  and  good  faith  compels  us  to 
state  the  fact. 

SAME  to  SAME. 

Nov.  7,  1796. 

There  ought  to  be  the  closest  confidence  between  Great  Britain  and 
Austria;  but  Starhemberg  has  shown  much  reluctance  to  enter  into  any 
explanation,  and  this  may  arise  from  Austria  entertaining  plans  unfavour- 
able to  us,  e.g.  perhaps  on  the  Belgic-Bavarian  exchange.  On  this  Eden 
will  say  that  H.M.  wants  Belgium  back  in  Austria's  hands,  if  solidly  held', 
for  this  too  is  a  link  of  union  between  Great  Britain  and  Austria.  But  even 
that  exchange  would  be  duly  considered  by  H.M.  as  an  item  in  the  negotia- 
tion if  desired  by  Austria;  and  the  Pays  Bas  should  be  in  hands  able  to 
defend  them  against  France.  This  is  essential  to  the  balance  of  Europe. 
Prussia  is  the  only  Power  except  Austria  that  could  hold  them:  and,  if 
Austria  objects  to  this  she  should  remember  that  Prussia  will  oppose  the 
exchange  unless  she  gets  a  good  indemnity;  and  her  interests  must  be 
considered  in  a  general  settlement.  "Any  overture  to  Prussia  formed  on 
such  grounds,  explained  with  frankness  and  supported  by  the  joint  weight 
of  the  Imperial  Courts,  might  possibly  be  attended  with  success.  Much 
explanation  would  be  necessary  with  respect  to  the  various  arrangements 
affecting  other  parts  of  the  Empire,  which  might  be  connected  with  this 
idea."  In  any  case  Austria  must  form  her  decision  and  formulate  her 
plans  without  delay. 

EDEN  to  GRENVILLE. 

Nov.  1 6,  1796. 

Thugut  insists  on  the  need  of  great  caution  lest  we  offend  Catharine ; 
but  "if  it  were  ascertained  that  the  French  would  treat  with  the  Emperor 
on  the  basis  of  the  status  quo  ante  bellum  for  his  dominions,  and  if  the  king, 
in  order  to  fulfil  his  engagements  to  the  Emperor  by  the  Convention  of 
1793,  should  press  upon  him  the  acceptance  of  a  negotiation  on  that  basis, 
H.I.M.  must  acquiesce  in  it,  and  the  necessity  under  which  he  would 
then  act  would  be  sufficient  to  justify  his  conduct  in  the  eyes  of  the  Empress 
of  Russia;  but  that  otherwise  it  would  not  be  prudent  for  H.I.M.  to  take 
any  active  or  public  share  in  the  business  without  previously  concerting 
it  with  the  Empress." 

Thugut  feared  that  Russia  was  already  cooling  in  her  offers  of  help. 
Therefore  it  was  impossible  "that  the  Emperor  could  either  send  a  Pleni- 


APPENDIX  D  569 

potentiary  to  Paris  or  full  powers  to  Lord  Malmesbury  to  treat  in  his  name 
or  take  any  positive  share  in  the  negotiation  until  it  be  ascertained  that  the 
Directory  has  ceased  to  consider  the  union  to  France  of  the  countries 
conquered  from  the  Emperor  as  irrevocable,  and  consented  to  restore 
them  to  H.I.M." 

In  reply  Eden  said  H.M.  had  made  a  long  and  most  honourable  series 
of  efforts  in  the  common  cause,  and  the  present  negotiation  must  lead 
either  to  an  honourable  peace  or  fresh  energy  in  conducting  the  war. 

GRENVILLE  to  EDEN. 

[Draft.    Most  secret.]  Nov.  26,  1796. 

French  conduct  seems  to  denote  a  wish  to  break  off;  but  the  state  of 
opinion  at  Paris  compels  the  Directory  to  appear  to  continue.  Public 
opinion  there  favours  the  restitution  of  Pays  Bas  to  Austria  if  Great  Britain 
will  grant  to  France  a  sufficient  compensation.  On  these  lines  the  enclosed 
memoir  is  drawn  up,  presuming  that  the  principle  of  compensations  is 
ultimately  agreed  to  by  the  Directory. 

EDEN  to  GRENVILLE. 

Nov.  26,  1796. 

On  Eden  naming  to  Thugut  the  possible  alternative  of  the  Pays  Bas 
going  to  Prussia,  he  expressed  great  astonishment  and  some  degree  of 
passion,  and  said  the  Emperor  would  oppose  it  by  force  of  arms.  Austria 
had  rejected  French  offer  of  armistice  on  Rhine,  but  Austrian  Generals 
insisted  on  it  owing  to  fatigue  of  troops. 

SAME  to  SAME. 

Dec.  14,  1796. 

Death  of  Catharine  a  great  calamity.  Paul  offers  to  fulfil  her  engage- 
ments to  Austria;  but  his  first  acts  arouse  distrust.  Thugut  hopes  the 
British  subsidy  to  Russia  will  be  transferred  to  Austria. 

SAME  to  SAME. 

Dec.  31,  1796. 

H.I.M.  thanks  Great  Britain  for  her  care  of  his  interests.  If  the  British 
proposals  are  accepted  by  the  Directory,  he  will  send  to  Paris  a  plenipo- 
tentiary, or  will  vest  Lord  Malmesbury  with  sufficient  powers  to  treat  in 
his  name.  (This  last  will  be  resorted  to  only  if  the  Directory  requires  from 
Austria  the  recognition  of  the  French  Republic.)  Thugut  insists  that 
Prussia  be  kept  out  of  the  negotiation  and  be  prevented  from  making  any 
further  gain  of  territory,  which  (as  it  must  be  at  expense  of  the  Germanic 
Body)  must  cause  the  dissolution  of  the  Empire.  All  hope  of  acquiring 
Liege  is  at  an  end,  since  the  death  of  Catharine  it  is  no  longer  attainable 
without  Prussia  gaining  some  equally  valuable  acquisition. 

GRENVILLE  to  EDEN. 

[Most  secret.]  Jan.  3,  1797. 

Probable  that  Paul  will  not  help  us.  But  if  so,  H.M.  will  advance  to 
Austria  a  subsidy  of  £200,000  per  month ;  but  the  first  two  months  shall 


570  ANGLO-AUSTRIAN  RELATIONS 

be  at  the  rate  of  £300,000.  These  payments  shall  be  terminable  at  two 
months'  notice;  H.I.M.  shall  open  a  loan  in  England  which  shall  go  to 
the  discharge  of  these  advances.  Renewal  of  the  1793  Convention  would 
be  censured  here,  because  it  was  then  fully  understood  "that  Austria 
was  bound  by  former  treaties  towards  Great  Britain  not  to  alienate  without 
the  consent  of  the  latter  any  part  of  the  Low  Countries." 

These  are  still  binding.  But  in  recent  discussions  with  France  she 
has  proposed  so  many  projects  of  exchange  and  equivalent,  all  tending 
to  alienate  the  Netherlands  from  Austria  and  this  has  weakened  those 
treaties.  We  would  prefer  by  an  article  of  the  new  Convention  to  renew 
"the  engagements  by  which  the  King  is  bound  not  to  make  peace  (but 
by  the  consent  of  Austria)  without  the  restoration  to  H.I.M.  of  all  his 
dominions  as  before  the  war,  and  that  by  which  Austria  is  bound  not  to 
alienate  the  Low  Countries  without  the  consent  of  Great  Britain."  Believes 
that  another  vigorous  effort  in  1797  will  make  France  sue  for  peace — 
such  is  the  exhausted  state  of  her  finances .  Desire  to  sign  a  Convention  with 
Austria  on  these  terms .  H  .M  .will  immediately  advance  £  3  oo  ,000  for  January . 

EDEN  to  GRENVILLE. 

March  8,  1797. 

Thugut  agrees  that  the  recent  favourable  terms  offered  to  Austria  by 
the  French  through  General  Clarke  are  a  trick  to  separate  the  Allies,  or 
indicate  the  weakening  of  French  resources.  H.I.M.  will  reject  them, 
especially  as  his  acceptance  of  an  indemnity  west  of  the  Rhine  would  in- 
volve the  dissolution  of  the  Empire,  which  he  is  resolved  to  preserve  "in 
its  present  form."  He  will  direct  the  Grand  Duke  [of  Tuscany]  not  to 
interfere  further  in  the  business  but  refer  General  Clarke  to  Vienna  through 
official  channels.  H.I.M.  has  directed  Arch-duke  Charles  not  to  listen  to  any 
overtures  from  Bonaparte  nor  to  grant  him  any  interview.  H.I.M.  will  (if 
further  pressed  by  these  offers  of  France)  intimate  that  only  a  Congress  of 
all  the  Powers  can  initiate  negotiations  for  peace.  Thugut  then  set  forth 
Austria's  great  difficulties,  her  steadfastness  to  the  alliance,  but  also  the 
urgent  need  of  a  corps  of  auxiliaries  and  the  co-operation  of  a  naval  force. 

GRENVILLE  to  EDEN. 

[Most  secret.]  March  17,  1797. 

Austria's  requests  for  British  naval  support  in  the  Adriatic  are  being 
carefully  considered ;  but  no  promise  can  yet  be  given.  "  The  fleet  under 
Sir  John  Jervis  which  is  destined  to  oppose  itself  to  the  forces  which  the 
enemy  may  be  able  to  draw  from  their  southern  ports,  must  of  necessity 
be  directed  in  some  degree  by  the  motions  of  the  enemy;  and  while  the 
principal  Spanish  force  is  collected  at  Cadiz  it  can  hardly  be  expected  or 
even  desired  by  the  Austrian  Government  that  Sir  John  Jervis's  fleet 
should  proceed  up  the  Mediterranean;  but  I  am  not  without  considerable 
hopes  of  being  shortly  able  to  announce  to  you  that  such  arrangements  of 
a  more  limited  nature  have  been  adopted  as  may  be  sufficient  amply  to 
provide  for  the  safety  of  the  navigation  of  the  Adriatic,  which  appears  to 
be  the  principal  object  of  M.  Thugut's  solicitude  in  the  present  moment." 


APPENDIX  D  571 

EDEN  to  GRENVILLE. 

March  25,  1797. 

French  advance  to  Tarvis.  Arch-duke  Charles's  journey  to  Vienna  had 
delayed  his  arrival  on  that  front,  and  his  plans  for  ending  the  confusion 
there.  Colonel  Graham  reported  grave  abuses  there.  Clamour  for  peace 
renewed  at  Vienna.  Complaints  of  want  of  our  financial  succour;  but 
Thugut  still  hopes  if  we  grant  naval  co-operation. 

SAME  to  SAME1. 

April  I,  1797. 

The  Directory  has  signified  to  Prussia  its  desire  for  peace  with  Austria, 
restoring  to  H.I.M.  such  conquests  as  have  not  been  annexed  to  the 
French  Republic  and  requesting  H.P.M.'s  good  offices.  H.P.M.  has 
announced  this  at  Vienna  but  (as  a  member  of  the  Germanic  Body)  can 
announce  the  fact  only  on  the  ground  of  integrity  of  the  Empire  and  a 
general  pacification  being  made. 

Thugut  thinks  it  a  Prussian  trick  to  increase  clamour  for  peace  at 
Vienna  and  will  inform  M.  de  Cesar  that  H.I.M.  cannot  entertain  the  offer 
until  he  has  consulted  his  Allies.  Thugut  dwelt  on  the  uniform  bad  faith 
of  Prussia,  and  suggested  that  the  Tsar  become  a  joint  mediator  so  as  to 
hold  Prussia  in  check. 

GRENVILLE  to  EDEN. 

April  4,  1797. 

Glad  at  Austria's  repulsing  the  French  offer  of  peace  through  Grand  Duke 
of  Tuscany.  Such  a  peace  would  give  free  play  to  Prussia's  ambition.  Hope 
that  the  new  elections  in  France  will  send  up  more  moderate  men.  But 
the  Allies  might  declare  that  they  will  not  refuse  to  enter  into  joint  negotia- 
tions for  peace,  "carried  on  by  their  Ministers  at  one  and  the  same  place, 
and  with  one  person  authorized  by  France  to  treat  with  those  Ministers 
conjointly."  If  France  agrees,  then  Great  Britain  leaves  it  to  Austria  to 
fix  the  place,  if  not  too  far  from  London.  "The  King's  wishes  would  be 
to  direct  and  employ  any  restitutions  of  conquests  to  which  he  might  be 
induced  to  agree  in  such  way  and  to  such  objects  only  as  may  be  best 
calculated,  according  to  the  present  state  of  affairs  in  Europe,  to  promote 
the  interests,  welfare  and  future  security  of  his  Ally,  on  which  H.M.  holds 
that  of  Europe  essentially  to  depend." 

SAME  to  SAME. 

[Secret.]  April  4,  1797. 

Orders  now  have  been  sent  to  Jervis  to  send  to  the  Adriatic  such  force 
of  frigates  as  shall  suffice  for  the  service  required.  But  we  cannot  send  a 
fleet  into  Mediterranean  as  that  would  mean  dividing  Jervis 's  fleet  now 
doing  splendid  service  off  Cadiz:  neither  have  France  nor  Spain  any 
squadrons  capable  of  service  in  the  Mediterranean.  The  sending  the 
frigates  shows  our  regard  for  Austrian  interests. 

1  For  Eden's  second  note  of  April  i  see  Hiiffer,  Quellen,  Pt  n.  vol.  I.  p.  153. 


572  ANGLO-AUSTRIAN  RELATIONS 

GRENVILLE  to  EDEN. 

April  ii,  1797. 

Prussia's  strange  proposal  to  the  Czar  will  probably  incline  him  towards 
Austria  and  Great  Britain,  unless  France  persuades  him  that  the  Allies 
are  against  peace.  But  we  urgently  desire  it,  on  the  terms  and  in  the  way 
now  proposed  to  H.I.M.  He  therefore  encloses  a  Note  Verbale  for  Austria 
and  Great  Britain  to  be  presented  jointly  to  the  Emperor  of  Russia  (in  case 
Austria  agrees) ;  also  a  Note  for  Whitworth  authorizing  him  to  present  that 
Note  or  a  similar  one  as  approved  at  Vienna. 

He  then  discusses  the  cession  of  the  Austrian  Netherlands  to  France 
and  fears  that  the  disastrous  opening  of  the  campaign  makes  it  inevitable. . . 

SAME  to  SAME. 

[Most  secret.]  April  n,  1797. 

Mr  Hammond  is  sent  with  this  despatch  to  assist  Eden  with  his  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  situation.  "  The  King  confidently  relies  on  the  assurances 
he  has  received  from  Vienna  that  no  separate  negotiation  will  have  been 
entered  into  with  the  enemy  in  the  interval."  But  if  at  the  time  of  Mr 
Hammond's  arrival  the  Court  at  Vienna  thinks  that  the  delay  of  a  refer- 
ence to  Russia  involves  too  great  a  risk,  the  following  are  the  best  lines 
of  conduct  which  seem  to  be  open  for  them  to  pursue,  and  Eden  has 
authority  to  accede  to  them : 

"The  first  measure  might  be  to  endeavour  to  conclude  a  general 
armistice,  avowedly  for  the  purpose  of  allowing  time  for  the  intervention 
of  the  Courts  of  Petersburg  and  Berlin  (as  the  French  would,  in  such  a 
case,  certainly  require  the  adjunction  of  the  latter)  extending  such  armistice 
to  all  the  belligerent  Powers  and  stipulating  respecting  the  naval  war  that 
proper  time  should  be  allowed  for  notices  in  the  distant  parts  of  the  world 
and  that  no  change  should  be  made  in  the  stations  of  the  respective  naval 
forces  after  the  receipt  of  such  notices  and  until  the  expiration  of  the 
armistice."  Eden  has  full  authority  to  accept  such  an  arrangement..  .  . 

But  H.M.  is  sensible  that  the  situation  may  demand  immediate  negotia- 
tion with  France,  and  to  avoid  unnecessary  delay  which  might  seriously 
prejudice  the  common  interests,  he  is  ready  to  refer  the  decision  as  to  the 
necessity  to  the  Austrian  government,  which  can  alone  pronounce  on  the 
exigency  of  its  own  situation 

If  the  Court  of  Vienna  wishes  to  proceed  to  direct  negotiations,  Eden 
and  Mr  Hammond  will  act  as  follows : 

"You  will  enter  with  the  Austrian  Minister  into  the  fullest  and  most 
unreserved  discussion  of  the  different  points  which  may  come  in  question 
respecting  the  terms  of  peace  both  for  Great  Britain  and  Austria.  With 
respect  to  the  latter  you  will  remark  that  from  the  moment  that  the  resolu- 
tion is  taken  by  this  government  to  consent  to  and  even  to  advise  the 
cession  of  the  Netherlands  to  France,  if  absolutely  necessary  as  the  price 
of  general  peace,  the  most  important  and  pressing  interest  which  this 
country  can  possibly  have  with  a  view  to  the  affairs  of  the  Continent  is 
that  the  House  of  Austria  may  by  some  just  and  adequate  compensation 


APPENDIX  D  573 

be  continued  in  a  situation  capable  of  opposing,  as  it  has  hitherto  done, 
a  powerful  barrier  to  the  ambition  of  France.  But  the  mode  of  providing 
for  this  must  naturally  be  left  to  the  decision  of  the  Austrian  government, 
and  you  will  therefore  explain  that  your  instructions  are  to  co-operate 
with  the  views  of  the  Emperor  in  this  respect.. . . 

The  terms  which  H.M.  would  propose  are: 

(i)  Restitution  of  all  conquests  except  Martinique,  which  is  not  nearly 
the  equivalent  for  the  great  accession  of  maritime,  commercial  and  colonial 
power  which  France  would  derive  from  the  possession  of  the  Netherlands 
and  San  Domingo.  (2)  Restitution  to  Spain  of  Trinidad,  unless  it  is 
settled  that  H.M.  retains  this  with  Tobago  or  St  Lucia  or  some  other 
conquest  in  the  West  Indies,  in  lieu  of  Martinique.  (3)  Restitution  to 
Holland  of  all  conquests  in  the  East  and  West  Indies  except  the  Cape  and 
Ceylon,  the  possession  of  both  which  points  is  of  the  greatest  importance 
to  the  defence  of  the  East  Indies  under  the  new  state  of  things  which  would 
arise  in  Europe  from  the  possession  of  the  Netherlands  by  France.  (4)  Peace 
for  Portugal.. . ." 

GRENVILLE  to  EDEN. 

April  ii,  1797. 

"  I  hoped  before  this  to  have  advised  you  of  the  Convention  with  the 
Emperor,  but  the  question  of  pecuniary  aid  can  only  be  brought  forward 
as  a  part  of  the  general  financial  arrangements  and  the  loan  about  to  be 
negotiated.  But  the  loan  is  delayed  and  it  is  not  proper  that  the  Convention 
should  be  signed  before  this  is  settled.  To  remove  disappointment  and 
obviate  despondency  at  the  delay  you  are  authorised  to  give  M.  Thugut 
most  positive  assurances  that  3!  millions  of  the  loan  are  for  H.I.M., 
subject  to  the  consent  of  Parliament,  destined  in  part  for  the  repayment  of 
advances  made  by  H.M.  to  the  Emperor,  and  the  rest  for  aid  to  H.I.M. 
for  the  current  year.  The  terms  will  be  made  as  favourable  as  possible  to 
the  Emperor,  though  in  the  great  financial  distress  of  this  country  they 
must  unquestionably  be  very  disadvantageous.  The  whole  will  be  sub- 
mitted to  Parliament  as  expeditiously  as  possible." 

GRENVILLE  to  EDEN  AND  HAMMOND. 

[Most  secret.]  April  18,  1797* 

"As  it  is  possible  that  the  cession  of  Trinidad  may  be  repugnant  to 
engagements  between  France  and  Spain,  you  are  authorised  to  accept 
instead  Tobago  with  either  St  Lucia  or  Demerara  or  the  part  of  S.  Domingo 
held  by  H.M.  when  the  preliminaries  were  signed.  This  is  the  utmost 
H.M.  thinks  proper  to  concede.  But  if  Vienna  is  in  actual  peril  the  King 
would  consent  to  confine  his  demands  to  Tobago  only,  which  he  desires 
to  retain  as  it  is  settled  wholly  by  British  planters.  But  in  case  of  extreme 
necessity,  rather  than  this  peace  of  Austria  should  be  concluded  separately, 
the  King  will  ultimately  abandon  all  claim  to  West  Indian  acquisitions, 
provided  the  fullest  liberty  is  given  to  individuals  to  remove  their  pro- 
perty. In  such  case  there  would  be  left  of  the  acquisitions  only  the  Cape 
and  Ceylon.. .  ." 


574  ANGLO-AUSTRIAN  RELATIONS 

GRENVILLE  to  EDEN. 

May  2,  1797. 

Uneasiness  about  the  issue  of  the  negotiations  with  Buonaparte. 
"From  your  silence  about  the  terms  which  Mersfeldt  is  instructed  to 
propose  or  accept,  we  conclude  a  reserve  has  been  observed  towards  you 
on  this  subject  very  different  from  the  open  and  ample  communications 
which  were  made  from  hence  during  the  whole  course  of  Lord  Malmesbury's 
negotiations.  It  is  impossible  not  to  feel  that  this  reserve  is  incompatible 
both  with  the  faith  of  existing  engagements  and  with  the  conduct  which 
is  on  every  account  due  to  H.M.,  and  it  has  accordingly  given  occasion  to 

much  remark,  and  that  of  the  most  unpleasant  nature If  a  precipitate 

and  separate  Peace  has  been  concluded  without  any  previous  communica- 
tion to  this  Government  as  to  the  terms  to  be  agreed  to,  this  can  only  be 
lamented  as  a  striking  addition  to  the  instances,  already  much  too  frequent 
in  this  war,  in  which  our  enemies  have  been  allowed  to  triumph  not  only 
over  the  rights  and  interests  but  over  the  honour,  good  faith  and  probity 
of  the  old  and  established  governments  with  which  they  have  had  to 
contend...."  The  House  of  Commons  voted  the  subsidy  [to  Austria] 
last  night  by  a  majority  of  nearly  four  to  one. . . . 

HAMMOND  to  GRENVILLE. 

[Private.]  May  3,  1797. 

"  I  cannot  avoid  expressing  to  Your  Lordship  the  concern  and  mortifi- 
cation with  which  I  have  learnt  from  every  quarter  the  present  helpless 
condition  of  the  Austrian  army  from  the  total  want  of  discipline  and 
subordination  and  the  lassitude  of  the  war  which  universally  pervades  it." 

GRENVILLE  to  HAMMOND. 

May  26,  1797. 

Order  to  return  home.  "The  late  conduct  of  the  Prussian  Government 
is  such  as  to  afford  very  little  prospect  of  any  measure  being  adopted  there 
consistent  with  the  general  interests  of  Europe  or  in  any  manner  favourable 
to  those  of  this  country." 

GRENVILLE  to  EDEN. 

May  28,  1797. 

Extreme  disappointment  at  the  conduct  of  the  Austrian  Government, 
equally  contrary  to  the  faith  of  treaties  and  to  those  sentiments  of  friend- 
ship which  have  been  professed.  That  Mr  Hammond  was  allowed  to  leave 
without  being  charged  with  any  communication  must  be  considered  a 
strong  indication  of  a  change  of  sentiment  and  system  towards  this  country. 

SAME  to  SAME. 

June  2,  1797. 

Overtures  for  peace  are  being  made  at  Paris.  The  natural  consequence 
of  the  treaty  (sic)  between  Austria  and  France  and  the  silence  of  the  former 
about  the  stipulations.  Eden  will  communicate  this  to  the  Austrian 


APPENDIX  D  575 

Minister  with  no  other  reminder  than  that  the  communication  itself,  at 
such  a  moment,  is  the  best  proof  of  H.M.'s  anxious  desire  still  to  maintain 
harmony  with  the  Court  of  Vienna. 

Pitt  MSS.  Pub.  Record  Office. 

PITT  to  LORD  CARLISLE. 

[Private.]  June  4,  1797. 

"...  I  can  also  venture  to  assure  you  that  I  feel  not  less  strongly  than 
yourself  the  expediency  of  taking  every  step  towards  peace,  that  can  be 
likely  to  effect  the  object  consistent  with  the  safety  and  honor  of  the 
country ;  and  I  have  no  difficulty  in  adding  (for  your  private  satisfaction) 
that  steps  are  taken  of  the  most  direct  sort,  and  of  which  we  must  soon 
know  the  result,  to  ascertain  whether  the  disposition  of  the  enemy  will 
admit  of  negotiation.  On  this  point  the  last  accounts  from  Paris  seem  to 
promise  favourably.  You  will  have  the  goodness  to  consider  the  fact  of  a 
step  having  been  actually  taken  as  confidentially  communicated  to  your- 
self." 

GRENVILLE  to  EDEN. 

June  30,  1797. 

Notification  of  pourparlers  with  the  Directory  for  peace,  to  include 
Portugal,  Spain  and  Holland.  Malmesbury  appointed  plenipotentiary. 
Remains  to  be  seen  if  French  are  sincere.  If  so,  little  doubt  remains  of 
speedy  and  favourable  termination. 

SAME  to  SAME. 

July  7, 1797. 

Difficulties  made  by  Thugut  as  to  ratification  of  the  Convention  signed 
by  Starhemberg  re  the  Austrian  Loan.  Such  a  breach  of  faith  in  satis- 
faction of  our  financial  claims  on  Austria  is  incredible.  We  insist  on  com- 
pletion of  the  affair. 

GRENVILLE  to  STARHEMBERG. 

Juillet  21,  1797. 

In  treating  for  peace  separately  we  might  each  get  better  terms,  but 
without  being  nearer  its  accomplishment  in  fact.  "  On  nous  propose  done 
de  renouveler  le  concert  et  de  ne  traiter  notre  paix  definitive  qu'au  Congres 
futur.  Nous  repondons  que,  pour  ce  qui  est  du  concert,  nous  rendrons 
bien  volontiers  confidence  pour  confidence,  mais  que  pour  attendre  le 
Congres,  il  est  deja  trop  tard.  Nous  avons  attendu  (comme  vous  le  savez 
bien)  des  nouvelles  de  ce  Congres  autant  qu'il  etoit  possible  d 'attendre. 
On  ne  nous  a  pas  voulu  communiquer  un  mot,  ni  sur  les  conditions  de  la 
Paix,  ni  sur  la  tenure  du  Congres  jusqu'a  ce  qu'il  n 'etoit  plus  possible  de 
garder  un  secret  que  tous  les  papiers  de  Paris  auroient  annonce  aux  cafes 
de  Londres  et  de  Paris.  La  communication  qu'on  nous  a  fait  enfin  etoit 
aussi  bornee  et  aussi  peu  amicale  qu'il  etoit  possible  de  1'etre. 

"  Voila  notre  justification. .  .pour  avoir  consenti  d'ouvrir  des  negocia- 
tions  avec  1'ennemi  pour  une  Paix  definitive  sans  attendre  pour  cela  un 
Congres  qui  tres  probablement  ne  s'assemblera  jamais.  Que  cette  demarche 


576  ANGLO-AUSTRIAN  RELATIONS 

soit  bonne  ou  mauvaise,  elle  est  faite:  1'engagement  est  pris  de  traiter 
de  bonne  foi  pour  une  paix  definitive,  et  S.M.  le  remplira  comme  Elle 
remplit  tous  ses  autres  engagements.  Cependant  le  resultat  de  cette  nego- 
ciation  n'est  rien  moins  que  certain.  II  se  peut  que  1'ennemi,  qui  par  la 
desunion  qu'il  a  jete  entre  nous  se  flatte  de  nous  jouer  tous  les  deux,  in- 
sistera  avec  nous  sur  des  conditions  inadmissibles  et  continuera  a  en- 
freindre,  comme  il  le  fait  journellement,  les  stipulations  des  Preliminaires 
qu'il  a  signe[s]  avec  vous.  Dans  ce  cas  nous  pourrions  encore  nous  en- 
tendre et  renouveler  sous  de  plus  heureux  auspices  un  concert,  qui,  s'il 
avoit  etc  observe  de  bonne  foi  de  votre  part,  comme  il  1'a  etc  de  notre  part, 
aurait  indubitablement  sauve  1'Europe.  Disci — et  c'est  a  vous  de  broder  ce 
cannevas  et  donner  a  cette  verite  toute  nue  les  habits  et  les  ornemens  dont 
elle  auroit  besoin  pour  se  presenter  a  des  etrangers.  Tout  a  vous." 

GRENVILLE  to  EDEN. 

July  23,  1797. 

"The  long  perseverance  of  the  Court  of  Vienna  in  its  refusal  to  make 
to  H.M.'s  Government  any  communication  of  the  terms  of  the  separate 
peace  between  Austria  and  France  and  the  unfriendly  manner  in  which 
that  communication  was  at  last  made,  unaccompanied  as  it  was  by  any 
overture  or  measure  which  indicated  any  desire  of  further  co-operation 
or  concert,  were  among  the  leading  motives  which  induced  H.M.'s  servants 
to  advise  H.M.  to  accede  to  the  proposals  of  France  in  this  respect.  The 
King,  having  upon  this  ground  entered  into  that  engagement,  no  longer 
considers  himself  at  liberty  to  depart  from  it,  but  will  observe  it  with  the 
same  good  faith  with  which  he  has  executed  on  his  part  all  his  treaties 
with  his  Allies." 

EDEN  to  GRENVILLE. 

Aug.  16,  1797. 

H.I.M.  has  professed  a  desire  for  union  with  Great  Britain  but  made 
no  definite  offer.  As  Great  Britain  had  opened  negotiations,  and  the  Czar 
was  indifferent  as  to  a  Congress,  H.I.M.  abandoned  the  idea. 

SAME  to  SAME. 

Sept.  16,  1797. 

News  arrived  through  Basel  of  the  coup  d'etat  of  Fructidor.  Thugut 
said  this  would  break  up  the  negotiations  at  Lille  and  Udine,  and  he 
inveighed  bitterly  against  French  perfidy  and  aggressiveness.  He  said  he 
was  not  guilty  of  signing  the  Austro-French  Preliminaries,  "and  repeated 
his  opinion  that  Europe  can  be  saved  only  by  a  thorough  concert  between 
the  King  and  the  Emperor  and  by  the  overthrow  of  the  present  ruling 
party  in  France.'^  He  lamented  the  prospect  of  an  Anglo-French  peace, 
as  it  must  prejudice  the  chances  of  Austria  obtaining  reasonable  terms  at 
Udine.  The  seizure  of  Corfu  by  the  French  harmed  both  countries, 
and  in  case  of  war  a  joint  expedition  should  be  made  by  them  to  re- 
cover it. 


APPENDIX  D  577 

EDEN  to  GRENVILLE. 

Sept.  18,  1797. 

General  Meerveldt,  who  left  Udine  on  Sept.  14,  reported  that  before 
he  left,  Bonaparte  had  been  dejected,  but  on  receiving  news  of  the  coup 
of  Sept.  4  at  Paris,  was  much  elated  and  then  declared  to  the  Imperial 
Ministers  that  France  could  not  cede  what  she  had  promised  to  Austria  in 
the  Preliminaries,  and  demanded  that  the  Emperor  should  treat  at  Udine 
for  peace  for  the  Empire,  "evidently  aiming  to  extort  by  this  means  the 
cession  of  the  territory  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine  as  the  price  of  the 
promised  indemnification  to  H.I.M.  in  Italy.  Bonaparte  further  declared 
that  the  Directory  meant  to  retain  Corfu  and  to  annex  Venice  to  the  new 
formed  Republic."  He  urged  Austria  to  make  peace  on  these  terms,  as 
France  was  about  to  conclude  peace  with  Great  Britain. 

Thugut  said  H.I.M.  would  not  treat  for  the  Empire,  but  would  await 
the  news  from  Lille  and  the  opportunity  of  a  further  concert  with  Great 
Britain.  He  also  asked  whether  Spain  had  offered  to  conclude  separately 
with  Great  Britain ;  and  if  so,  could  a  British  fleet  be  sent  to  the  Adriatic 
to  secure  the  transport  of  supplies  to  the  Austrian  army  and  cover  the 
vulnerable  coast  of  Istria?  Cobenzl  looks  upon  Bonaparte  "as  more  than 
mortal,"  and  combats  him  feebly. 

GRENVILLE  to  EDEN. 

Sept.  22,  1797. 

"  I  have  to  inform  you  that  the  negotiation  which  was  carrying  on  at 
Lille  has  been  abruptly  terminated  by  a  demand  made  to  Lord  Malmesbury 
by  the  new  French  plenipotentiaries,  Treilhard  and  Bonnier. .  .that  he 
should  either  declare  whether  or  no  he  had  full  powers  to  agree  to  a  com- 
plete restitution  of  all  the  conquests  made  by  H.M.  on  France  and  her 
Allies,  as  a  preliminary  to  the  negotiation,  or  should  quit  Lille  in  24  hours. 
A  demand  so  unreasonable  and  unexpected  undid  at  once  whatever  pro- 
gress had  been  made  in  the  negotiation  and  threw  the  business  back  to  the 
point  from  which  it  had  started  two  months  before,  and  in  such  a  manner  as 
to  leave  little  hope  that  it  can  be  further  pursued  with  any  prospect  of  success. 

"  The  French  plenipotentiaries  indeed  continued  to  the  conclusion  of 
the  very  last  conference  to  repeat  and  enforce  in  the  strongest  manner  the 
most  distinct  assurances  that  nothing  was  further  from  the  views  of  the 
Directory  than  an  abrupt  and  unfavourable  termination  of  the  negotiation ; 
that  they  were  desirous  of  pursuing  it  with  the  greatest  rapidity  and  to  a 
happy  issue ;  and  that  the  very  step  which  they  were  now  taking  was  that 
which  appeared  to  them  the  best  calculated  to  lead  to  such  an  end;  that 
so  far  from  considering  the  business  as  completely  terminated  even  by 
Lord  Malmesbury's  departure,  they  still  conceived  it  to  be  capable  of 
being  resumed  and  prosecuted  with  success.  It  is  not  necessary  for  me  to 
say  that  these  assurances,  however  strongly  urged,  appear  wholly  in- 
compatible with  the  conduct  which  has  been  pursued  by  the  Directory  on 
the  present  occasion,  and  that  but  faint  hopes  can  be  entertained  here; 
under  such  circumstances  of  any  other  issue  than  a  continuation  of  the  war." 

W.&G.I.  37 


578  ANGLO-AUSTRIAN  RELATIONS 

EDEN  to  GRENVILLE. 

Nov.  i,  1797. 

Thugut  told  him  confidentially  that  he  considered  the  Austro-French 
peace  so  unfavourable  to  Austria  and  so  vague  in  its  terms  that  it  could  not 
be  concluded:  that  therefore  H.I.M.  wished  to  enquire  from  the  British 
Government  as  to  an  eventual  compact  for  the  prosecution  of  the  war,  Great 
Britain  sending  a  sufficient  naval  force  to  the  Mediterranean  and  furnishing 
a  loan  to  Austria.  H.I.M.  would  confine  "his  views  of  acquisition  to  the 
side  of  Italy,  from  a  wish  of  preserving  the  German  Empire  in  its  present 
shape."  Eden  in  reply  requested  Thugut  to  state  what  were  Austria's 
engagements  to  France.  This  Thugut  refused  to  do,  but  he  gave  a  vague 
outline  of  the  terms.  He  said  H.I.M.  would  ratify  them  but  would  keep 
his  forces  up  to  full  strength,  as  the  French  troops  would  probably  not 
evacuate  E.  Venetia.  Eden  replied  that  the  fulfilment  of  Austria's  financial 
responsibilities  to  Great  Britain  was  a  sine  qud  non  to  any  agreement. 

GRENVILLE  to  EDEN. 
[Most  secret.]  Nov.  24,  1797. 

With  reference  to  Starhemberg's  proposal  at  London,  Austria  must 
state  her  obligations  to  France,  etc.,  without  which  no  proposal  can  be 
discussed.  Great  Britain  and  Russia  have  been  kept  out  of  the  Austro- 
French  discussions  and  agreements,  probably  because  H.M.  will  disapprove 
them.  Repayment  of  the  loan  is  again  insisted  on;  otherwise  Parliament 
will  not  agree  to  any  further  efforts  for  Austria. 


APPENDIX  E 
ATTEMPTS  TO  FORM  THE  SECOND  COALITION  (1798) 

Grenville's  despatches  are  from  Downing  Street ;  those  from  Eden  are  from  Vienna. 

EDEN  to  GRENVILLE. 

Jan.  3,  1798. 

H.I.M.  orders  the  repayment  of  the  Austrian  loan  to  Great  Britain  in 
certain  products  (quicksilver,  iron,  corn,  etc.),  specie  not  being  available. 
Eden  pointed  out  that,  as  France  controlled  the  Adriatic,  the  export  of 
these  was  impossible;  and  long  delays  would  result  from  this  method  of 
barter. 

GRENVILLE  to  EDEN. 

Jan.  16,  1798. 

Insists  on  the  loan  being  repaid.  The  Austro-French  peace  creates 
universal  disgust.  "Europe  can  be  saved  only  by  the  union  of  the  four 
Great  Powers."  H.M.  labours  to  effect  it,  but  is  hindered  by  the  acts  of 
Austria  which  create  distrust. 


APPENDIX  E  579 

EDEN  to  GRENVILLE. 

March  10,  1798. 

Prussia's  subversive  proposals  re  Empire  at  Rastatt.  H.I.M.  requests 
her  to  unite  with  him  to  preserve  the  Empire  as  far  as  possible.  Reports 
of  the  French  at  Rome.  Great  alarm  at  Naples,  whose  King  begs  help 
from  Austria.  Thugut  says  if  the  French  attack  Naples  or  Tuscany,  H.I.M. 
will  defend  them. 

GRENVILLE  to  SIR  W.  HAMILTON  (at  Naples). 

April  20,  1798. 

Hamilton  will  at  once  see  the  Neapolitan  Ministers  and  "  convince  them 
in  the  strongest  manner  of  the  zeal  and  sincerity  with  which  H.M.  enters 
into  the  interests  and  feels  for  the  present  situation  of  their  Sicilian 
Majesties." 

It  would  have  been  impossible  for  H.M.  to  witness  the  plain  and 
undisguised  declaration  of  the  French  Government  of  their  intention  to 
overwhelm  the  dominions  of  H.S.M.  without  feeling  the  most  lively  desire 
to  interfere  so  far  as  he  might  have  the  means  and  opportunity  to  rescue 
from  destruction  a  Power  with  whom  he  has  always  been  anxious  to  main- 
tain the  most  friendly  intercourse.  The  discussions  which  have  lately  taken 
place  between  H.M.  and  the  Court  of  Vienna  respecting  the  common 
interests  of  the  two  Governments  and  of  Europe  lead  H.M.  to  hope  that 
he  may  find  occasion  to  interfere  with  effect,  provided  the  period  to  which 
his  assistance  can  be  afforded  be  not  too  remote  to  prevent  the  difficulties 
which  appear  to  be  impending  over  Naples,  and  he  has  only  to  lament 
that  the  other  Powers  of  Europe  have  so  tardily  awaked  to  the  true  sense  of 
their  general  danger  as  to  leave  any  doubt  upon  this  point,  and  to  have 
made  it  impracticable  for  him  to  be  either  more  early  in  his  offers  of 
assistance  or  more  certain  of  their  success.  H.M.  has  come  to  the  deter- 
mination of  sending  a  fleet  into  the  Mediterranean  for  the  protection  of 
Naples  so  soon  as  it  is  possible  for  it  to  be  brought  forward  without  detri- 
ment to  the  indispensable  objects  of  his  naval  service  or  imminent  hazard 
to  the  safety  of  his  dominions. 

GRENVILLE  to  EDEN. 

April  20,  1798. 

Refuses  to  consider  Starhemberg's  recent  Memoire1  for  an  alliance 
until  the  loan  is  repaid.  When  it  is,  we  will  consider  a  union  either  with 
her  alone  or  with  Naples.  But  success  will  more  result  from  a  Quadruple 
Alliance,  including  Russia  and  Prussia.  Austria  and  Prussia  must  lay  aside 
their  jealousies.  Great  Britain  strives  to  prepare  for  a  Quadruple  Alliance. 
He  has  explained  to  Starhemberg  the  British  proposal  to  be  made  at 
Berlin  by  Elgin  so  framed  as  not  to  betray  the  confidence  of  Austria, 
also  for  the  friendly  intervention  of  Russia.  The  Quadruple  Alliance  would 
guarantee  the  respective  dominions  of  the  four  Powers,  and  possibly  also 

1  See  Dropmore  Papers,  iv.  154-9. 

37-2 


580   ATTEMPTS  TO  FORM  THE  SECOND  COALITION 

of  the  smaller  Powers.  Meanwhile  "the  great  object  appears  to  be  that 
the  plan  of  pacification  for  the  Empire  should  be  arranged  by  Austria 
and  Prussia  and  presented  at  once  as  an  ultimatum  to  France."  If  she 
refuses,  the  four  Powers  should  make  common  cause  against  her.  Our 
quota  would  then  be  partly  in  the  British  fleet  to  be  sent  into  the  Medi- 
terranean, partly  in  pecuniary  succours.  If  Prussia  refuses  to  join,  H.M. 
will  make  a  concert  with  H.I.M.  Austria's  pecuniary  demands  are  in- 
admissible, but  H.M.  would  eventually  send  a  commissioner  to  Austrian 
H.Q.  to  supply  her  commander  with  monthly  bills  on  H.M.'s  treasury 
at  the  rate  of  £  i  ,000,000  for  1 2  months,  for  her  armies  in  Italy  and  Germany. 
The  general  aim  must  be  "that  of  reducing  France  within  her  ancient 
limits,  particularly  on  the  side  of  the  Netherlands  and  of  delivering 
Holland  and  Italy  from  the  uncontrolled  dominion  which  she  now  exerts 
over  them."  Fear  that  Austria  may  in  the  future  make  a  separate  peace. 
French  attack  on  England  would  have  the  directly  opposite  effect.  H.I.M. 
is  invited  to  specify  a  plan  of  co-operation  through  Starhemberg. 

SAME  to  SAME. 

April  20,  1798. 

In  view  of  a  possible  French  invasion,  H.M.  cannot  much  weaken  his 
fleet  in  home  waters ;  for  if  Earl  of  St  Vincent's  fleet  were  sent  into  Medi- 
terranean the  Spanish  fleet  might  join  that  at  Brest,  which  would  involve 
the  recall  of  his  fleet  from  the  Mediterranean.  And  to  detach  only  a  part 
of  it  to  that  sea  would  expose  it  to  the  Spanish  and  Toulon  fleets.  A  great 
increase  to  the  British  fleet  is  therefore  necessary:  and  H.M.  will  incur 
that  expense  so  as  to  be  able  to  send  thither  an  adequate  force.  Reinforce- 
ments to  St  Vincent's  fleet  will  sail  early  in  June.  It  must  be  admitted  to 
any  of  the  Austrian  or  Neapolitan  ports,  also  into  those  of  Leghorn  and 
Genoa.  It  is  expected  that  Austria  will  supply  3000  seamen  from  her 
Adriatic  ports:  also  Naples  the  same  number  or  even  more.  We  cannot 
guarantee  the  continuance  of  that  fleet  in  the  Mediterranean  indefinitely. 
Will  not  Naples  seek  to  induce  Spain  to  come  to  terms  with  us  and  then 
remain  neutral  or  even  join  "the  general  defensive  alliance  now  in  agita- 
tion"? For  this  purpose  Great  Britain  was  and  is  ready  to  sacrifice  her 
recent  conquests  from  Spain.  If  the  latter  agrees,  H.M.  could  safely 
engage  to  keep  an  adequate  fleet  in  the  Mediterranean  during  the 
war. 

EDEN  to  GRENVILLE. 

April  28,  1798. 

Continued  friction  between  Austria  and  Prussia  on  German  affairs. 
Prussia's  aims  subversive.  The  Czar's  influence  on  her  will  be  nil  unless 
he  places  an  army  on  her  frontier.  Thugut  fears  for  the  safety  of  Naples, 
and  thinks  the  French  armament  at  Genoa  [sic]  is  destined  for  Malta, 
Sicily  or  Sardinia1. 

1  These  despatches  prove  that  Bonaparte's  Oriental  plans  had  not  been 
surmised  at  London  or  Vienna. 


APPENDIX  E  581 

GRENVILLE  to  EDEN. 

April  28,  1798. 

Bernadotte  having  left  Vienna,  and  hostilities  being  imminent,  H.M. 
is  ordering  St  Vincent  to  send  at  once  to  the  Mediterranean  a  force 
sufficient  to  hold  in  check  the  enemy's  force  there.  Hopes  that  Austria 
will  appreciate  the  magnanimity  of  this  step  which  involves  some  danger 
to  England.  British  finances  prove  the  stability  and  power  of  the  country. 
Eden  must  urge  the  necessity  of  obtaining  for  H.M.'s  ships  free  admission 
to  Naples  and  other  Italian  ports.  St  Vincent  is  at  liberty  "to  treat  as 
hostile  all  ports  and  countries  in  Italy  by  which  these  demands  shall  be 
refused."  Eden  to  forward  a  copy  of  this  despatch  to  Hamilton  at  Naples. 

SAME  to  SAME. 
[Most  secret.]  May  15,  1798. 

"...  In  consequence  of  the  publication  of  the  despatches  of  the  American 
Commissioners  at  Paris  and  of  the  scandalous  scene  of  corruption  and 
insolence  there  displayed,  Congress  has  resolved  on  measures  of  hostility 
against  France."  If  the  Baltic  Powers  would  concur,  "there  would  then 
remain  no  neutral  flag  to  protect  the  commerce  or  supplies  of  France." 

EDEN  to  GRENVILLE. 

May  23,  1798. 

Russia  will  promote  an  armed  mediation,  and  will  send  an  army  to  the 
Austrian  frontier  and  despatch  a  fleet  to  help  British  fleet  in  North  Sea. 
Thugut  makes  little  of  all  this  and  says  Czar  is  for  peace,  influenced  thereto 
by  Prince  Repnin,  who  believes  France  irresistible;  also  by  jealousy  of 
Suvoroff  whom  he  does  not  want  to  employ.  Eden  contested  these  state- 
ments but  fears  them  correct.  Thugut  apprehensive  for  Germany  in  case 
of  a  war.  Eden  said  Naples  must  be  helped.  Italy  and  Switzerland  would 
probably  rise  against  the  French.  This  would  derange  their  schemes, 
especially  that  of  the  Toulon  armada,  which  Thugut  thought  might  be 
against  the  Mediterranean  Islands  or  Egypt,  where  there  is  plenty  of  ready 
money.  H  .1  .M .  urgently  desired  an  entente  with  Prussia,  and  for  it  would  see 
her  acquire  much  land  in  Germany  if  it  were  under  the  mediation  of  Russia. 
Eden  again  urged  the  necessity  of  the  Quadruple  Alliance,  and  of  the  loan 
being  settled.  Thugut  said  this  was  impossible  at  present.  The  Austro- 
Neapolitan  Treaty  is  a  highly  gratifying  event.  If  followed  up,  it  must 
bring  a  rupture  with  France,  which  Thugut  expected. 

SAME  to  SAME. 

June  23,  1798. 

After  the  arrival  of  Hamilton's  messenger,  Eden  informed  Thugut  of 
"the  disposition  of  the  Court  of  Naples  to  acquiesce  in  H.M.'s  demands 
relative  to  the  Mediterranean  fleet."  Thugut  was  gratified,  and  said  that 
"H.I.M.  would  decidedly  support  the  King  of  Naples  against  any  conse- 
quences that  might  result,  as  H.S.M.  was  already  assured  of,  by  the  de- 
fensive Treaty  signed  here  on  the  2Oth  ult.  which  had  arrived  at  Naples  on 


582    ATTEMPTS  TO  FORM  THE  SECOND  COALITION 

the  ist  inst.  But,  on  my  asking  if  he  would  enable  me  by  this  opportunity 
to  transmit  an  answer  to  my  note  of  Monday  last,  he  requested  that  it 
might  be  deferred  till  positive  accounts  arrived  of  the  determination  of  the 
Court  of  Naples,  and  of  the  measures  adopted  there,  which,  he  said, 
must  now  be  received  in  a  very  few  days." 

SAME  to  SAME. 

July  4,  1798. 

After  a  letter  from  Hamilton,  he  regrets  the  timidity  of  the  Neapolitan 
Government  with  regard  to  the  "free  and  unqualified  admission  of  H.M.'s 
fleet"  into  any  Neapolitan  port.  The  Austro-Neapolitan  Treaty  is  of  the 
usual  defensive  character.  Gallo  objects  to  it  and  says  H.S.M.  cannot 
ratify  it  in  its  present  form;  and  presents  a  slightly  different  treaty  for 
consideration,  confining  the  casus  foederis  to  a  French  aggression  in  Italy. 
Thugut  objects  to  this  as  onesided  seeing  that  Austria  is  strong  in  Italy. 

HAMILTON  to  EDEN. 

[Enclosure.]  Naples,  June  13,  1798. 

Had  pointed  out  that  the  British  fleet  could  not  remain  in  Mediterranean 
unless  it  could  enter  the  Neapolitan  ports.  Gallo  always  deferred  an 
answer,  and  clings  to  half  measures.  He  (Hamilton)  anxiously  awaits 
news  from  Sicily  respecting  the  French  and  British  fleets. 

EDEN  to  GRENVILLE. 

July  10,  1798. 

News  of  seizure  of  Malta  by  the  French  came  from  Rastatt,  where  it 
arrived  by  telegraph  from  Paris.  Cobenzl  made  no  progress  at  Rastatt. 
Naples  has  not  ratified  the  Treaty  with  Austria.  Eden  begs  Thugut  to 
conclude  some  treaty  now  that  Naples  is  in  such  danger.  Thugut  said 
H.I.M.  would  not  abandon  Naples. 

SAME  to  SAME. 

July  14,  1798. 

A  messenger  arrived  from  Naples  bringing  ratification  of  the  Treaty 
of  May  20.  Thugut  said  both  H.I.M.  and  H.M.  should  induce  Naples  to 
enter  into  the  war  eventually.  A  letter  from  Hamilton  of  June  20  stated  that 
Nelson  with  14  sail  on  June  17  appeared  off  Isle  of  Caprea  (sic).  Troubridge 
landed  to  inquire  if  Neapolitan  ports  were  open  to  H.M.'s  ships,  and 
"attended  Sir  W.  Hamilton  to  General  Acton,  who  at  length  gave  him  an 
order  in  H.S.M/S  name  to  all  the  governors  of  the  ports  of  Sicily  to  allow 
the  British  sick  and  wounded  to  be  put  on  shore  and  taken  care  of  in  any 
of  the  ports  of  that  island,  and  also  that  they  might  be  allowed  to  get 
provisions  for  the  fleet  from  any  of  these  ports." 

HAMILTON  to  GRENVILLE. 

Naples,  Aug.  4,  1798. 

Nelson  had  missed  the  French;  seven  British  frigates  and  a  cutter  had 
been  for  more  than  a  fortnight  looking  for  Nelson,  who  was  very  angry 


APPENDIX  E  583 

that  any  difficulty  was  made  by  the  Government  of  Syracuse  in  admitting 
all  the  fleet1.  But "  the  Court  of  Naples  could  not  without  great  risk  throw 
off  the  mask  until  it  had  received  the  ratified  Treaty  with  the  Emperor  of 
Germany  and  with  the  two  supplementary  articles  by  which  the  Emperor 
is  bound  to  defend  H.S.M.  in  case  of  an  attack  from  any  enemy,  in  conse- 
quence of  his  having  opened  his  ports  to  the  King's  ships  without  any 
limitation ;  and  that  Treaty  arrived  here  in  the  night  of  the  3oth  of  July 
and  was  officially  communicated  to  me  the  next  day  by  the  Marquis  di 
Gallo,  the  Treaty  having  been  finally  concluded  at  Vienna  the  i6th  of 
July.  As  soon  as  I  had  received  Admiral  Nelson's  last  letters,  I  shewed 
them,  abuse  and  all,  to  General  Acton,  as  His  Excellency  mentions  in  his 
answer  to  that  communication;  but  I  flatter  myself,  having  sent  to  Sir 
Horatio  Nelson  the  original  letter  of  General  Acton  of  ist  Aug.  that  he 
will  be  perfectly  satisfied,  as  I  am,  with  this  Ministry  on  this  head."  He 
hears  that  full  powers  are  now  given  to  M.  de  Circello  to  conclude  a  new 
treaty  of  alliance  with  Great  Britain.  "We  already  here  look  upon  us  as 
united,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  French  will  resent  the  King's 
fleet  having  been  admitted  into  the  port  of  Syracuse.  Why  then  should  the 
King  of  Naples  hesitate  one  moment  to  take  advantage  of  the  present 
discontent  and  rising  of  the  Roman  peasantry,  and  march  on  Rome  where 
there  are  not  more  than  3000  Poles  and  French?" 

EDEN  to  GRENVILLE. 

Aug.  29,  1798. 

Prince  Repnin  and  the  Russian  ambassador  showed  a  letter  from 
Sandoz-Rollin  to  his  Court  [Berlin]  stating  that  France  intends  war  against 
Austria.  Thugut  doubts  its  authenticity  and  says  it  is  a  plot  between 
Prussia  and  France  to  feel  the  pulse  of  Austria. 

GRENVILLE  to  EDEN. 

Sept.  4,  1798. 

Russia  is  ready  to  aid  H.I.M.  with  troops  if  war  breaks  out,  if  we  can 
help  her  with  funds.  Thinks  war  more  remote  than  is  believed  at  Peters- 
burg. Our  measures  must  depend  on  the  ultimate  decision  of  Austria. 
We  deem  it  best  now  to  help  Austria  by  Russian  troops  rather  than  by  a 
direct  subsidy,  and  have  suggested  to  Paul  I  to  intervene  so  as  to  establish 
a  concert  between  the  three  Powers.  But  the  ratification  and  execution  by 
Austria  of  her  financial  engagements  is  an  indispensable  preliminary. 

EDEN  to  GRENVILLE. 

Sept.  5,  1798. 

Prince  Repnin  before  his  departure  assured  Morton  Eden  that  he 
[Eden]  must  give  way  on  the  financial  dispute  as  Austria  was  desperately 
low  in  credit,  and  must  be  helped.  Eden  replied  that  the  former  con- 
vention must  first  be  fulfilled.  He  conjured  Repnin  to  persuade  Paul  I 
to  encourage  and  stir  up  Austria;  else  Naples  would  be  ruined. 

1  Nicolas,  Sir  N.  H.,  Dispatches... of  Nelson,  in.  25-48 ;  Rose,  Napoleonic  Studies, 
PP-  3SO-3- 


584   ATTEMPTS  TO  FORM  THE  SECOND  COALITION 

SAME  to  SAME. 

Sept.  20,  1798. 

News  of  Turkish  declaration  of  war  against  France.  Thugut  asked 
whether  the  proposed  Anglo-Russian  convention  would  depend  on  the 
ratification  of  the  Anglo- Austrian  convention.  Eden  said  it  would  be. 
Thugut  said  in  that  case  Austria  could  not  accept  British  proffered  aid  as 
her  finances  utterly  forbade  her  fulfilling  the  loan.  Eden  showed  how 
favourable  was  the  time  to  attack  France  and  save  Europe. 

GRENVILLE  to  HAMILTON. 

Oct.  3, 1798'. 

M.  Circello  has  received  full  powers  to  conclude  a  defensive  alliance 
with  England.  The  British  Government  glad  to  do  so,  on  the  basis  of  the 
Convention  of  1793  whenever  the  King  of  Naples  is  ready  to  go  to  war 
with  France.  Grenville  warns  him  that  "H.M.  was  not  insensible  of  the 
danger  which  must  attend  such  a  resolution,  if  taken  without  the  fullest 
assurances  of  support  from  the  Court  of  Vienna,  though  on  the  other 
hand  it  could  not  be  denied  that  the  other  alternative,  that  of  remaining 
a  patient  spectator  of  the  intrigues,  insults  and  aggressions  of  France,  was 
also  full  of  danger  to  H.S.M.'s  interests  and  security."  In  this  situation 
it  appeared  that  the  decision  both  in  point  of  substance  and  of  time  must 
be  left  to  H.S.M.'s  own  determination,  and  that  the  most  friendly  conduct 
which  H.M.  could  pursue  on  this  subject  was  to  refer  the  negotiation  to 
Naples  and  thus  to  leave  it  to  H.S.M.  to  act  in  this  respect  as  circum- 
stances may  require  and  particularly  as  may  be  found  most  expedient  from 
a  view  of  the  final  resolutions  (whatever  they  may  be)  of  the  Court  of 
Vienna.  "  In  pursuance  of  this  idea  I  herewith  transmit  to  you  by  the 
King's  command  H.M.'s  full  powers  for  negotiating  and  signing  a  treaty 
of  defensive  alliance  with  the  Court  of  Naples ;  such  treaty  to  be  either  in 
the  form  of  a  general  defensive  treaty  or  in  that  of  a  special  Convention 
applicable  to  the  particular  case  of  the  present  war  with  France " 

P.S.  "  Since  the  above  was  written,  the  intelligence  has  been  received 
here  of  the  glorious  results  of  the  attack  on  the  French  fleet  at  Abukir. 
This  happy  event  makes  no  change  in  H.M.'s  disposition  to  consult  the 
views  and  interests  of  H.S.M.  respecting  the  conclusion  of  an  alliance  in 
the  manner  stated  in  the  above  despatch,  and  it  evidently  affords  still 
greater  facility  for  fulfilling  the  stipulations  of  it  at  present  on  both  sides." 

SAME  to  SAME. 

Oct.  3,  1798. 

Need  of  attacking  France  at  Malta.  Numerous  small  armed  vessels 
should  be  furnished  by  Naples:  this  would  be  a  ''sine  qua  non  of  future 
concert."  A  declaration  should  be  made  that  all  neutrals  approaching 
Malta  will  be  sunk.  As  to  the  future  of  Malta,  "  The  communications  made 
to  H.M.  on  this  subject  from  the  Court  of  Naples  are  in  the  highest  degree 
liberal  and  friendly.  But  H.M.  does  not  entertain  any  idea  of  acquiring 
1  Received  by  Hamilton  about  November  19. 


APPENDIX  E  585 

the  sovereignty  of  Malta  to  himself,  or  of  any  of  the  Venetian  Islands.  He  is 
ignorant  how  far  any  such  wish  is  entertained  by  the  Emperor  of  Russia 
or  by  H.S.M.,  though  it  does  not  appear  to  H.M.  that  such  an  acquisition 
would  be  advantageous  to  either  of  those  Sovereigns.  He  has  however 
directed  the  Court  of  Petersburg  to  be  sounded  on  the  subject,  and  in 
the  meantime  I  have  HJM.'s  orders  to  transmit  to  you  the  copy  of  a  sug- 
gestion which  has  been  made  here  on  the  subject  of  the  restoration  of  the 
Order  as  the  best  means  of  placing  the  Island  in  the  most  beneficial  situation 
for  the  interests  of  all  the  Allies." 

HAMILTON  to  GRENVILLE. 

Naples,  Oct.  9,  1798. 

State  dinner  to  Nelson  and  the  captains  of  the  ten  British  men-of-war, 
on  the  'Samnite,'  commanded  by  Captain  Carracciolo.  General  Mack 
expected  at  Caserta,  whither  the  Royal  Family  had  removed.  "As  there 
can  be  no  doubt  of  the  intention  of  the  French  army  to  plunder  the  rest 
of  Italy  as  soon  as  they  shall  be  in  sufficient  force,  it  is  a  mystery  to  us  all 
why  the  Emperor  and  King  of  Naples,  who  have  a  sufficient  force, 
do  not  profit  of  this  most  precious  moment,  to  drive  these  cruel  robbers 
out  of  Italy.  We  hope  the  arrival  of  General  Mack  may  clear  up  this 
mystery." 

SAME  to  SAME. 

Naples,  Oct.  16,  1798. 

Nelson  has  sailed  for  Malta;  will  return  early  in  November.  General 
Mack  will  march  northward  with  30,000  men  before  Oct.  31, "  the  Emperor 
having  consented  and  even  promised  his  powerful  support.  The  glorious 
victory  of  August  i  seems  to  have  inspired  all  with  courage  and  confidence, 
and  we  now  hope  that  this  fine  country  may  be  saved.  It  is  certain  that 
the  French  Government  has  ordered  an  army  of  60,000  men  to  act  against 
this  country.  Their  Sicilian  Majesties  have  the  utmost  confidence  in  the 
brave  Admiral ;  and  the  conferences  we  have  had  with  General  Acton  have 
certainly  decided  this  Government  to  the  salutary  determination  of 
attacking  rather  than  waiting  to  be  attacked." 

EDEN  to  GRENVILLE. 

Oct.  27,  1798. 

Report  that  four  Russian  columns  would  cross  the  Russian  frontier 
en  route  for  Constance,  to  enter  Switzerland  by  the  plain,  while  the 
Austrians  entered  by  the  mountains ;  they  would  together  invade  France. 

HAMILTON  to  GRENVILLE. 

Caserta,  Nov.  6,  1798. 

Mack  now  heads  30,000  troops  ready  to  march.  The  French  have  only 
26,000,  including  Poles,  etc.  "According  to  the  late  treaty  between  the 
Courts  of  Vienna  and  Naples,  when  Naples  furnishes  30,000,  the  Emperor 
is  to  furnish  60,000." 


586   ATTEMPTS  TO  FORM  THE  SECOND  COALITION 

EDEN  to  GRENVILLE. 

Nov.  10,  1798. 

News  that  Naples  would  occupy  the  Roman  States,  and  (as  this  might 
lead  to  war  with  France)  he  had  called  on  Austria  to  help  in  pursuance  of  the 
offensive  and  defensive  treaty.  "Thugut  then  said  with  much  agitation 
that  he  had  been  ordered  by  the  Emperor  to  declare  that  if  Naples  acted 
thus,  she  would  be  left  to  her  own  means,  but  would  receive  help  if  France 
attacked  her.*'  Eden  earnestly  deprecated  abandoning  Naples.  As  to 
Thugut's  statement  that  France  must  be  made  to  appear  the  aggressor, 
why  not  issue  a  declaration  that  it  was  her  ambition  and  aggression  that 
called  the  Powers  to  action  ?  If  Austria  would  do  this,  he  [Eden]  believed 
England  would  aid  her.  Thugut  thought  it  a  good  plan  but  said  he  doubted 
Russia's  constancy ;  he  did  not  know  now  whether  the  Czar  would  let  the 
Russians  enter  Switzerland. 

[For  Grenville's  important  despatch  of  Nov.  16, 1798,  to  Whitworth  at  Petersburg 
see  Rose,  Napoleonic  Studies,  pp.  54-61.] 

SAME  to  SAME. 

Nov.  28,  1798. 

Thugut  fears  Prussia's  conduct  might  hinder  the  despatch  of  Austrian 
troops  into  Switzerland.  The  Emperor  will  try  to  conciliate  her.  Eden 
said  how  easy  it  would  be  to  arouse  Italy,  Switzerland,  West  Germany  and 
Holland  against  their  French  oppressors.  Thugut  silent  as  to  this,  but 
deprecated  the  Czar's  assumption  of  title  of  Grand  Master  of  Malta  [sic], 
as  the  Knights  now  in  Russia  could  not  legally  depose  the  Grand  Master, 
Hompesch,  who  had  acted  weakly  but  not  treacherously  and  now  wanted 
to  head  the  Maltese  rising.  The  Order  should  be  re-established. 

SAME  to  SAME. 

Dec.  19,  1798. 

Has  urged  Thugut  to  help  Naples  and  Tuscany;  but  Thugut  blames 
Naples  for  beginning  the  war  and  compromising  fate  of  Sardinia;  Austria 
not  ready  for  war.  Eden  said  France  plotted  to  ruin  Sardinia,  conquer  all 
Italy  and  finally  Austria.  H.I.M.  might  save  Naples  and  all  Europe:  let 
Austria  act  with  the  energy  of  England,  and  success  was  almost  certain. 

SAME  to  SAME. 

[Most  secret.]  Dec.  23>  I79g. 

H.I.M.  will  not  help  Naples,  having  no  confidence  in  her  Government, 
which  might  make  a  separate  peace.  He  said  warmly  that  Naples  "had 
allowed  itself  to  be  drawn  into  the  measures  it  had  adopted  by  England, 
who  expected  in  this  manner  to  force  him  into  a  war,  in  which  the  English 
Government,  as  they  knew  that  he  was  without  the  means  of  carrying  it 
on  without  them,  would  become  in  a  certain  degree  the  directors  of  his 
operations  and  of  the  conditions  of  peace."  The  Empress  (by  the  Em- 
peror's express  injunction)  refrained  from  speaking.  Thugut  afterwards 
said  the  same,  setting  aside  the  promises  so  often  made.  Eden  ascribes  to 
Phugut  the  distrust  of  England  to  which  this  change  of  front  is  due. 


APPENDIX  F  587 

SAME  to  SAME. 

Dec.  29,  1798. 

Confusion  of  Austria's  finances.  She  dare  not  trust  England  because 
"  conscious  of  her  own  offensive  and  faithless  conduct  towards  H.M."  An 
Anglo- Austrian  union  is  therefore  very  difficult.  Jealousy  of  Prussia  acute. 
Austria  hides  her  weakness  "under  the  veil  of  mystery  and  cunning." 
She  may  come  to  terms  with  France.  She  maintains  in  her  territory 
20,000  Russian  troops  sent  at  her  earnest  request  to  co-operate  against 
France;  yet  refuses  a  union  with  England. 


APPENDIX  F 
LETTERS  OF  LORD  MULGRAVE  TO  PITT 

From  Pitt  MSS.  no.  152,  P.R.O. 

Speenhill,  Jan.  5,  1806. 

"  I  think  I  may  congratulate  you  upon  something  like  hopes  of  Prussia. 
The  information  from  the  Hague  of  the  iyth  of  December  has  probably 
decided  the  engagement  of  Prussia  for  the  security  of  the  British  troops,  as 
Kalkreuth  with  the  right  of  the  Prussian  army  would  not  be  in  security 
against  the  French  force  assembling  without  the  assistance  of  the  British 
and  Swedish  troops,  in  addition  to  the  Russians  under  Tolstoy1.  Nothing 
seems  more  likely  to  decide  the  hostility  of  France  against  Prussia  than  a 
junction  of  British  troops  with  those  of  Prussia.  The  only  objection  seems 
to  be  the  locking  up  those  troops  for  so  long  a  period,  if  peace  should  be 
patched  up  between  Prussia  and  France,  but  that  inconvenience  is  nothing 
compared  to  the  chance  of  stirring  up  something.  I  suppose  you  will 
make  no  difficulty  about  the  additional  subsidies  desired  by  Russia  or 
even  the  loan  of  the  million.  Lord  G.  Levison's  [sic]  despatches  are  satis- 
factory except  with  respect  to  the  determination  of  Czartoriski  and  No- 
vossiltzoff  not  to  go  to  Berlin.  You  will  decide  whether  Lord  G.  Levison 
will  be  most  useful  at  Berlin  or  St  Petersburg,  probably  at  the  latter  if 
Harrowby  comes  away.  You  will  observe  that  Czartoriski  has  already 
opened  the  subject  of  Greece  and  Egypt." 

Fulham,  Monday,  Jan.  6,  1806. 

"...  However  unwilling  I  am  to  press  upon  your  time  and  attention  at 
this  moment  I  cannot  avoid  saying  a  few  words  to  you  on  a  subject  which 
has  occupied  much  of  my  thought  since  I  received  the  despatches  at 
Speenhill  last  night.  I  have  so  sincere  and  long-rooted  a  deference  to  your 
opinions  that  I  am  not  disposed  to  press  any  ideas  of  mine  very  far,  when 
you  make  any  objection  to  them  in  the  first  instance ;  nor  do  I  ever  recur 
again  to  my  own  suggestions  when  they  are  unconnected  with  the  depart- 

1  For  an  explanation  of  these  circumstances  see  ante,  pp.  345^7,  also  Rose,  Life 
of  Pitt,  Part  II.  pp.  551-3.  Mulgrave  was  then  acting  as  Foreign  Minister. 


588        LETTERS  OF  LORD  MULGRAVE  TO  PITT 

ment  which  you  have  assigned  to  me ;  but  I  confess  that  so  much  seems  to 
me  to  hang  upon  the  half  disposition  to  action  which  Prussia  is  manifesting 
that  I  cannot  refrain  from  again  calling  your  attention  to  the  subject  of 
Holland.  It  is  not  now  possible  to  look  back  to  the  old  system  of  European 
politicks  or  to  the  former  state  of  Europe  itself,  as  to  objects  which  can  be 
restored  or  even  approached  by  any  new  arrangements,  after  the  state  of 
things  which  has  now  arisen.  A  Republic  of  Holland,  supported  by  its 
own  resources,  making  head  against  the  power,  or  even  successfully 
evading  the  influence,  of  France,  can  never  again  exist  without  a  second 
Revolution  in  the  state  of  Europe,  which  the  time  of  life  and  character  of 
the  existing  Sovereigns,  and  the  nature  of  the  political  maxims  of  their 
Cabinets,  does  not  place  within  the  reach  of  any  period  of  rational  political 
speculation.  A  strong  sense  of  obvious  and  impending  danger  is  not  alone 
sufficient  to  determine  the  Prussian  Government.  The  powerful  means  of 
a  general  Coalition  has  not  been  sufficient ;  an  increase  of  territory  has  been 
its  leading,  and  indeed  only  influencing  object.  Even  for  an  exchange  of 
Hanover  the  Court  of  Berlin  would  have  been  bound  not  to  make  peace 
without  common  consent.  Holland,  therefore,  under  present  circumstances 
seems  to  me  alone  likely  to  purchase  vigorous  and  immediate  exertions  on 
the  part  of  Prussia,  even  for  its  own  preservation.  The  Stadholder  (besides 
his  despicable  character)  is  further  disqualified  by  a  voluntary  compromise 
for  his  executive  office  in  Holland,  and  by  the  ready  acceptance  of  the 
sovereignty  of  Fulda,  which  might  supply  his  enjoyments  and  supply  his 
tranquillity.  An  honourable  prejudice  in  favour  of  the  House  of  Nassau 
being  thus  set  aside,  the  question  about  Holland  appears  to  rest  on  these 
broad  grounds,  which  may  be  avowed  without  danger,  and  may  be  argued 
without  the  possibility  of  being  disproved.  Holland  must  become  a  province 
of  France  or  of  some  other  Power.  Can  it  be  placed  in  any  other  hands 
capable  of  defending  it  except  Prussia  ?  Is  there  any  other  acquisition  which 
can  by  its  value  tempt  Prussia  to  come  into  contact  with  France,  and  which 
by  its  frontier  will  enable  that  kingdom  to  keep  the  French  force  at  bay, 
except  Holland?  As  long  as  Prussia  shall  hold  its  connection  with  this 
country,  the  United  Provinces  in  her  hands  will  secure  all  the  northern 

and  eastern  parts  of  Great  Britain  against  the  danger  of  invasion 

We  must  look  to  large  objects  and  to  extensive  innovations  if  we  are  to 
meet  the  gigantick  measures  of  Bonaparte  (who  will  give  Tyrol  and  East 

Austria  and  North  Italy  to  his  vassals) No  bribe  seems  to  me  too  high 

for  Prussia  at  this  moment.  With  that  Power  it  now  remains  to  determine 
whether  Bonaparte  is  to  be  Emperor  of  the  Continent  of  Europe  or  not. 
The  well-earned  exception  of  Russia  from  that  description  of  the  state  of 
the  Continent  will  alone  operate  but  little  for  the  general  peace  of  the 
world,  or  for  the  ultimate  terms  for  this  country,  which  sooner  or  later 
must  come  to  be  considered." 


APPENDIX  G  589 


APPENDIX  G 

NEGOTIATIONS  WITH  SWEDEN  AND  RUSSIA 
IN  1811-1812 

F.O.  Sweden,  70. 

A.  DESPATCHES  FROM  THORNTON  to  THE  FOREIGN  OFFICE. 

H.M.S.  Victory,  Wingo  Sound,  Nov.  5,  1811. 

Rendezvous  at  Amal  is  secretly  arranged  by  the  Swedish  Minister, 
Count  Rosen.  Rosen  "entered  at  once  and  with  great  earnestness  into  the 
favourite  topic  of  the  incorporation  of  Norway  with  Sweden."  For  this 
our  naval  co-operation  was  essential ;  but  Sweden  would  also  need  money 
to  help  her  maintain  from  60,000  to  70,000  troops  and  17,000  seamen 
(figures  which  Thornton  doubts).  Thornton  asked  him  not  to  mention 
the  proposal  about  Norway,  on  which  Rosen  had  clearly  been  told  to  sound 
him.  We  must  defer  this  topic  until  later,  and  we  might  test  the  sincerity 
of  Sweden  by  proposing,  first,  the  independence  of  Norway,  which  would 
guarantee  Sweden's  safety  as  much  as  its  annexation. 

Amal,  Nov.  n,  1811. 

At  Amal  Thornton  saw  M.  Netzel  (formerly  Swedish  charge  d'affaires 
at  Hamburg)  who  acknowledged  the  noble  conduct  of  Great  Britain  in 
this  overture.  The  Prince  Royal  wished  to  preserve  the  present  relations 
with  Great  Britain  and  France ;  i.e.  to  appear  to  be  the  Ally  of  France  but 
undertake  no  hostility  against  England  (though  France  might  press  for  it) 
and  to  join  England  rather  than  yield  to  the  French  demand.  Sweden 
had  resisted  Napoleon's  demand  last  summer  to  allow  French  troops  in 
small  numbers  to  pass  through  Sweden  into  Norway  for  the  invasion  of 
Scotland.  Denmark  had  allowed  this  (through  Zealand).  Sweden  would 
rather  fight  France  than  accede  to  this  demand. 

The  Prince  Royal  would  not  take  up  the  annexation  of  Norway  now  be- 
cause it  would  expose  him  to  hostilities  both  from  France  and  Denmark 
and  possibly  from  Russia  too. 

Thornton  then  opened  the  main  topic  of  his  mission  and  pointed  out 
that  a  change  of  system  was  now  needed,  not  as  a  threat  to  Sweden  but 
because  of  "the  intolerable  burden  which  the  System  itself  imposed  upon 
Great  Britain."  He  also  referred  to  the  probability  of  a  League  of  the 
North,  which  Great  Britain  would  help. 

[Private.]  Amal,  Nov.  n,  1811. 

He  thinks  Sweden  will  not  take  up  this  proposal  seriously  till  she  has 
sounded  Russia,  as  she  may  do  by  a  private  overture  to  Romanzoff. 
Sweden  would  be  in  a  difficult  position  if  a  Treaty  with  England  exposed 
her  to  attacks  both  from  Russia  and  Denmark.  Russia  resists  some  of 


59o        NEGOTIATIONS  WITH  SWEDEN  AND  RUSSIA 

Bonaparte's  demands.  He  suggests  sending  a  British  envoy  to  St  Peters- 
burg as  it  may  be  that  Russia  only  needs  encouraging  in  order  to  resist 
Britain  more  firmly. 

Amal,  Nov.  20,  1811. 

Sudden  ending  by  Sweden  of  this  negotiation,  which  had  opened  well. 
Netzel  would  not  state  in  writing  the  reasons.  Thornton  thinks  his  own 
conduct  has  been  quite  correct.  The  Swedish  Government  stated  that  he 
was  not  furnished  with  clear  and  precise  enough  instruction  as  to  terms  of 
peace. 

[Secret  and  confidential.]  Amal,  Nov.  20,  1811. 

The  Prince  Royal  had  been  mortified  by  the  announcement  of  a  change 
of  system  by  Great  Britain  which  he  took  as  a  threat  (needlessly,  as  Thorn- 
ton thinks).  France  had  threatened  Sweden  and  the  Prince  would  resist 
threats  from  both  sides.  Thornton  pointed  out  that  this  end  to  the  negotia- 
tion would  cause  a  bad  impression  in  England  and  said  no  threats  had  been 
suggested  or  intended. 

[Private.]  H.M.S.  Victory,  Wingo  Sound,  Nov.  25,  i8iz. 

He  believes  the  failure  due  to  Engestrom  alone,  and  to  his  misrepre- 
sentations: he  is  under  French  influence.  Nothing  can  be  done  now,  or 
in  future,  except  by  direct  communication  with  the  Crown  Prince  himself1. 

From  F.O.  Sweden,  71. 

B.  DESPATCHES  FROM  CASTLEREAGH  to  THORNTON  IN  1812. 

March  13. 

He  refers  to  a  Swedish  overture  for  peace  and  a  request  that  a  negoti- 
ator be  sent  to  Sweden.  This  change  is  due  to  the  French  invasion  of 
Swedish  Pomerania.  Sweden  does  not  consider  herself  yet  at  war  with 
France;  but  negotiations  with  England  must  be  secret.  Sweden  proposes 
(i)  peace,  (2)  alliance  with  us.  To  (i)  we  agree,  especially  as  the  war  with 
Sweden  has  been  nominal  rather  than  real.  We  do  not  wish  her  to  declare 
war  on  Napoleon  if  she  desires  to  avoid  it.  But  if  he  attacks  her,  we  will 
defend  her  by  sea.  Thornton  is  to  go  to  Stockholm  if  possible.  If  Sweden 
should  decline  all  further  negotiation,  he  is  to  return  at  once  to  England 
and  declare  that  no  further  negotiation  can  take  place  except  in  London  by 
a  duly  accredited  Swedish  Minister. 

If  Sweden  wants  merely  a  treaty  restoring  peace  and  amity,  he  [Thorn- 
ton] may  sign  such  a  treaty  (draft  of  which  is  enclosed) ;  but  a  system  of 
concert  may  be  framed  thereafter.  Sweden  now  proposes  (i)  Protection 
by  our  fleet.  (2)  Transfer  of  a  West  India  isle  to  her.  (3)  Military  and 
financial  succour.  (4)  Territorial  extension,  especially  on  the  side  of  Norway. 

1  An  unsigned  letter,  dated  Stockholm,  Jan.  19,  1812,  expresses  regret  that  the 
British  Government  had  not  understood  the  absolute  necessity  of  giving  Norway 
to  Sweden,  which  may  otherwise  become  a  Russian  or  pseudo-French  province: 
65  Swedish  officers  and  some  3000  seamen  had  gone  to  equip  and  man  Napoleon's 
Scheldt  and  Brest  fleets.  The  Danes  assisted  in  this  owing  to  their  hate  of  England. 


APPENDIX  G  591 

(i)  We  agree  to,  and  will  agree  to  prevent  any  invasion  of  Sweden  either 
directly  or  through  Norway.  But  she  must  understand  the  burden  this 
imposes.  (2)  is  reserved  for  discussion  as  to  details:  but  such  an  island 
must  not  be  alienated  by  Sweden  without  our  consent.  (3)  Great  Britain 
cannot  at  once  accede  to,  as  she  throws  all  her  weight  into  the  Peninsular 
War,  which  greatly  assists  the  efforts  of  North  Europe  for  independence. 
As  we  must  give  all  our  resources  to  Spain,  we  cannot  subsidize  Sweden. 
But  we  will  send  military  clothing  as  far  as  possible.  (4)  As  Sweden  is  not 
yet  at  war  either  with  France  or  Denmark,  she  cannot  expect  us  to  frame 
precise  engagements  on  this  head.  But  if  she  will  act  vigorously  against 
France,  we  will  seek  to  strengthen  her.  It  is  natural  that  she  seek  an 
indemnity  for  loss  of  Finland  and  Swedish  Pomerania ;  but  not  while  she 
is  at  peace  with  Denmark  and  France.  Let  Sweden  therefore  open  herself 
clearly  on  this  question.  We  will  at  least  seek  to  prevent  Danish  or  French 
troops  being  sent  into  Norway.  There  shall  also  be  mutual  restitution  of 
ships  seized. 

[Secret  and  separate.]  March  13. 

Thornton  will  at  once  see  at  Stockholm  M.  Nicolai,  Russian  charge 
d'affaires,  and  state  that  Mr  Listen  will  go  as  ambassador  to  Constantinople 
to  seek  to  arrange  peace  between  Russia  and  Turkey,  and  he  will  receive 
suggestions  from  Russia  to  this  end.  England  can  never  see  with  in- 
difference Russian  interests  threatened  by  France. 

[Secret  and  separate.]  March  13. 

Thornton  will  seek  a  personal  interview  with  the  Prince  Royal,  whose 
influence  is  so  great  in  the  Swedish  Government:  but  a  certain  reserve 
must  be  maintained  by  us  towards  him,  until  his  position  is  entirely  estab- 
lished. His  views  are  to  be  found  out  and  transmitted  minutely  to  H.M.'s 
Government. 

March  25. 

Our  fleet  will  prevent  landing  of  French  and  Danish  troops  in  Norway  : 
also  despatch  of  Danish  flotilla. 

When  Sweden  and  Russia  have  more  fully  concerted  their  arrangements, 
we  will  send  an  officer  to  discuss  the  operations  to  be  carried  on  against 
the  enemy. 

March  27. 

So  soon  as  peace  is  restored  with  Sweden  the  Orders  in  Council  of 
January  1807  will  be  revoked  (for  Sweden),  and  our  blockade  under  the 
Orders  of  April  1809  will  not  extend  to  the  Baltic  ports.  Thus  Sweden 
will  become  the  depot  of  British  trade  with  other  Baltic  ports,  and  we  will 
encourage  this. 

March  27. 

"In  the  Projet  d*  operations  suggested  in  M.  d'Engestrom's  letter  of 
1 2th  inst.  it  is  proposed  that  measures  should  be  adopted  to  induce  Den- 
mark to  join  the  confederation  against  France  and  that  in  exchange  for 
Norway  (to  be  ceded  to  Sweden)  an  extension  of  territory  should  be 


592     NEGOTIATIONS  WITH  SWEDEN  AND  RUSSIA 

granted  to  Denmark  on  the  side  of  Germany."  The  Prince  Regent  wishes 
it  understood  that  no  thought  must  be  entertained  of  indemnifying  Den- 
mark from  his  Electoral  dominions. 

April  14. 

Nicolai  has  been  charged  to  sound  Denmark  as  to  a  concert  against 
France  on  the  plan  of  ceding  Norway  to  Sweden  and  undertaking  a  diver- 
sion against  the  rear  of  the  French  army  in  North  Germany.  This  may 
offend  Denmark  and  may  imply  conquest  of  Norway  and  Zealand,  which 
will  require  all  the  year,  besides  attaching  Denmark  to  France.  Why  not 
offer  to  Denmark  Swedish  Pomerania  and  German  land  in  exchange  for 
Norway  ?  If  she  rejects  really  good  offers  it  is  clear  she  is  welded  closely 
to  France.  Thornton  is  to  suggest  this  plan  to  Sweden. 

April  24. 

Proposal  from  Paris  of  an  offer  of  peace  to  Great  Britain  if  she  will 
recognize  Joseph  as  King  of  Spain.  The  Prince  Regent  resolutely  declined 
an  offer  incompatible  with  his  honour.  This  to  be  communicated  to  the 

Prince  Royal. 

May  7. 

Regrets  that  Sweden  makes  the  restoration  of  peace  depend  on  a  Treaty 
of  Concert  to  be  framed  between  Great  Britain,  Sweden  and  Russia.  This 
would  look  as  if  we  were  obliged  to  purchase  peace  from  Sweden.  We  de- 
clined and  still  decline  to  mix  the  question  of  Concert  with  that  of  Peace, 
especially  since  Russia  has  "  become  a  party  to  discussions  which  opens  [sic] 
a  much  more  extensive  view  of  the  interests  to  be  provided  for  than  whilst 
the  deliberations  were  confined  to  Great  Britain  and  Sweden."  We  know 
nothing  about  Russia's  views  except  through  the  confidential  communica- 
tion made  to  you  by  the  Swedish  Minister  as  to  the  Russo-Swedish  treaty 
signed  on  the  (blank)  at  Stockholm.  We  must  first  know  more  about  the 
views  of  Russia,  and  what  will  happen  if  she  compromises  with  France, 
and  how  that  would  affect  Sweden. 

The  Swedish  request  for  a  subsidy  of  £1,200,000  is  inadmissible,  owing 
to  our  efforts  elsewhere.  Respecting  Sweden's  claims  to  Norway  our  first 
wish  is  to  see  Denmark  leave  France  and  join  us  on  the  plan  proposed  on 
April  14.  But  if  Denmark  adheres  to  France  then  we  will  aid  Sweden 
against  Danish  territory  and  will  dispose  of  the  conquests  as  may  be 
reasonable,  especially  respecting  Norway.  The  Norwegian  deputation  now 
expected  in  England  may  furnish  an  opportunity  of  pointing  out  the 
advantages  of  a  union  with  Sweden  than  (sic)  by  a  Swedish  conquest. 

[Secret.]  May  8. 

His  despatches  (Nos.  I3-I6)1  just  received.  The  Treaty  signed  at  St 
Petersburg  has  been  delivered  by  M.  Rehausen.  Yet  these  facts  do  not 
influence  greatly  the  considerations  stated  yesterday;  for  Russia  has  not 
yet  shown  any  disposition  to  treat  for  peace  with  Great  Britain.  But  the 
Tsar's  firmness  and  his  treaty  with  Sweden  are  hailed  with  satisfaction. 

1  Thornton's  first  despatches  from  Carlslund.  For  the  Russo-Swedish  treaties 
of  April  5,  8,  1812,  see  Koch  and  Scholl,  m.  234. 


APPENDIX  G  593 

We  will  at  the  proper  moment  be  cordially  disposed  to  unite  with  the 
Powers  of  the  North  for  the  general  safety. 

May  22. 

Has  received  Nos.  17-24  from  Thornton  and  commends  his  industry 
and  zeal ;  also  his  offer  to  General  van  Suchtelen1  to  acquire  and  produce 
full  powers  from  both  States  for  a  Peace  between  Great  Britain  and  Russia. 
These  are  sent  to  Thornton  consonant  with  the  Projet  he  has  forwarded 
home,  which  was  agreed  on  with  the  General. 

A  British  ambassador  will  be  sent  to  St  Petersburg.  If  the  General 
signs  such  a  treaty  of  peace  with  us,  will  not  Sweden  do  the  same  ?  Perhaps 
the  General  will  use  his  good  offices  to  this  effect. 

June  7. 

Regrets  that  Sweden  still  declines  to  sign  a  Peace  with  Great  Britain 
"without  clogging  that  pledge  of  returning  amity  with  ulterior  conditions 
which  would  change  the  character  of  the  measure."  But  Thornton's  letters 
of  May  20  and  21  open  up  the  prospect  of  Sweden  being  ready  to  join  us 
independently  of  her  connexions  with  Russia,  "  considering  herself  strong 
enough  with  the  assistance  of  Great  Britain  and  the  acquisition  of  Norway, 
to  resist  the  continental  Powers,  Russia  included." 

This  proposal,  if  persevered  in,  will  deserve  serious  consideration. 

Julys- 

"From  the  delays  which  are  still  interposed  both  by  Sweden  and 
Russia  I  much  fear  no  peace  between  Great  Britain  and  either  of  those 
Courts  will  be  signed  till  hostilities  shall  have  actually  commenced  between 
them  and  France.  Sweden  obviously  shapes  her  conduct  to  the  policy  of 
Russia  with  whom  she  has  recently  connected  herself;  the  latter  has  shewn 

so  much  indecision  as  to  make  the  result  as  yet  uncertain You  hint 

that  the  Prince  Royal  feels  some  apprehension  of  not  being  fully  supported 
by  Great  Britain  in  case  of  Russia  yielding  to  France."  Thornton  may 
assure  Sweden  that,  if  she  makes  peace  with  Great  Britain  and  adheres  to 
her  engagements,  she  may  securely  rely  upon  the  utmost  exertions  of  this 
country...."  You  will  explain  to  him  in  the  strongest  terms  the  irresistible 
force  of  an  appeal  to  British  feelings  when  Great  Britain  is  called  upon  to 
succour  an  Ally  for  adhering  firmly  to  her  cause  against  the  efforts  of  a 
powerful  and  vindictive  enemy,  of  which  her  conduct  to  Portugal  and 
Spain  are  such  conspicuous  examples.  You  may  further  acquaint  both  the 
Swedish  and  Russian  Ministers  that  Lord  Cathcart  hold  himself  in  readi- 
ness to  proceed  to  his  destination  so  soon  as  the  policy  of  the  Northern 
Courts  shall  be  decisively  disclosed." 

July  18. 

Has  received  his  notes  43-50.  Sweden's  request  for  a  subsidy  of 
£  i, 000,000  is  declined.  He  regrets  the  delays  to  sign  peace:  unless  she 
does  Thornton  must  return.  The  claims  of  Spain  are  pressing  and  must 
be  preferred  to  those  of  Sweden,  which  concern  measures  of  aggrandise- 
ment. Until  Sweden  brings  her  troops  into  contact  with  the  French,  she 

1  Russian  plenipotentiary,  recently  arrived  at  Stockholm, 
w.  &G.  38 


594     NEGOTIATIONS  WITH  SWEDEN  AND  RUSSIA 

cannot  claim  the  same  support  as  those  of  Spain.  But  if  she  will  sign  the 
peace,  we  will,  in  case  of  a  proper  military  concert  being  made,  offer  her 
stores  equal  in  value  to  £500,000.  He  approves  the  reported  move  of 
Sweden  against  Zealand  rather  than  Norway;  for  it  will  act  as  a  diversion 
for  Russia  and  commit  Sweden  to  continental  operations:  but  better  still 
would  be  a  Russo-Swedish  expedition  to  the  south  of  the  Baltic  in  the 
French  rear.  If  this  is  impossible,  then  attack  Zealand.  Admiral  Saumarez 
will  be  instructed  to  help. 

July  18. 

Cathcart  will  set  out  to  St  Petersburg  at  end  of  next  week  and  will 
touch  at  Sweden  [sic]  so  as  to  learn  the  situation  there.  Hopes  that  Russia 
will  by  then  have  made  peace  with  us. 

Aug.  4. 

On  July  31  received  the  treaties  of  peace  signed  by  Thornton  at  Orebro 
on  July  1 8  with  Russia  and  Sweden1. 

[Most  secret.]  Oct.  10. 

Great  Britain  wishes  to  give  Sweden  an  island  that  will  encourage  her 
and  induce  her  to  resist  the  anti-commercial  system  of  France.  Sweden's 
desire  for  St  Lucia  has  been  changed  to  Guadeloupe,  an  isle  of  much 
greater  wealth.  "Naval  considerations  alone  induce  a  reluctance  with 
respect  to  St  Lucia.  These  can  be  but  of  secondary  importance  to  Sweden, 
whilst  the  great  produce  of  Guadeloupe  may  be  expected  materially  to 
improve  the  Swedish  resources."  It  must  not  be  alienated  without  our 
consent,  nor  shall  it  be  used  by  enemy  privateers. 

Oct.  10. 

Regret  that  Sweden  will  not  make  a  treaty  with  Spain,  which  hinders 
formation  of  a  confederacy  against  France. 

Oct.  10. 

(As  Sweden  no  longer  claims  the  stipulated  services  of  18,000  Russian 
troops,  assembled  in  Finland,  who  are  now  gone  to  Riga  to  strengthen  the 
Russian  right)  we  will  sanction  the  grant  of  £500,000  to  her,  but  the 
additional  aid  offered  by  Cathcart  cannot  now  be  granted.  Sweden  wants 
us  to  acquiesce  in  her  attack  on  Norway.  We  acquiesce  reluctantly.  But 
first  an  application  must  be  made  to  Denmark  according  to  Art.  8  of  Treaty 
of  Wilna.  We  will  also  accede  to  the  Russo-Swedish  Treaty  (with  a  few 
reservations)  so  as  to  frame  a  confederacy  for  the  continent. 

Oct.  10. 

Thornton  will  press  that  the  Swedish  annexation  of  Norway  "will  be 
conducted  upon  principles  of  the  utmost  indulgence  and  liberality  to  the 
feelings,  interests,  and  privileges  of  those  whom  it  is  desired,  with  a  view  of 
securing  Sweden  against  the  common  enemy,  to  bring  under  allegiance  of 
H.S.M.  The  sentiments  recently  expressed  by  the  Prince  Royal  in  his 
letter  to  the  Prince  Regent  on  this  subject,  afforded  H.R.H.  the  utmost 
satisfaction.  You  will  represent  that  it  is  in  a  confident  reliance  upon  these 

1  See  Koch  and  Schoil.  in.  235. 


APPENDIX  G  595 

assurances,  and  under  an  expectation  that  the  conciliatory  system  of  Sweden 
will  be  announced  at  the  very  outset  of  operations  to  the  Norwegians, 
that  H.R.H.  has  been  induced  to  consent  to  be  a  party  to  this  attempt 
which  Sweden  has  urged  with  such  earnestness  as  essential  to  her  national 
security.  You  will  press  this  object  with  the  utmost  solicitude." 

(From  P.O.  Sweden,  72) 

C.  DESPATCHES  FROM  THORNTON  to  CASTLEREAGH  IN  1812. 

[Most  secret.]  Carlslund,  near  Orebro,  April  16. 

On  the  day  after  his  arrival  he  submitted  draft  of  his  treaty  to  the 
Swedish  plenipotentiaries  Baron  d'Engestrom  and  Baron  de  Wotterstedt  in 
two  distinct  conferences.  Engestrom  said  that  Russia  only  waited  to  see 
Sweden  conclude  peace  with  us,  to  conclude  likewise.  Thornton  replied 
that  he  believed  Russia  would  gladly  see  the  Anglo- Swedish  Peace.  The 
three  met  again  yesterday  when  Engestrom  showed  a  draft  of  the  Swedish 
Russian  treaty  of  April  8  from  which  Thornton  (notes  are  enclosed)  made 
notes.  Sweden  now  demands  of  us  double  the  subsidy  offered  by  us  in 
1808, — viz.  £1,200,000. 

[Separate.   Secret  and  confidential.]  Ibid.  May  3.   Received  May  17. 

After  describing  the  means  by  which  he  obtained  an  interview  with  the 
Prince  Royal,  he  continues:  "He  [the  Prince  Royal]  immediately  turned 

the  conversation  to  politics He  began  with  France.  He  said  that  they 

had  just  received  new  overtures  from  the  [French]  Emperor,  [verbal  over- 
tures] and  that  the  Swedish  Government  would  reply  to  them  verbally. 
They  had  always,  he  said,  observed  the  precaution  to  reply  to  such  pro- 
positions in  the  way  in  which  they  were  made;  that  it  was  a  common 
stratagem  of  Napoleon  to  throw  out  verbally  different  propositions  and 
to  reduce  the  Governments  to  whom  they  were  made  to  give  replies  in 
writing,  which  engaged  them,  while  he  in  fact  was  left  free  by  the  disavowal 
of  his  verbal  overtures.  France,  he  said,  was  now  willing  to  acquiesce  in 
the  perfect  neutrality  of  Sweden,  provided  she  would  engage  not  to  take 
part  in  the  approaching  war  with  Russia;  she  would  in  that  case  oblige 
Russia  to  restore  Finland  to  Sweden,  although  (said  the  Prince)  if  I  would 
agree,  to  behave  well,  sije  veux  me  bien  conduire,  Napoleon  would  do  much 
more.  He  would  transfer  the  Royal  Family  of  Sweden  to  St  Petersburg 
making  for  them  a  Kingdom  out  of  Finland,  Petersburg,  Esthonia,  Livonia 
and  Courland,  in  fact  the  two  entire  shores  of  the  Gulph  of  Finland,  and 
he  would  have  no  objection  to  extend  it  to  the  North  so  as  to  include 
Archangel.  And  then,  said  the  Prince,  I  should  be  the  vassal  of  France; 
and  he  is  the  man  soon  to  avenge  himself  of  the  affront  which  he  thinks 
he  has  sustained  from  me. 

"I  asked  the  Prince  what  was  the  intention,  then,  of  France  with 
regard  to  Sweden.  He  said  it  was  certainly  the  intention  of  Bonaparte  to 
put  an  end  to  it  as  a  monarchy;  that  his  system  was,  and  always  had  been, 
by  division,  by  exchanges  and  cessions,  to  obliterate  every  trace  of  the 
ancient  system  of  Europe,  and  particularly  of  the  independence  of  every 

38-2 


596     NEGOTIATIONS  WITH  SWEDEN  AND  RUSSIA 

State;  and,  as  Sweden  had  tried  to  assert  her  independence,  and  was  in 
fact  by  her  position  and  by  a  connection  with  England  more  capable  of 
maintaining  it  than  almost  any  other  Power  in  Europe,  he  was  determined 
that  this  example  should  not  be  given  by  Sweden.  He  [Napoleon]  intended 
to  make  a  Grand  Duchy,  perhaps  by  the  title  of  Sweden,  or  rather  by  that 
of  Gothland  (Grand  Duchd  de  la  Gothie),  the  seat  of  which  should  be  at 
Stockholm,  and  which  should  be  composed  of  five  or  six  provinces :  other 
provinces  might  compose  a  second  Grand  Duchy,  or,  being  annexed  to 
Norway,  might  form  an  establishment  for  the  House  of  Denmark,  whom 
it  was  unquestionably  the  intention  of  Bonaparte  to  dispossess  of  the 
German  Provinces  to  the  Skaw,  and  of  the  Islands  nearest  to  that  coast  of 
the  Baltic. 

"With  regard  to  the  projects  of  Bonaparte  for  the  present  campaign, 
the  Prince  said  that  he  had  unquestionably  good  information  from  his 
personal  friends  (of  whom  he  possessed  many  even  near  the  person  of 
Bonaparte)  that  Napoleon's  intention  and  his  expectation  were  to  force 
the  Emperor  Alexander  by  one  or  two  battles  to  a  new  peace  and  to  a 
cession  of  several  provinces,  among  others  for  the  purpose  of  re-establishing 
the  King  of  Poland  (which,  I  understood  the  Prince,  was  designed  for 
Jerome  Bonaparte)  and  for  making  up  that  kingdom  of  which  St  Petersburg 
was  to  be  the  capital.  The  seat  of  the  Russian  Government  was  to  be  again 
fixed  at  Moscow;  and  that  then,  carrying  100,000  Russians  along  with  him 
as  auxiliary  troops,  he  would  proceed  towards  Turkey  and  establish  the 
French  Empire  at  Constantinople.  The  Prince  Royal  observed  that  he 
might  not  push  his  projects  farther  than  this  point  for  a  year  or  two  after 
he  had  attained  it ;  but  that  he  had  assuredly  not  in  the  least  degree  aban- 
doned the  idea  of  possessing  Egypt  and  of  conquering  India." 

The  Prince  added  that  the  French  were  requisitioning  for  this  cam- 
paign vast  numbers  of  artisans  and  quantities  of  seeds  as  if  for  founding 
colonies  or  acquiring  new  countries.  He  then  referred  to  the  signs  of 
vacillation  at  St  Petersburg,  due  largely  to  the  timid  counsels  of  Romanzoff. 
Thornton  thereupon  stated  that  the  last  proposal  from  that  quarter  did 
not  seem  to  promise  an  amicable  arrangement  with  Great  Britain ;  and  he 
begged  the  Prince,  who  had  great  influence  with  the  Emperor,  to  correspond 
directly  with  him.  The  Prince  had  urged  him  to  make  peace  with  the 
Turks;  and  he  [the  Prince]  requested  me  to  inform  Your  Lordship  that 
the  Emperor  had  given  "instructions  to  make  peace  at  all  events  with  the 
Porte,  and  on  any  concession  of  his  pretensions,  provided  only  that  they 
would  enter  into  the  alliance  with  England,  Russia  and  Sweden." 

Respecting  the  British  proposal  to  Denmark  on  the  subject  of  Norway, 
the  Prince  said  that  it  "had  given  him  a  good  deal  of  pain;  for  that,  cir- 
cumstanced as  he  was  with  regard  to  this  country,  and  circumstanced  as 
the  country  was  with  relation  to  Norway,  it  was  impossible  for  him  to 
move  for  the  common  Cause,  or  to  induce  the  country  to  move  without  the 
preliminary  possession  of  that  Kingdom.  It  would  at  once  redeem  the 
debt  he  had  contracted  towards  Sweden  by  insisting  upon  the  eternal 
abandonment  of  Finland,  and  it  would  furnish  an  inducement  to  enter 


APPENDIX  G  597 

into  the  Continental  War,  not  less  than  a  security  against  surprise  on  that 
side,  while  they  were  so  engaged.  On  this  topic  the  Prince  entered  a  good 
deal  into  the  arguments  for  this  measure,  such  as  I  have  stated  them  to 
Your  Lordship  on  another  occasion."  The  Prince  then  said  that  his  dis- 
appointment at  the  British  refusal  of  necessary  succours  would  not  cause 
him  to  relax  his  efforts  for  the  common  cause.  With  respect  to  the  projected 
operations  against  the  Island  of  Zealand,  the  Prince  said  "that  if  H.M.'s 
Government  chose  to  keep  possession  of  it  with  a  garrison  at  Copenhagen, 
and  in  fact  to  become  the  Suzerain,  Sweden  would  not  have  the  smallest 
difficulty  in  acknowledging  and  consenting  to  it.  If,  however,  the  expense 
of  keeping  it  were  thought  too  great,  and  if  the  idea  were  adopted  of  razing 
the  fortifications  and  leaving  the  island  as  a  Place  ouverte,  it  was  of  no  great 
moment  who  possessed  it ;  he  did  not,  however,  see  any  necessity  for  putting 
it  into  the  hands  of  Russia.  In  this  I  ventured  most  decidedly  to  acquiesce 
in  opinion  with  the  Prince,  observing  that  I  saw  no  occasion  for  bringing 
Russia  in  any  manner  to  this  end  of  the  Baltic...." 

Ibid.  May  6. 

He  reports  the  arrival  of  a  Russian  despatch  brought  to  Stockholm 
by  Baron  de  Nicolai,  who  had  just  returned.  In  it  Romanzoff  (doubtless 
at  the  suggestion  of  the  Emperor),  urged  the  sending  of  the  Marquis 
Wellesley  as  ambassador  to  St  Petersburg,  for  which  the  Emperor  had 
stated  in  writing  his  great  desire. 

[Secret  and  confidential.]  Ibid.  May  15. 

M.  Signeul  had  come  from  Paris  with  verbal  offers  to  the  Swedish 
Government.  If  it  will  join  in  the  war  against  Russia  it  shall  receive  Finland 
(to  be  acquired  by  Swedish  troops),  recover  Swedish  Pomerania  together 
with  Stettin  and  the  district  as  far  as  Wolgast,  also  Mecklenburgh,  also 
6,000,000  livres  as  mise  en  campagne  and  1,000,000  livres  per  month  during 
the  war.  Also  the  Prince  Royal  shall  receive  back  his  appanage  (Ponte 
Corvo).  H.S.M.  repelled  these  offers  as  dishonourable;  and  the  Prince 
Royal  replied  that  whatever  he  had  done  he  had  done  for  France,  not  for 
Bonaparte;  and  it  was  out  of  Bonaparte's  power  to  offer  him  a  proper 
recompense;  that  from  the  moment  of  being  called  to  succeed  to  the 
Swedish  throne  he  relinquished  everything  which  depended  on  the  will 
of  a  foreign  Power. 

Ibid.  May  20. 

The  Prince  Royal  seemed  to  wish  to  conclude  peace  with  England  when 
Russia  did.  Thornton  asked  him  to  request  the  Russian  Government  to 
send  full  powers  for  that  purpose.  The  Prince  said  that  Russia,  having  been 
the  aggressor,  owed  it  to  England  to  make  a  simple  peace,  preliminary  to 
any  other  arrangement. 

Ibid.  May  30. 

Thornton  describes  the  alleged  negotiations  at  Paris  up  to  May  n 
between  Kurakin  and  Due  de  Bassano  before  the  former  left  Paris  on  May  9. 
He  thinks  they  do  not  impeach  the  good  faith  of  the  Emperor  Alexander ; 


598     NEGOTIATIONS  WITH  SWEDEN  AND  RUSSIA 

but  Romanzoff  had  culpably  suppressed  news  of  them  towards  Sweden, 
with  whom  Russia  had  just  framed  a  close  alliance,  and  towards  England 
"to  whom  the  Court  of  Russia  had  made  an  overture  of  alliance  six  days 
before  orders  were  despatched  to  M.  de  Kurakin  to  deliver  the  Note  which 
is  the  subject  of  this  despatch."  On  May  6,  Kurakin  presented  a  memorial 
so  as  to  elicit  a  precise  answer  from  the  French  Government  and  stated 
that  the  departure  of  M.  Lauriston  from  St  Petersburg  would  be  regarded 
as  a  declaration  of  war,  in  which  case  he  [Kurakin]  would  also  demand  his 
passports.  Nevertheless  Bonaparte  gave  no  answer  and  left  for  Dresden, 
leaving  Kurakin  in  uncertainty. 

[Separate.   Secret  and  confidential.]  Ibid.  May  31. 

The  Prince  Royal  confidentially  urged  him  to  warn  Admiral  Saumarez 
that  a  Swedish  squadron  of  eight  sail-of-line  and  five  frigates  would  leave 
Carlscrona  and  cruise  off  Riigen  and  Pomerania  and  begs  him  to  warn 
Saumarez  so  that  there  may  be  no  collision.  Thornton  views  this  act  as 
implying  great  confidence  in  Great  Britain,  with  whom  Sweden  is  still 
nominally  at  war. 

[Private  and  separate.]  Ibid.  June  6. 

In  pursuance  of  Castlereagh's  despatch  of  May  22  he  requested  a  private 
interview  with  Prince  Royal,  who  was  very  pleased  with  it.  But  he  dis- 
trusted the  Russian  Minister  exceedingly,  especially  RomanzofFs  recent 
offer  to  France  to  continue  all  the  measures  of  the  Continental  System 
(which  were  annulled  by  the  recent  Russo-Swedish  alliance).  Prince  Royal 
thought  that  Bonaparte  would  attack  the  Russian  centre,  occupy  Vilna, 
and  then  fall  on  the  Russian  coast.  He  hopes  to  begin  the  war  in  July. 

[Secret.]  Ibid.  June  24. 

A  Russian  messenger  had  just  arrived  with  dispatches  for  General  van 
Suchtelen,  with  full  powers  to  conclude  peace  with  England.  But  instead 
of  signing  a  peace  pur  et  simple,  as  agreed,  Romanzoff  now  sent  a  treaty 
burdened  with  conditions,  e.g.  that  Great  Britain  assume  the  Dutch  debt, 
and  shall  have  previously  signed  a  treaty  with  Sweden  both  of  peace  and 
for  subsidies  (a  condition  which  Sweden  had  waived!).  Thornton  was 
indignant  and  said  such  a  treaty  would  never  be  agreed  to:  thus  a  fresh 
delay,  of  three  weeks,  is  incurred,  which  is  according  to  RomanzofFs 
desire  to  postpone  action. 

Ibid.  June  24. 

Engestrom  assured  Thornton  that  he  had  never  urged  the  Russian 
Government  to  annex  those  conditions  to  a  peace  with  England  and 
Sweden.  Thornton  begged  an  interview  with  the  Prince  Royal  and  had 
to-day  seen  him  \for  affairs  now  depend  on  him.  He  pressed  him  to  urge  the 
Russian  Government  to  give  up  those  conditions :  and  the  Prince  proved 
by  letters  that  he  had  done  all  he  could  in  that  direction.  The  Emperor  of 
Russia  had  said  he  expected  war  with  France  almost  at  once  for  the  French 
were  on  his  frontier.  The  Prince  Royal  then  urged  the  extreme  importance 
of  receiving  some  help  from  England,  e.g.  £1,000  ooo  for  one  year,  paid 


APPENDIX  G  599 

monthly.  Thornton  said  this  would  never  be  entertained  as  part  of  the 
Treaty  of  Peace  with  England,  but  might  possibly  be  afterwards.  The 
Prince  assented  to  this  form.  Sweden  could  not  go  on  arming  if  a  Treaty 
of  Peace  with  England  were  made,  without  further  stipulations  which 
would  satisfy  the  Diet  respecting  Norway. 

Ibid.  July  4. 

News  that  the  French  crossed  the  Niemen  and  so  began  the  war  without 
cause  alleged.  The  casus  foederis  now  arises  for  Sweden  and  Russia  and 
Suchtelen  is  ordered  to  place  himself  under  the  orders  of  the  Prince  Royal 
so  as  to  arrange  the  "  attack  on  Island  of  Zealand  and  the  consequent 
annexation  of  Norway  to  the  Swedish  Crown,  the  preliminary  measure 
to  the  active  co-operation  of  Sweden  on  the  Continent."  Thornton  asks 
for  guidance,  especially  as  to  the  action  of  the  British  fleet  in  Baltic.  The 
Archangel  squadron  will  probably  come  to  the  Baltic  and  should  be  treated 
by  Saumarez  with  the  utmost  forbearance. 

Ibid.  July  18. 

He  has  now  signed  the  two  treaties  of  peace  with  Sweden  and  Russia, 
and  will  at  once  inform  Saumarez.  The  Swedish  and  Russian  plenipo- 
tentiaries then  communicated  the  Russo- Swedish  Treaty  of  Alliance, 
offensive  and  defensive,  of  April  1812,  with  the  separate  and  secret  articles, 
and  (on  the  wish  of  the  Prince  Royal)  urged  Thornton  to  send  it  to  England 
to  invite  the  British  Government  to  accede  to  it.  He  agreed,  suggesting  a 
change  of  procedure.  One  of  the  articles  of  the  Russo- Swedish  Treaty  ran : 
In  case  of  war  taking  place,  H.M.  the  Emperor  of  all  the  Russias,  and  H.M. 
the  King  of  Sweden  will  invite  by  common  consent  the  King  of  the  United 
Kingdom  to  accede  as  a  par  tie  integrants  to  this  Treaty  of  Alliance,  offensive 
and  defensive,  and  to  guarantee  its  different  stipulations. 

Ibid.  July  30. 

Sweden  and  Russia  had  decided  that,  when  matters  were  duly  arranged, 
joint  invitations  should  be  sent  to  Denmark  for  her  accession  to  the 
Alliance,  in  which  case  she  should  acquire  an  indemnity. 

[For  further  despatches  of  Thornton  to  Castlereagh  see  Castlereagh  Mems., 
vol.  vin.  pp.  283  et  seq.] 


APPENDIX  H 

EXTRACTS  FROM  STRATFORD  CANNING'S 
DESPATCHES  FROM  CONSTANTINOPLE,  iSia1 

Feb.  21. 

". .  .As  soon  as  the  deliberations  of  the  Grand  Council  [at  Constan- 
tinople] were  closed  I  sent. .  .to  tell  the  Reis  Effendi  that  I  trusted  every 
effort  consistent  with  the  dignity,  and  every  concession  not  incompatible 

1  These  are  supplementary  to  those  printed  in  S.  Lane-Poole's  Life  of  Stratford 
Canning,  vol.  i.  ch.  4.  For  affairs  at  Constantinople  see  ante,  pp.  386-90. 


6oo          DESPATCHES  FROM  CONSTANTINOPLE 

with  the  safety,  of  the  Empire  would  be  made  for  the  restoration  of  peace 
at  the  present  crisis,  and  that  in  order  to  give  a  striking  proof  of  H.M.'s 
sincere  regard  for  the  Porte  I  was  ready  to  lend  every  assistance  in  my  power 
towards  the  accomplishment  of  so  desirable  an  object;  in  short  that  I 
would  write  to  Russia  in  compliance  with  the  wishes  of  the  Porte.  The  Reis 
Effendi  expressed  the  highest  satisfaction  at  this  and  requested  that  I 
would  do  so  without  loss  of  time." 

March  n. 

French  efforts  to  court  the  Turks.  Ill  effects  of  the  long  silence  of 
H.M.'s  Government  to  the  Porte. 

March  17. 

Full  powers  given  to  the  Grand  Vizier  to  make  peace  with  Russia  on 
the  best  terms  that  can  be  obtained.  Probably  due  to  fear  of  reconciliation 
between  France  and  Russia. 

April  12. 

Constant  but  fruitless  intrigues  of  French ;  but  at  last  a  conference  is 
arranged.  Their  disclosure  of  treaty  between  Austria  and  France  shows 
lengths  they  are  prepared  to  go.  Mission  from  Sweden  has  a  good  effect. 
He  has  used  the  disclosure  of  Austrian  plan  against  Turkey  with  effect. 

April  21. 

Communication  of  the  treaty  between  Austria  and  France,  with  offer 
of  help  against  Russia.  Fear  of  peace  not  being  made  before  the  war  in 
the  North  begins.  The  French  are  making  every  possible  exertion. 

April  25. 

Strictures  on  the  shameful  part  played  by  Austria.  The  Turks  fear 
that  peace  with  Russia  may  involve  them  in  war  with  France. 

May  5. 

General  Andreossi  on  the  way  as  ambassador  of  France  to  Porte.  His 
departure  concealed  even  from  the  Turkish  chargd  d'affaires  at  Paris. 

CANNING  to  ITALINSKY  [at  Bukharest]. 

June  5. 

About  Persia.  Importance  of  peace  between  Russia  and  Porte.  Two 
difficulties,  (i)  the  alliance  proposed  with  Russia,  (2)  the  demand  for 
certain  establishments  at  the  mouth  of  the  Phase,  with  communication  with 
the  Russian  army  in  Georgia.  Repugnance  of  Porte  to  the  first.  Trusts 
this  may  not  prove  a  reason  for  refusing  to  sign  the  treaty.  (3)  The  system 
of  the  Cabinet  of  Russia  since  four  years  has  sown  the  greatest  mistrust 
everywhere,  and  nowhere  more  than  here.  "Cette  mefiance  diminue  a 
mesure  qu'on  s'ecarte  de  la  connection  sinistre  qui  a  servi  de  base  au 
systeme  auquel  je  fais  allusion.  Pour  la  deraciner  entierement,  la  Russie 
doit  d'abord  prouver  par  sa  conduite  que  ce  systeme  a  deja  cesse  d'exister. 
Elle  a  fait  vers  cet  objet  un  pas  tres  considerable  par  la  modification 
genereuse  de  ses  premieres  pretensions.  Mais  pour  y  atteindre  tout  a 
fait  il  faut  porter  encore  plus  loin  la  generosite.. . .  Jamais  la  Porte  ne  se 


APPENDIX  H  601 

fiera  cordialement  a  la  loyaute  de  la  Russia  tant  que  celle-ci  insiste  sur 
une  condition  dont  le  but,  dans  son  opinion,  ne  peut  etre  que  de  faire  du 
mal  a  la  Perse." 

SAME  to  SAME. 

June  7. 
Thanks  for  receiving  Gordon1. 

ITALINSKY  to  CANNING. 

May  19,  N.S. 

On  his  arrival  and  state  of  the  negotiations.  Ready  to  correspond  with 
him.  Need  for  swift  action  to  counteract  the  seductions  of  France. 

GORDON  to  CANNING. 

[Bukharest],  June  12. 

Journey  to  Bukharest.  Arrived  9  May  and  was  conducted  to  Italinsky. 
Gave  him  the  two  letters.  "  His  first  observation  was  that  the  information 
with  respect  to  the  measures  of  the  Court  of  Vienna  was  very  important,  as 
he  believed  that  at  the  moment  the  Austrian  Cabinet  held  with  that  of 
Russia  a  quite  different  language.  This  information,  I  have  good  reason 
to  believe,  he  had  already  received  from  another  quarter,  to  which,  however, 
he  did  not  perhaps  attach  much  credit. 

"  He  remarked  that  he  believed  the  Emperor  of  Austria  to  be  personally 
averse  to  such  measures,  but  that  his  Minister2  was  very  much  a  French- 
man  I  endeavoured  to  impress  him  with  an  idea  that  the  Turks  were 

making  formidable  preparations,  but  he  cut  me  short  by  answering  that, 
let  them  make  what  preparations  they  would,  this  could  not  be  formidable 
to  the  Russians,  and  that  the  only  disadvantageous  circumstance  attending 
the  war  with  them  was  that  a  body  of  troops  was  kept  in  the  provinces 
which  might  undoubtedly  be  of  much  more  use  elsewhere.  Nothing  more 
took  place  at  the  time  except  that  he  expressed  his  gratitude  to  you  for 
the  information. 

"  On  the  same  day  I  had  audience  of  the  Commander-in-Chief,  General 
Kutusoif.  He  only  asked  one  question :  Whether  I  thought  the  Porte  was 
more  disposed  to  connect  itself  with  France  than  to  be  on  terms  of  friend- 
ship with  England  and  Russia.  I  replied  that  I  thought  the  true  interest 
of  the  Turks  was  to  preserve  a  strict  neutrality ;  but  I  did  not  think  they 

were  disposed  to  purchase  peace  by  any  considerable  concessions 

The  General  apologised  for  not  seeing  me  more  at  his  table,  but  the 
French  consul  was  very  suspicious  and  had  remonstrated  on  my  arrival. 
I  saw  Italinsky  almost  every  one  of  the  seven  days  of  my  stay.  At  first 
he  said  Russia  was  very  moderate  and  could  not  become  more  so.  Her 
present  demands  were  lower  by  one  half  than  those  she  had  at  first  insisted 
on,  and  the  Court  was  surprised  at  having  moderation  still  recommended 
to  it.  He  showed  me  a  letter  of  Count  Romanzoff  expressing  the  hope  for 

1  S.  Canning  despatched  to  Bukharest  a  Scottish  traveller,  Mr  Gordon,  to  warn 
the  Russian  plenipotentiary,  Italinsky,  of  a  proposal  for  a  joint  Austro- Franco - 
Turkish  attack  on  Russia  (S.  Lane-Poole,  i.  169). 

2  Metternich. 


602  DESPATCHES  FROM  CONSTANTINOPLE 

cordial  relations  with  the  Court  of  St  James,  and  approving  of  the  corres- 
pondence with  you,  charging  him  to  cultivate  and  continue  it.  At  first  he 
said  that  the  articles  most  obnoxious  to  the  Porte  had  been  dropped.  Later 
he  expressed  chagrin  at  the  negotiations  being  so  much  protracted,  but 
he  hoped  for  a  favourable  conclusion.  He  complained  of  the  obstruction 
of  the  Turks.  In  the  end  they  would  pay  very  dear  for  the  delay.  By  this 
I  understood  him  to  mean  they  would  become  the  victims  of  French 
success." 

On  the  eve  of  my  departure  he  communicated  to  me,  for  your  in- 
formation, the  state  of  the  negotiations.  In  Europe  the  line  of  the  Pruth 
as  boundary.  Difficulties  about  the  fort  of  Ismail,  but  this  rather  a  point 
of  honour;  not  essential.  Russians  abandon  all  claim  for  contribution  in 
money.  Russians  concede  all  conquests  in  Asia.  Commissioners  to  decide 
about  province  of  Imeritia.  Desire  for  connection  with  Georgia  from 
Black  Sea,  to  avoid  Caucasus.  He  said  it  would  be  impolitic  of  the  Turks 
to  drive  the  Servians  to  despair,  as  they  were  a  warlike  nation  and,  if  re- 
duced to  extremity,  would  certainly  throw  themselves  into  the  arms  of 
Austria.  Not  Russian  intrigues  but  Turkish  oppression  caused  revolts. 
The  Russians  could  not  make  concessions  about  Moldavia  and  Wallachia 
without  loss  of  honour.  The  Russian  Government  will  not  connect  the 
affairs  of  the  Turks  and  Persians  or  include  the  latter  in  this  treaty. 

"  Italinsky  concluded  by  pressing  me,  as  he  had  frequently  done  before, 
earnestly  to  entreat  you  to  accelerate  by  your  good  offices  the  successful 
issue  of  the  Congress ;  in  particular  to  mollify  the  Porte  on  the  disputed 
point  of  Ismail,  which  seemed  to  be  the  principal  difficulty;  and  it  was 
plain  from  his  conversation  that  he  considered  you  as  united  in  a  common 
cause.  He  at  the  same  time  gave  me  positive  assurances  that  the  Russians, 
so  far  from  having  the  design  to  destroy  the  Ottoman  Empire,  were  rather 
anxious  for  its  preservation,  being  well  assured  that  it  was  impossible  for 
them  to  have  more  quiet  or  less  formidable  neighbours.  He  commended 
Ghalib  Effendi,  but  said  the  Grand  Vizier  was  obstructing,  from  enmity 
to  Ghalib. 

"  He  appeared  anxious  to  impress  on  my  mind  that  the  principal  reason 
for  the  Russians  wishing  for  peace  was  that  they  might  be  enabled  to  turn 
the  services  of  their  army  in  the  Provinces  (consisting  of  at  least  22,000 
good  troops)  to  a  quarter  where  they  would  be  of  great  utility.  He  added 
that  the  Austrians  had  given  an  intimation  that,  were  the  peace  once  con- 
cluded, they  might  perhaps  be  enabled  to  preserve  their  neutrality.  Some 
conversation  also  about  Persia.  Italinsky  asked  me  if  I  thought  peace  with 
Persia  could  be  easily  brought  about.  I  said,  No.  War  had  advantages  for 
the  Persians  and  the  Russian's  demands  were  high.  He  answered  that  his 
Court  wished  sincerely  for  peace  in  that  quarter. 

"I  tried  to  elicit  information  about  the  relations  between  France  and 
Russia,  but  he  did  not  seem  desirous  of  explaining  himself  fully.  Russia 
would  not  consent  to  observe  Bonaparte's  Continental  System,  as  war  with 
England  was  not  only  ruinous  to  its  finances,  but  also,  when  carried  on  at 
the  command  of  France,  degrading  to  its  dignity." 


BIBLIOGRAPHIES 


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T  TNDER  this  head,  no  attempt  has  been  made  to  accompany  the  Intro- 
V-J  ductory  Sketch  of  British  Foreign  Policy  before  1783  with  a  consecutive 
list  of  historical  works  illustrating  its  course.  For  these,  including  both 
contemporary  and  secondary  authorities,  the  reader  is  referred  to  the 
bibliographies  of  Chapters  dealing  with  the  Foreign  Policy  of  England  or 
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Diplomatic  Relations  of  England  with  France  and  Germany.  Edited  by  C.  H.  Firth. 
Lists  of  Ambassadors  from  England  to  France,  and  from  France  to  England, 
1603-1688.  Compiled  by  C.  H.  Firth  and  S.  C.  Lomas.  Oxford,  1906.  List 
of  Diplomatic  Representatives  and  Agents,  England  and  North  Germany, 
1689-1727.  Contributed  by  J.  F.  Chance.  Oxford,  1907.  List  of  Diplomatic 
Representatives  and  Agents,  1689-1763.  Contributed  by  L.  G.Wickham  Legg. 
Oxford,  1909. 

Droysen,  J.  G.  Geschichte  der  preussischen  Politik.  5  parts  in  14  vols.  Part  V, 
Friedrich  der  Grosse.  Berlin,  1855-1886.  2nd  edn.  Vols.  i-iv.  Berlin,  1868-1872. 

Dupuis,  Charles.  Le  Principe  d'fiquilibre  et  le  Concert  European  de  la  Paix  de 
Westphalie  a  PActe  d'Algeciras.  Paris,  1909. 

Egerton,  Hugh  Edward.  A  Short  History  of  British  Colonial  Policy,  1569-1713.  1897. 

British  Foreign  Policy  in  Europe  to  the  end  of  the  i9th  century.     1917.    [Of 

this  outline  Chaps,  n  and  in  deal  with  the  period  1570-1789.] 

England,  History  of.  Vols.  iv-vi.  Edited  by  C.  W.  C.  Oman.   1905-1911. 
Vol.  iv.   England  under  the  Tudors.  By  A.  D.  Innes. 
Vol.  v.   England  under  the  Stuarts.  By  G.  M.  Trevelyan. 
Vol.  VI.   England  under  the  Hanoverians.   By  C.  Grant  Robertson. 
[Contain  useful  bibliographies.] 

Firth,  Charles  Harding.  The  Last  Years  of  the  Protectorate,  1656-1658.  2  vols.  1909. 

The  Study  of  British  Foreign  Policy.    Quarterly  Review,  October  1916. 

[England's  traditional  foreign  policy.] 

Gaedeke,  A.    Die  Politik  Oesterreichs  in  der  Spanischen  Erbfolgefrage.    2  vols. 

Leipzig,  1877. 
Gardiner,  Samuel  Rawson.    History  of  England  from  the  Accession  of  James  I 

to  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War.    10  vols.     1885-1900. 
History  of  the  Great  Civil  War.    4  vols.    1901. 

History  of  the  Commonwealth  and  Protectorate,  1649-1656.  New  edn.  4  vols. 

1903. 

Hanotaux,  Gabriel,  fitudes  historiques  sur  le  xvime  et  le  xvnme  siecle  en  France. 
1886. 

Histoire  du  Cardinal  de  Richelieu.   Vols.  I  and  n  (-1617).   Paris,  1893-1896. 

Heatley,  D.  P.    Diplomacy  and  the  Study  of  International  Relations.    Oxford, 

1919.    [Bibliographically  serviceable  as  to  particular  subjects :  The  Sovereignty 
of  the  Sea ;  the  Literature  of  Recent  British  Diplomacy.] 
Hill,  D.  J.   A  History  of  Diplomacy  in  the  International  Development  of  Europe. 

3  vols.    1905-1914. 

Vol.  i.  The  Struggle  for  Universal  Empire. 

Vol.  n.   The  Establishment  of  Territorial  Sovereignty. 

Vol.  HI.   The  Diplomacy  of  the  Age  of  Absolutism. 


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Hotblack,  K.    Chatham's  Colonial  Policy.    1917. 

Hunt,  W.   The  History  of  England  from  the  accession  of  George  III  to  the  close 

of  Pitt's  first  administration.   (The  Political  History  of  England,  vol.  X.)    1905. 
Immich,  M.  Geschichte  des  Europaischen  Staatensystems  von  1660-1789.  Munich, 

1905. 
Jones,  Guernsey.   The  Beginnings  of  the  Oldest  European  Alliance.  Washington, 

1919.    [England  and  Portugal.] 
Klopp,  Onno.  Der  Fall  des  Hauses  Stuart  und  die  Succession  des  Hauses  Hannover 

in  Gross-Britannien  u.  Irland.    14  vols.    Vienna,  1875-1888.    [1660-1714.] 
Lange,  C.  L.   Histoire  de  I'lnternationalisme.    Vol.  I.    Christiania,  1919.    [iv.  2: 

La  Paix  universelle  du  2  Oct.  1518.] 
Lavisse,  Ernest.    Histoire  de  France,  jusqu'a  la  Revolution.    9  vols.    [Each  in 

2  parts;  esp.  from  vol.  vn  onwards.]    Paris,  igoi-[igii]. 
Leadam,  I.  S.    The  History  of  England,  1702-1760.    (The  Political  History  of 

England,  vol.  ix.)    1909. 
Lecky,  W.  E.  H.    History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century.    8  vols.    1878- 

1890.    [Vols.  i-vi.] 

Legg,  L.  G.  Wickham.  Matthew  Prior:  A  Study  of  his  Public  Career  and  Corres- 
pondence.   Cambridge,  1922. 
Legrelle,  A.    La  Diplomatic  Fran9aise  et  la  Succession  d'Espagne.    2nd  edn. 

[1659-1725.]    6  vols.   Braine-le-Compte,  1895-1899. 

Lord,  W.  F.   England  and  France  in  the  Mediterranean,  1660-1830.    1901. 
Mahan,  A.  T.    Influence  of  Sea-Power  upon  History.   9th  edn.    [1890.] 
Malmesbury,  James  Harris,  first  Earl  of.   Diaries  and  Correspondence,  containing 

account  of  his  missions  to  Madrid,  Frederick  the  Great,  Catharine  II  and  the 

Hague,  etc.   Ed.  by  the  third  Earl.   4  vols.    1844. 
Marcks,  Erich.    Deutschland  und  England  in  den  grossen  Europaischen  Krisen 

seit  der  Reformation.    Stuttgart,  1900. 
Die  Einheitlichkeit  der  Englischen  Auslandspolitik  von  1500  bis  zur  Gegen- 

wart.    Stuttgart,  1910. 
Michael,  Wolfgang.    Englische  Geschichte  im  achtzehnten  Jahrhundert.    Vols.  I 

and  n,  Part  I  [to  1720].    Hamburg  u.  Leipzig,  1896-1920.    [The  retrospective 

are  not  the  least  valuable  portions  of  this  important  work.] 
Pollard,  A.  F.    History  of  England,  1547-1603.    (Political  History  of  England, 

vol.  vi.)     1910. 
Preuss,  G.  T.   Wilhelm  von  England  und  das  Haus  Wittelsbach  im  Zeitalter  der 

Spanischen  Erbfolgefrage.    Vol.  I,  Part  I.    Breslau,  1904.    [General  survey  of 

relations  between  England  and  France  in  I7th  century.] 
Ranke,  L.  von.    History  of  England,  principally  in  the  Seventeenth  Century. 

[English  Translation.]    6  vols.   Oxford,  1875. 

Der  Ursprung  des  siebenjahrigen  Krieges.   Leipzig,  1871. 

Reynald,  H.    La  Succession  d'Espagne,  Louis  XIV  et  Guillaume  III.    2  vols. 

Paris,  1883. 
Rosebery,  Earl  of.    Chatham:  his  Early  Life  and  Connexions.    1910. 

Pitt.    (Twelve  English  Statesmen.)    1891. 

Rousset,  Camille  F.  M.    Histoire  de  Louvois  et  de  son  Administration.    4  vols. 

Paris,  1862-1863. 

Russell,  Earl.  The  Foreign  Policyof  England,  1570-1870.  An  historical  essay.  1871. 
Ruville,  A.  von.    William  Pitt,  Earl  of  Chatham.    Tr.  by  H.  J.  Chaytor  and 

M.  Morison,  with  Introd.  by  H.  E.  Egerton.   3  vols.    1907. 
Satow,  Sir  E.    A  Guide  to  Diplomatic  Practice.    2  vols.    1917. 
Seeley,  Sir  J.  R.   The  Expansion  of  England.    1883  and  later  editions. 
The  Growth  of  British  Policy.    2  vols.    Cambridge,  1895.    [From  Elizabeth 

to  William  III.] 
Sorel,  Albert.    L 'Europe  et  la  Revolution  fran9aise.  Vol.  I.    2nd  edn.  Paris,  1907. 

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Stanhope,  Earl  of.    History  of  England ;  comprising  the  reign  of  Anne  until  the 

Peace  of  Utrecht,  1701-1713.   4th  edn.    2  vols.    1872. 


6o6  BIBLIOGRAPHIES 

Stanhope,  Earl  of.  History  of  England  from  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  to  the  Peace  of 

Versailles,   1713-1783.   5th  edn.   7  vols.    1858. 

Temperley,  Gladys.   Henry  VII.   (Kings  and  Queens  of  England.)    1914. 
Teulet,  J.  B.  A.  T.   Relations  politiques  de  la  France  et  de  1'Espagne  avec  1'ficosse 

au  i6me  siecle.   New  edn.    5  vols.   Paris,  1862. 

Torrens,  M'Cullagh.   The  Industrial  History  of  Free  Nations,  considered  in  rela- 
tion to  their  domestic  institutions  and  external  policy.    2  vols.    1896.    [Esp. 

vol.  ii :  The  Dutch.] 

Waddington,  Richard.   Louis  XV  et  le  Renversement  des  Alliances.   Paris,  1896. 
La  Guerre  de  Sept  Ans.    Histoire  Diplomatique  et  Militaire.    5  vols.   Paris, 

n.  d.    [To  1762.] 
Waliszewski,  K.  Le  Roman  d'une  Impe'ratrice :  Catherine  II  de  Russie.   Chap,  in: 

Politique  Extdrieure.   Paris,  1893. 
Ward,  Sir  A.  W.  Great  Britain  and  Hanover.  Some  Aspects  of  the  Personal  Union. 

(Ford  Lectures.)   Oxford,  1899. 
Weber,  O.    Der  Friede  von  Utrecht.    Verhandlungen  zw.  England,  Frankreich, 

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Williams,  A.  F.  Basil.   The  Life  of  William  Pitt,  Earl  of  Chatham.   2  vols.    1913. 
Winstanley,  D.  A.   Lord  Chatham  and  the  Whig  Opposition.    Cambridge,  1912. 


II.  CHAPTERS  I— V 

IN  the  following  Bibliographies  a  general  reference  is  in  each  case 
made  to  the  Bibliographies  of  Chapters  dealing  with  Britain  in  the 
Cambridge  Modern  History ;  but  the  titles  of  the  works  mentioned  in 
these  are  not  repeated.  Titles  of  works  mentioned  in  Sections  A  or  B 
of  the  fallowing  Bibliographies  are  not  repeated  in  later  Sections.  Col- 
lections of  State  Papers  and  Manuscript  Sources  are  referred  to  in  the 
notes  to  the  text. 

CHAPTER  I 

PITT'S  FIRST  DECADE 

See  Bibliography  to  Chap,  x  of  vol.  vin  of  The  Cambridge  Modern  History  (1904). 

A.    GENERAL 
Diplomatic  Correspondence  of  the  United  States  of  America  from...  September  1783 

to  March  1789.  7  vols.  Washington,  1833-1834. 
Heigel,  K.  T.    Deutsche  Geschichte  vom  Tode  Friedrichs  des  Grossen.   Vol.  I. 

Stuttgart,  1899. 
Lecky,  W.  E.  H.    History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century.    Vols.  iv-vi. 

(2nd  edn.)   1887. 
Sagnac,  P.   La  Revolution  francaise,  1789-1792.    (Vol.  n  of  Lavisse,  E.,  Histoire 

de  France  contemporaine.)   Paris. 
Sorel,  A.    L'Europe  et  la  Revolution  Fran9aise.    Vol.  I.    (ist  edn.)    Paris,  1885. 

(Revised  edn.,  6  vols.  Paris,  1897.) 

B.  SPECIAL 
Bloch,  C.   Le  Traite"  de  Commerce  de  1786,  in  Etudes  sur  1'histoire  e"conomique 

de  la  France.  Paris,  1900. 
Burke  E.   Correspondence.  Ed.  by  Earl  Fitzwilliam  and  Sir  R.  Bourke.   4  vols. 

1084. 

Butenval.  Precis ...dutraitede commerce... signe\..le 26 septembre  1786.  Paris,  1869. 
Uapham,J.H.  The  causes  of  the  war  of  1792.  Cambridge,  1898. 


BIBLIOGRAPHIES  607 

Clausewitz.  Der  Feldzug  des  Herzogs  von  Braunschweig  von  1787.  In  Hinterlassene 
Werke.  Leipzig,  1837. 

Doniol,  H.  Politiques  d'autrefois.  Le  comte  de  Vergennes  et  P.  M.  Hennin. 
Paris,  1898. 

Franklin,  B.  Memoirs  of  the  life  and  writings  of  B.  F.  written  by  himself  and  con- 
tinued by  his  grandson  W.  F.  Franklin.  London,  1818. 

Geffroy,  G.   Gustave  III  et  la  Cour  de  France.  Paris,  1878. 

Pallain,  E.   La  mission  de  Talleyrand  a  Londres  en  1792.  Paris,  1889. 

Rose,  J.  Holland.  The  Franco-British  Commercial  Treaty  of  1786.  English  Histori- 
cal Review,  1908. 

The  Mission  of  William  Grenville  to  the  Hague  and  Versailles  in  1787.  Eng. 

Hist.  Review,  1909. 

Pitt  and  the  Triple  Alliance.   Edinburgh  Review,  1910. 

William  Pitt  and  National  Revival.   William  Pitt  and  the  Great  War.   1911. 

The  Comte  d'Artois  and  Pitt  in  December  1789.  Eng.  Hist.  Review,  1915. 

Salomon,  Felix.  William  Pitt  der  jiingere.  Erster  Band,  bis  zum  Ausgang  der 
Friedensperiode.  Leipzig  and  Berlin,  1906. 

Wolf,  A.  Leopold  II  und  Marie  Christine.  Ihr  Briefwechsel,  1781-1792.  Vienna, 
1867. 

CHAPTERS  II  AND  III 

THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE  AND 
THE  CONTEST  WITH  NAPOLEON 

See  Bibliographies  in  vols.  vni  and  ix  of  The  Cambridge  Modern  History  (1904 

and  1907). 
Adams,  E.  D.   The  Influence  of  Grenville  on  Pitt's  Foreign  Policy  (1787-1798). 

Washington,  1904. 

Aulard,  A.  fitudes  et  Le9ons  sur  la  Revolution  fran9aise.  7  vols.  Paris,  1893-1913. 
Ballot,  C.  Le  Coup  d'fitat  de  Fructidor:  Documents.  Paris,  1906. 

Les  Negotiations  de  Lille  (1797).  Paris,  1910. 

Basham  (Lord),  Letters  of.   3  vols.   London,  Navy  Records  Society,  1906-1910. 

Blease,  W.  L.   Suv6rof.   London,  1920. 

Brodrick,  G.  C.  Political  History  of  England.  Vol.  xi  (1801-1837).   London,  1906. 

Caudrillier.   La  Trahison  de  Pichegru.  Paris,  1908. 

Channing,  E.  The  American  Nation.  A  History  (ed.  by  A.  B.  Hart) ;  vol.  XH.  The 

Jeffersonian  System  (1801-1811).   New  York  and  London,  1906. 
Chuquet,  A.  La  Guerre  de  Russie.  Notes  et  Documents.  3  vols.   Paris,  1912. 
Colenbrander,  H.  T.  Ed.  Gedenkstukken  der  algemeene  Geschiednis  von  Nederland 

1795-1840.   The  Hague,  1905. 

Cunningham,  A.   British  Credit  in  the  last  Napoleonic  War.   Cambridge,  1910. 
Driault,  E.  La  Politique  exte'rieure  du  Premier  Consul  (1800-1803).  Paris,  1910. 

Austerlitz  (La  Fin  du  Saint- Empire),  1804-1806.  Paris,  1912. 

Tilsit  (La  Question  de  Pologne,  1806-1809).  Paris,  1917. 

Les  dernieres  Theses  d'Histoire  sur  la  Politique  exte'rieure  de  Napoleon. 

Paris,  1919. 
Dropmore  Papers,  The.    The  MSS.  of  J.  B.  Fortescue  of  Dropmore  (Hist.  MSS. 

Commiss.).  7  vols.   Vols.  II-VH  (1894-1910). 
Duboscq,  A.  Louis  Bonaparte  enHollande  d'apres  ses  Lettres,  1806-1810.    Paris, 

1911. 
Fortescue,  J.W.  A  History  of  the  British  Army.  Vols.  i-x.    1899-1920. 

British  Statesmen  of  the  Great  War  (1793-1814).   Oxford,  1911. 

Fortescue,  J.  B.  See  Dropmore  Papers. 

Guyot,  R.   Le  Directoire  et  la  Paix  de  1'Europe  (1795-1799).  Paris,  1911. 

Handelsman,  M.  Napoleon  et  la  Pologne  (1806-1807).  Paris,  1909. 

Hart,  A.  B.   See  Channing. 

Holland  (Lady),  Journal  of  (1791-1811);  ed.  by  Lord  Ilchester.   2  vols.    1909. 

The  Spanish  Journal  of;  ed.  by  Lord  Ilchester.   1910. 


608  BIBLIOGRAPHIES 

Hiiffer,  H.    Quellen  zur  Geschichte  des  Zeitalters  der  franzosischen  Revolution. 

Pt.  H.  Vol.  i.  Ed.  by  F.  Luckwaldt.    Innsbruck,  1907. 
Hunt,  W.  Political  History  of  England.  Vol.  x  (1760-1801).    1905. 
La  Forrest,  Comte  de,  Correspondance  de.  7  vols.  Paris,  1905-1913. 
Luckwaldt,  F.  See  Hiiffer. 

Mathiez,  A.   Etudes  Robespierristes.  Paris,  1917. 
Melvin,  F.  E.  Napoleon's  Navigation  System.   New  York,  1919. 
Oman,  C.  A  History  of  the  Peninsular  War.  5  vols.  Oxford.   1902-1914. 
Pariset,  G.  La  Revolution  fran9aise  (1792-1799  and  1799-1815).   (Vols.  n  and  in 

of  Lavisse,  E.,  Histoire  de  la  France  contemporaine.)   Paris,  1920  and  1921. 
Peez,  A.  and  Dehn,  P.   England's  Vorherrschaft,  aus  der  Zeit  der  Kontinental- 

sperre.   Leipzig,  1912. 
Piggott,  F.  and  Omond,  G.  W.  T.  Documentary  History  of  the  Armed  Neutralities 

of  1780  and  1800.  London,  1919. 
Robertson,  C.  Grant.   England  under  the  Hanoverians.    (Vol.  vi  of  History  of 

England,  ed.  by  C.  W.  C.  Oman.)    1911. 
Rose,  J.  Holland.  Life  of  William  Pitt.  Pts.  I  and  H.   1911. 

Pitt  and  Napoleon :  Essays  and  Letters.   1912. 

Nationality  as  a  Factor  in  Modern  History.   1916. 

Scott,  J.  B.?    The  Armed  Neutrality  of  1780  and  1810  (Carnegie  Series).    New 

York,  1918. 

Sichel,  W.  Life  of  Sheridan.  2  vols.   1909. 
Spencer  Papers,  The  (1794-1801).   (Private  Papers  of  the  second  Earl  Spencer.) 

2  vols.   Edited  by  J.  S.  Corbett.   Navy  Records  Society,  1913. 
Temperley,  H.  W.  V.  George  Canning.   1905. 
Trevelyan,  G.  M.  Life  of  Lord  Grey.   1920. 

Vogel,  W.  Die  Hansestadte  und  die  Kontinentalsperre.  Munich  and  Leipzig,  1913. 
Wellesley  Papers,  The.   (Papers  of  Marquis  Wellesley.)   2  vols.    1914. 
Windham  Papers,  The.  (Introd.  by  the  Earl  of  Rosebery.)    2  vols.    1913. 

CHAPTER  IV 

THE  PACIFICATIONS  OF  EUROPE,  1813-1815 
See  Bibliographies  in  vol.  ix  of  The  Cambridge  Modern  History  (1907). 

Antioche,  Comte  de.    Chateaubriand,  Ambassadeur  a  Londres.    (Correspondence 

of  Comte  de  la  Chastre,  1814-1815).  Paris,  1912. 
Colenbrander,  H.  T.   De  Belgische  Ontwentelung.  The  Hague.    1905. 
Confalonieri,  F.,  Carteggio  del.   Part  I.    [Conversations  with  Castlereagh  at  Paris, 

1814.]   Milan,  1910. 

Edgcumbe,  R.  Diary  of  Frances  Lady  Shelley,  1787-1817.    1912. 
Fisher,  H.  A.  L.  Bonapartism.  Oxford,  1908. 

Napoleon.   1913. 

Fournier,  A.  Die  Geheim-Polizei  auf  dem Wiener  Kongress .  Vienna  and  Leipzig,  1913. 
HaleVy,  E.  Histoire  du  Peuple  Anglais.  Vol.  i.  Paris,  1912. 
MacCunn,  F.  J.  The  Contemporary  English  view  of  Napoleon.    1914. 
Masson,  F.  Napoleon  a  St  HeUene.  Paris,  1912. 
Maycock.  The  invasion  of  France,  1814.   1814. 

Mikhailowitch,  Grand  Duke  Nicholas.   Correspondance  de  1'Empereur  Alexandre 
er  avec  sa  soeur,  la  Grande  Duchesse  Catharine.  Petrograd,  1912.   (Diary  of 

Princess  Lieven  in  1912.) 

Phillips,  W.  A.  The  Confederation  of  Europe.   2nd  edn.    1920. 
Rain,  P.  L'Europe  et  la  Restauration  des  Bourbons,  1814-1818.  Paris,  1908. 
Runciman,  Sir  Walter.  The  tragedy  of  St  Helena.    1911. 
Ward,  Sir  A.  The  Period  of  the  Congresses.  Vols.  I  and  H.    1919. 
Webster,  C.  K.  The  Congress  of  Vienna,  1814-1815.   1919. 
British  Diplomacy,  1813-1815.   1921. 


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Weigal,  Rachel.  Corresponden ce  of  Lord  Burghersh,  1808-1840.  1912. 
Weil,  M.  H.  Joachim  Murat,  Roi  de  Naples.  5  vols.  Paris,  1909-1910. 
Les  Dessous  du  Congres  de  Vienne.  2  vols.  Paris,  1917. 

Articles: 

Escoffier,  M.   La  Restauration,  1'Angleterre  et  les  Colonies.  Revue  d'histoire 

diplomatique.    1907. 
Omond,  G.  W.  T.  Our  War  Aims  in  1814 — and  to-day.  Nineteenth  Century 

and  After.  March,  1918. 
Webster,  C.  K.   Some  Aspects  of  Castlereagh's  Foreign  Policy.   Transactions 

of  the  Royal  Historical  Society,  in,  vi.    1912. 

—  England  and  the  Polish-Saxon  Problem  at  the  Congress  of  Vienna. 

Transactions  of  the  Royal  Historical  Society,  in,  vn.   1913. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  AMERICAN  WAR  AND  THE  PEACE  OF  GHENT 
See  Bibliographies  in  vol.  vn  of  The  Cambridge  Modern  History  (1907). 

Gallatin,  Count  (Ed.).    A  Great  Peace  Maker.    The  Diary  of  James  Gallatin. 

1914. 
Perris,  H.  S.   A  short  History  of  Anglo-American  Relations  and  of  the  Hundred 

Years'  Peace.    1914. 

Smith,  T.  C.  The  Wars  between  England  and  America.    1915. 
Updyke,  F.  A.  The  Diplomacy  of  the  War  of  1812.  Baltimore,  1915. 
Wood,  W.  (Ed.).   Select  British  Documents  of  the  Canadian  War  of  1812.  Vol.  I. 

(In  progress.)  Toronto,  1920. 

Article: 

Ford,  W.   The  British  Ghent  Commission.  Transactions  of  the  Massachusetts 
Historical  Society.   December  1914 — January  1915. 


W.&G.I.  39 


INDEX 


Abercrombie,  Sir  Ralph,  296,  299 
Aberdeen,  George  H.  Gordon,  Earl  of, 

329,  396,  408-38,  455-6,  462 
Acadia,  u,  50 
A'Court,  William  (Lord  Heytesbury), 

327,  380,  457,  459,  485,  490 
Acre,  298 
Act  of  Settlement,  44,  49 

—  of  Union  with  Scotland,  44 
Acton,  Lord  (cited),  9,  30 

Acton,  Sir  J.  F.  E.,  238,  288,  327,  349 

Adair,  Sir  Robert,  371,  386-7 

Adams,  John  (President,  U.S.A.),  138, 

—  John  Quincy  (President,  U.S.A.), 
530,  531  ff. 

—  William,  534 

Addington,  H.;  see  Sidmouth,  Lord 
Addington  Ministry,  the,  299-330 
Addison,  Joseph,  60 
Adriatic  Sea,  the,  273,  493 
Africa,  138 

Ainslie,  Sir  Robert,  174,  183,  222 
Aix,  Isle  of,  battle  of,  90 
Aix-la-Chapelle,  Conferences  at  (1748), 

—  Peace  of  (1668),  31 

—  Peace  of  (1748),  90-4,  96,  97  J  103; 
115,  250,  275,  309 

Aland  Isles,  72,  73 

Albania,  316,  329,  332 

Albany  (U.S.A.),  Congress  at  (1754),  128 

Albemarle,  Wm  Anne  Keppel,  Earl  of, 

Alberoni,  Giulio,  Cardinal,  67  ff.,  72,  80 

Alcudia,  Duke  of;  see  Godoy 

Alexander  I,  Tsar  of  Russia  (Grand- 
duke),  303-4,  3 1 1-2,  316,  319,  320, 
324,  328,  330-60  passim,  371,  377, 
385,  ch.  iv  passim,  534 

Alexandria,  285,  299,  305,  359 

Algeciras,  action  off,  304 

Aliens  Bill,  the  (1792),  232-3 

Ali  Pacha  of  Jannina,  388 

Alison,  A.,  Hist,  of  Europe,  cited,  542 

Alliances  and  Leagues: 

(i)  Armed  Neutrality  (1780),  135-6, 

238,  279,  292;  (1800),  300  ff. 
of  Augsburg  (1686),  36 
against  France  (1674),  33  ff. 
idem  First  Coalition  (1793),  245,  251, 
253,  264  ff.,  287,  289,  292-3,  302; 
summarised  348 ;  see  App.  A,  B,  C,  D 
idem  Second  Coalition  (1799),   287, 
289,  291-6,  299,  302,  348;  App.  E 


Alliances  and  Leagues: — cont. 

idem  Third  Coalition  (1805),  336-48, 

352;  (1806-7),  356,  359 
idem  Coalition  of  1812, 392-3, 458,479 
idem  the  Grand  (1702),  39,  43-4,  49 
of  Hanover  (1725),  80 
the  Holy  (1815),  492,  515 
of  Nymphenburg  (1741),  88 
the  Perpetual  (1654),  20 
the    Quadruple    (1718),    57,    69-72, 

78-9,  8 1  et  al. 

—  of  Chaumont  (1814),  444 
of  the  Rhine  (1658),  27 
the  Triple  (1668),  30  ff. 

—  (1717),  62,  68-9,  81 

—  (1787-91),     159,     177,     179  ff., 

190-3,  203-4,  208  ff.,  222,  290 

—  (1795),  269-71,  277 

(ii)  Anglo- Austrian  (1748),  90-9; 
(1809),  372;  (1813),  408-10;  see 
above  Coalition 

—  Burgundian,  4 

—  Dutch,  10 ;  (1788),  176;  see  above 
Perpetual,  Triple  Alliance 

—  French    (1656),    23  ff.;    (1725), 
80  ff. 

—  Neapolitan,  see  Naples 

—  Portuguese  (1654),   15,   16;  54; 
see  Portugal  (1814),  497 

—  Prussian;  see  Seven  Years'  War, 
100  ff.,  1 12,  1 19  ff. ;  (1788),  177-81 ; 
see  above  Coalition 

—  Russian  (1793),  238;  (i795),  252; 
(1804),  326,  332 

—  Spanish,  5,  7,  9,  n;  (1680),  37; 
(1715),  68;  (1814),  495;  see  Penin- 
sular War 

Austro-French  (1756),  98  ff.,  102  ff., 
109-13,  145,  159,  189 

—  Neapolitan  (1798),  287;  (1815), 
490 ;  see  Naples 

—  Russian  (174?),  90,  92;  (1756-7), 

IOI,    109,    122,    178;  (1798-9),   291, 
294 

Franco- American  (1778),  133 

—  Danish  (1807),  365 

—  Dutch  (1785),  143, 163-4;  (1795), 
256 

—  Prussian ;  see  Austrian  Succession 
War 

—  Scottish,  3 

—  Spanish  (1761),  n8ff.;  see  Family 
Compact 

—  Swedish  (1757),  109 
Prusso-Russian  (1762-4),  122 


INDEX 


611 


Alliances  and  Leagues: — cont. 

against  Austria,  102 

idem  Britain;  see  Armed  Neutrality, 
Family  Compact,  Franco- American, 
etc. 

idem  Prussia,  98  ff.,  126 

and  see  Partition  Treaties,   Subsidy 

Treaties 
"All  the  Talents,"  Ministry  of  (Fox- 

Grenville  Ministry),  348-59,  366,  379 
Alopeus,  Prussian  Ambassador,  344 
Alost,  244 
Alps,  the,  265,  273 
Alquier,  C.-J.-M.,  327 
Alsace,  509 
Altona,  361-2 

—  Agreement  of,  66 
Alvensleben,  Count  Philip  Charles  von, 

181 

Amboyna,  272,  378 

America,  Spanish  colonies  in,  43,  83; 
see  West  Indies 

—  see  Canada,  North  America,  United 
States,  etc. 

American  Loyalists,  the,  139 

—  War  with  Great  Britain  (1812-4), 
392,  522-41  passim ;  causes  of,  523  ff. 

—  War  of  Independence,  129,  131  ff. 
Amherst,  William    P.   Amherst,    Earl, 

3?o 
Amiens,  Peace  of  (1802),  268,  305-8, 

309-26,  351,  360 
Amsterdam,    43;    Treaty    (1780)    with 

U.S.A.,   136;   158-9,   172,   174,   175, 

i?7,  255,  322,  533 
Andre"ossi,  Count  A.-F.  de,  310,  314, 

319-20,  323,  390 
Anglo-American    Commercial    Treaty, 

proposal  of  (1784),  150-1 

—  Austrian  Treaty  (1795),  255,  App.  D 

—  Dutch  Treaty  (1788),  236,  239 

—  French  Commercial  Treaty  (1786), 
232,  234 

—  Portuguese  Convention  (1807),  365 

—  Prussian  Treaty  (1788),  177-81 

—  Russian  Commercial  Treaty  (1758), 
113;  (1766,  1793),  177,  238 

—  —  Convention  (1801),  304 

-  Treaty  (1798),  290-1 

—  Sardinian  Treaty  (1793),  238 
Angoul&ne,  Louis- Antoine  de  Bourbon, 

Due  de,  447,  513 
Anne,  Queen,  44 
Ansbach,  344,  348,  350 
Anson,  Admiral  George,  Viscount,  87 
Anstett,  Baron  Hans  P.,  468 
Antwerp,   161,  226  ff.,  236,   239,   372, 

430;  siege  of,  434;  452,  500,  519 
Aranjuez,  Treaty  of  (1793),  238 
Arbuthnot,  Charles,  358 
Arcis-sur-Aube,  battle  of,  446 
Arcola,  battle  of,  271 
Armada,  the  Spanish,  8 
Armfelt,  Baron  G.  M.  von,  203 


Artois,  Comte  de ;  see  Charles  X 

Ascham,  16 

Asia,  149 

Asiento,  the,  53,  86 

Assembly  of  Notables,  see  Notables 

Asturias,  368 

Atlantic  Ocean,  the,  5,  265 

Auckland,  William  Eden,  Lord,  164-70, 
175-6,  190,  198,  205  ff.,  220  ff., 
corresp.  with  Grenville,  App.  A 

Augereau,  P.  F.  C.,  Marshal  of  France, 
446 

Augsburg,  Peace  Congress  at  (1761), 
119-20 

Augustus  I,  King  of  Poland,  74 

Austerlitz,  battle  of,  346,  348 

Austria,  House  of  (from  1713),  56,  57, 
69,  77,  78,  84,  90,  95-127  passim, 
144-5, 159,  161  ff-,  171, 174,  178, 182, 
188,  191-215  passim,  221  ff.,  236-55 
passim,  260-97  passim,  310,  333, 


Marie  Christine  of,  Archduchess, 
Regent  of  the  Netherlands,  187 

—  and  Two  Sicilies,  Defensive  Treaty 
(1798),  287 

Austrian  Succession,  War  of  the,  87 

—  and  Russian  War  against  Turkey, 
181 

Austro- Neapolitan  Treaty  (1815),  490 

—  Russian  Treaty  (1795),  255 
Avignon,  67,  237,  512 
Azores,  the,  501  n. 

Baden,  Peace  of  (1714),  54,  6 1 
Bahamas  Is.,  138 

Balance  of  Power,  6 ;  41,  44,  46,  84,  143, 
211,250,275,309,337,464-5,511,519 
Bale,  434 

—  Conferences  at  (1814),  434-8 

—  Treaties  of  (1795),  254  ff.,  258 
Balearic  Isles,  the,  353,  355 

Baltic,  the,  15,  73  et  al.,  93,  in  ff.,  183, 
192,  203,  299,  300,  302-3,  360; 
British  trade  in  the,  374, 377,  384  et  al. 

—  Powers,  the,  63,  66,  69,  75,  81,  184, 
279,  300,  304;  see  sub  nom. 

Bar-sur-Aube,  441 

Barham,  Admiral  Sir  Charles  Middle- 
ton,  Lord,  359 

Baring,  Alexander  (ist  Baron  Ash- 
burton),  531,  533,  540 

—  Sir  Francis,  374-5 
Barnave,  Antoine-P.-J.-M.,  199 
Barras,  Paul  F.-J.-N.  de,  282 

Barrier  Towns,  the  Dutch-Belgic,  43, 
455  57,  Qi,  93;  revived,  239-40;  for 
Austria,  249-50,  275 ;  system  of,  410, 
424,  430,  434,  452,  509 

—  Treaties,    the    Dutch,    54-7;    ist 
(1709),  46 ;  2nd  (1713)  and  3rd  (1715), 
56,  62;  dropped,  160 

39—2 


6l2 


INDEX 


Bartenstein,  Treaty  of  (1807),  356 
Barthelemy,  Fran9ois,  Marquis  of,  167, 

254,  258,  263-4 

Bassewitz,  Adolphus  Frederick  von,  75 
Bastille,  fall  of  the,  191 
Batavian  Republic,  the,  310,  312  ff. 
Bath,  347 
Bathurst,  Henry,  3rd  Earl  Bathurst,  373, 

394,  446,  464 
Bautzen,  battle  of,  402-3 
Bavaria,    161,    188,    237,    262  n.,    264, 

267-8,  271,  282,  297,  337,  348  ff.,  372, 

414,  461,  466,  478,  493  n. 

—  Maximilian  Joseph,  Elector  of  (King 
Maximilian  I,  1805),  343,  350 

—  Joseph  Ferdinand,  electoral  prince 
of,  41-2 

Bayard,  American  senator,  531  ff. 

Baylen,  capitulation  of,  369 

B6arn,  241 

Beauchamp,  Lord,  238 

Beaufort,  Baron  de,  263 

Beauharnais,  Eugene  (Viceroy  of  Italy), 
423,  456,  493  n. 

Beckenham,  210 

Bedford,  John  Russell,  4th  Duke  of,  108, 
122,  124,  128 

Belcamp,  148 

Belgic  Provinces ;  see  Belgium 

Belgium  (and  see  Netherlands,  Austrian), 
96,  188-9,  J93>  X97>  202,  213,  226, 
234  ff.,  247  ff.,  262  n.,  263  ff.,  274, 
281,  284,  290,  309,  328,  341,  343,  424, 
503-4,  519 

—  Union  of,  with  Holland,  430,  460 
Belgrade,  381 

—  Peace  of  (1739),  86 
Bellegarde,  Comte  Henri  de,  455 
Belle- Isle  expedition,  119 
Benevento,  353 

Bennigsen,  Count  Levin  A.  T.  de,  361 
Bentinck,  Lord  William,  380,  394,  415, 

455  ff-,  485-90,  519 
Berbice,  272 
Beresina,  the,  390 
Bergen,  295 
Berlin,  148,  180,  204-5  et  al. 

—  Court  and  Ministry  of ,  1 60 , 1 7 1 , 1 78 , 
182,  185-6,  190,  193  ff.,  206  ff.,  237- 
94  passim,  311,  34<>,  347 

—  Decree,  the  (1806),  356-8,  526 

—  Swedo-RussianTreatyat(i72o),75; 
117 

Bernadotte,  J.  B.  J.  (Prince  Royal, 
Charles  XIV,  King  of  Sweden),  353, 
361,  382-90  passim,  407,  416,  419; 
and  Denmark,  422,  432;  428,  435, 
439,  442,  447, 449,  4545  and  Norway, 
App.  G  (cited),  593  ff. 

Berne,  261,  263,  265 

Bernis,  Fr.-J.  de  Pierre  de,  Cardinal, 
101,  113 

Bernstorff,  Andreas  Gottlieb  von,  61, 
66,  68-9,  74,  77 


Bernstorff,  Count  Andreas  Peter  von,  184 
Berry,  Charles,  Duke  of,  42,  47 
Besborodko,  Prince  Alexander,  286 
Bessarabia,  178-9,  192,  202,  209,  390, 

464 
Bestucheff,  Alexis,  Chancellor  of  Russia, 

101,  104 

Birmingham,  168 
Bischoffswerder,  J.  R.  von,  206,  208, 

209,  243 

Blacas,  P.-L.-J.-C.,  Due  de,  486-9 
Black  Sea,  the,  93,  149,  178,  223 
Blake,  Robert,  Admiral,  16,  18,  23,  25 
Blenheim,  battle  of,  45 
Bliicher,  Gebhard  Lebrecht,  Prince  von, 

439,441,445,  504-5 
Bohemia,  10,  182,  194 
Bois-le-Duc,  250 
Bolingbroke,  Henry  St  John,  Viscount, 

46-8,  82,  85,  89 
Bombay,  29 
Bonaparte,  Joseph  (King  of  Spain),  307, 

321  ff.,  349;  King  of  Naples,  352  ff.; 

King  of  Spain,  368,  370,  385 ;  449 

—  Lewis  (King  of  Holland),  353,  356, 

—  Napoleon ;  see  Napoleon  I 
Bonnier  d'Arco,  A.-E.-L.-A.,  279 
Bordeaux,  18,  447 
Bornholm,  382 

Boscawen,  Admiral  Edward,  95 

Bosphorus,  the,  286 

Bothmer,  Count  J.  C.  von,  61,  69 

Boulogne,  342 

Boulton  and  Watt,  firm  of,  169 

Bourbon- Cond^,  Louis-Henri,  Duke  of, 

79 

Bourbons,  Restoration  of  the,  43  3, 438  ff. ; 
in  exile,  502  ff. ;  Second  Restoration, 
504  ff. 

—  the,  of  Naples,   353-5,  397,  432, 

455,459,  484  ff.. 

Bourgeois,  M.  Emile  (cited),  10  n.t  13 
Brabant,  186-7,  191 
Braganza,  House  of,  71 
Bragge,  Charles,  464 
Brandenburg,    Frederick   William,    the 

Great  Elector  of,  14,  32,  34,  39 
Brazil,  n,  21,  26,  365 
Breda,  Conferences  at  (1746),  90 

—  Peace  of  (1667),  30 
Breisach,  14 
Breisgau,  282 
Bremen,  26 

—  and  Verden,  duchies  of,  61,  64-5, 
75,  104,  332 

Breslau,  Peace  of,  88 

Brest,  247,  272,  285,  302,  327,  334 

Bretigny,  Peace  of,  3 

Bridport,    Alexander   Hood,    Viscount, 

272 
Brissot  de  Warville,  Jean-Pierre,   199, 

217,  232,  234-5 
Bristol,  G.  W.  Hervey,  Earl  of,  121 


INDEX 


613 


British  Columbia,  197 
Brittany,  258 
Bruix,  Eustache,  293 
Brunswick,  House  of,  345,  410 

—  Prince  Ferdinand  of,  no,  112,  117, 
119,  123,  127;  Duke  C.  Wm  F.,  143, 
174,  177,  215-6,  224,  243,  251-2,  283 

—  Frederick  William,  Duke  of,  372 

—  Prussian  Treaty  with  (1757),  107 
Brunswick- Liineburg,  Dukes  of,  39 

—  Duchy  of,  64 
Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel,  Guelf  House 

of,  59 

—  Duke  Charles  of,  99 

Brussels,  187,  191,  202,  215,  225-6,  244, 

502 
Buckingham,  George  Villiers,  Duke  of, 

II,   12 

—  George  Villiers,  2nd  Duke  of,  31 
Bukharest,  Peace  of  (1812),  388-90 
Biilow,  Fr.  Wilhelm,  Count  von  Denne- 

witz,  442,  445 
Bunbury,  Sir  Henry,  387 
Burdett,  Sir  Francis,  314;  and  Reform, 

376 

Burges,  J.  B.,  210,  220 
Burghersh,  Lord,  459,  500 
Burgundy  and  England,  4 
Burke,  Edmund,    129,    130,    131,    158; 

Reflections  on  the  French  Revolution, 

2 1 1 ;  Letters  on  a  Regicide  Peace,  2 1 7-8 , 

229,  265-6,  275,  360 
Burrard,  Sir  Harry,  369,  370 
Bute,  John  Stuart,  3rd  Earl  of,  n8ff., 

123,  124,  127 

—  John  Stuart,  4th  Earl  and  ist  Mar- 
quis of,  257  ff. 

Buttafoco,  Corsican  leader,  241 
Byng,  Admiral  John,  103,  106 

Cabal,  the,  31 

Cabinet,  the  British  (1762),  124;  133; 

(1782),  137  et  al. 
Cadiz,  12,  259,  273,  302,  334 
Cadogan,  William  Cadogan,  Earl,  57 
Cadoudal,  Georges,  330 
Cairo,  299 
Calais,  319,  324 

Calonne,  Charles- Alexandre  de,  169  ff. 
Cambray,  Congress  of  (1722),  72,  79 
Cambridge,  Adolphus,  Duke  of,  328 
Camden,  Sir  John  J.  Pratt,  Earl  and 

Marquis  of,  331,  373,  429 
Campbell,  Sir  Neil,  500-2 
Camperdown,  battle  of,  280,  282 
Campo,  the  Marquis  del,  257 
Campochiaro,  Due  de,  484-9;  Memoire 

Historique  of,  484-5,  489 
Campo  Formic,  Treaty  of  (1797),  281, 

283,  297 
Canada,  94,  106,  107,  113,  114,  124-5, 

137,  153,  232,  527,  535  ff. 
Canning,  George,  270,  277,  307,  320, 

359-93  passim,  521 


Cape  Breton,  90,  112,  124 

Cape  of  Good  Hope,  the,  173;  taken, 

256;  268;  and  India,  275  ff.,  305-8. 

310,  313  ff.,  431 ;  344  et  al.,  519,  573 
Cape  Town,  310 

Capodistrias,  John,  Count,  468, 493 
CareHa,  77 

Cariati,  Prince,  484,  489 
Carleton,  Guy,  Lord  Dorchester,  157 
Carlisle,  Frederick  Howard,  Earl  of,  277 
Carlos,  Don;  see  Charles  III,  King  of 

Spain 

Carlowitz,  Peace  of  (1699),  59 
Carlsbad  Decrees,  the,  494 
Carmarthen,  Francis  Osborne,  Marquis 

of  (Duke  of  Leeds),  140,  144,  151-2 

154—208  passim,  331 
Carnatic,  the,  136 
Carnot,  L.-N.-M.,  264,  281,  434 
Caroline,  consort  of  George  II,  82,  83 

—  of  Brunswick,  consort  of  George  IV 
(Princess  of  Wales),  252,  460,  485 

Carteret,  John,  Lord;  see  Granville 

Carvajal  y  Lancaster,  Jose"  de,  93 

Carysfort,  Sir  John  J.  Proby,  Earl  of,  300 

Caserta,  288 

Caspian  Sea,  the,  149 

Castlereagh,  Robert  Stewart,  Viscount 

(2nd  Marquis  of  Londonderry),  320, 

359,   363,   369-85,   390-521   passim; 

policy  of  (1813),  397;  (1814),  429  ff.; 

at  Congress  of  Vienna,  463-516;  and 

treatment  of  France,  507-514,  520; 

criticism  of,  5i8ff.;  death  of,  521; 

528,  532,  537  ff. 

—  Lady,  463 

Catalonia,  46,  53,  257-8,  455 
Catharine  I,  Tsarina,  80 

—  II,  Tsarina,  113,  122,  126,  134-5, 
138,    144  ff.,   174,    177,   182  ff.,   190, 
192,  196,  203  ff.,  222-3,  229  ff.,  238, 
242,  245-55,  262,  266,  270  ff.,  301, 
319,  App.  D  566  ff. 

—  Grand-duchess  of  Russia,  Duchess 
of  Oldenburg,  460 

Cathcart,  William,  Earl,  360,  386,  396- 

421  passim,  434  ff.,  462,  531-2 
Catholic  Emancipation,  question  of,  359, 

373 

Cattaro,  387 

Caulaincourt,  A.  A.  L.  de,  420,  435~5O 
Cayenne,  378 
Cecil,  Sir  Robert  (Earl  of  Salisbury),  9, 

10 

—  Sir  Wm  (Lord  Burleigh),  8 
Cellamare,  Prince,  plot  of,  72 
Central  Powers,  the,  482 

Ceylon,  268,  272,  275,  279,  280,  305-6 

Champagne,  222,  224 

Champagny,  J.  B.  Nompere  de  (Due  de 

Cadore),  French    Foreign   Minister, 

355,  378 

Champlain,  Lake,  154 
Channel  Islands,  295,  366 


614 


INDEX 


Charles  I  (Prince  of  Wales),  1 1 ;  policy 
of,  12 

—  II,  double  policies  of,  30-7 

—  V,  Emperor,  King  of  Spain,  etc., 
6,  10 

—  VI,  Emperor  (the  Archduke),  41, 
42,  45  ff.;  Emperor,  47,  53,  62,  71, 
74,  79,  80,  83,  86 

—  X,  King  of  France,  "Monsieur" 
(Comte  d'Artois),  313,  447,  449,  5*3 

—  II,  King  of  Spain,  41-2 

—  Ill,  King  of  Spain  (Don  Carlos), 
King  of  Sicily,  71,  79  ff.,  88;  King  of 
Spain,  ii4ff.,  118,  121,  134,  198 

—  IV,  King  of  Spain,  258-9,  311 

—  X,  Gustavus,  King  of  Sweden,  24, 
25,  26,  27 

—  XI,  King  of  Sweden,  32 

—  XII,  King  of  Sweden,  63,  65-74 

—  XIII,  King  of  Sweden,  374,  382 

—  XIV,  King  of  Sweden ;  see  Berna- 
dotte 

—  Archduke  (Austrian  general) ,  293-4, 
296,  342,  372 

—  the  Bold,  Duke  of  Burgundy,  4 
Charlotte,  Princess,  daughter  of  George 

IV,  430  434,  452,  460 
Charter,  the  French,  516 
Chatham,  John  Pitt,  2nd  Earl  of,  253, 

278,  322,  359,  372-3 

—  William  Pitt,  Earl  of,  95,   100-6; 
ministry  of,  108-21;  and  Spain,  115, 
iiSff.;  124-5,  128-9,  132-4 

Chatillon,  Conference  at  (1814),  437-48 
Chaumont,  Treaty  of  (1814),  410, 444  ff., 

479,  491,  502,  514,  516,  519 
Chauvelin,  F.-B.,  Marquis  de,  213,  216, 

225,  229,  231-5 

Cherbourg,  expedition  to,  112;  170 
Chesapeake,  the,  367,  525  ff. 
Chesterfield,  Philip  Dormer  Stanhope, 

Earl  of,  85,  91 
Choiseul,    £tienne-Fran£ois,    Due    de, 

113,  116,  n8ff.,  123;  130,  131 
Chotusitz,  battle  of,  87 
Christian  IV,  King  of  Denmark,  12 
Christina,  Queen  of  Sweden,  22 
Chur,  294,  296 
Cintra,  Convention  of,  370 
Circles,  the  German,  254-5,  333 
Cisalpine   Republic,   the,    281,  310-1; 

and  see  Italian  Republic 
Clancarty,   Richard   Le   Poer  Trench, 

Earl  of,  394,  396,  462-3,  489,  492, 

500,  503 

Clarendon,  Edward  Hyde,  ist  Earl  of,  28 
Clarke,   Henri-J.-G.  (Due  de  Feltre), 

Clarkson,  Thomas,  398,  495-6 
Clausewitz,  Carl  von,  172 
Claviere,  fitienne,  217 
Clay  Henry,  533-4 

Clerfait,    Fran9ois-S.-C.-J.    de    Croix, 
Comte  de,  246,  249 


Clive,  Robert,  1 1 1 

Coalition  Ministry  (1783),  139 

—  the  Second,  War  of  the,  292  ff. 
Cobbett,  William,  The  Porcupine,  307; 

Cobenzl,  Count  Lewis,  290,  342 

—  Count  Philip,  195,  239,  281 
Coburg,  Prince  Frederick  Josias  of,  239, 

240,  246,  249,  558 
Cochin,  268 
Cochrane,  Admiral  Sir  Alexander,  334, 

372 

Collingwood,  Cuthbert,  Lord,  349 
Cologne,  2,  341 ;  Congress  at  (1673),  33 
Colombo,  272 
Colonial  conquests  of  Britain,  422,  427, 

430  ff. 

Colonies ;  see  sub  nom. 
Colpoys,  Sir  John,  272 
Committee  of  Public  Safety,  the,  256 
Commonwealth  of  England,  the,  foreign 

policy  of,  15  ff. 
Cond6,  Louis  II  de  Bourbon,  Prince  of, 

18 
Conferences,  method  of;  see  Congress 

system 
Congress,  a  European,  suggested,  119, 

255,  263,  341 
"  Congress       system,         Castlereagh  s 

scheme  of  a,  517-20 
Connecticut,  and  the  War  of  1812,  528 
Consalvi,  Ercole,  Cardinal,  485 
Constantinople,  146,  174,  183,  222,  313, 

—  Treaty  of  (1790),  191 
Continental  System,  the,  349, 350, 356-8, 

365-6,  374-82;  Russia  and,  377,  381 ; 
Sweden  and,  374,  381  ff.;  Holland 
and  Germany  and,  377;  378-9;  see 
Orders  in  Council,  United  States 

Convention  of  June  29th  (1814),  the,  461 

Cooke,  Edward,  463 

Copenhagen,  besieged,  27;  300;  at- 
tacked (1801),  3035361;  surrender  of 
(1807),  3635386 

Corfu,  299,  313,  321,  329,  332,  335,  349, 

353,  387 

Cornwallis,  Charles,  Marquis  (Earl), 
143-73  passim,  247,  278,  304,  307 

—  Admiral  Sir  William,  327,  334 
Corsica,  107;  130,  256  ff.,  270,  316,  553 
Corti,  256 

Corunna,  333 

Counter- reformation,  the,  8 

Courier,  the,  307 

Cracow,  453,  482 

Craggs,  James,  the  younger,  60,  78 

Craig,  Sir  James,  256,  338,  349 

Craonne,  battle  of,  446 

Crepy,  Peaceof  (1544),  7 

Crete,  321 

Crimea,  the,  207 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  policy  of,  18-27;  42 

Cronstadt,  182,  303,  386 


INDEX 


Cumberland,  George,  Duke  of,  no 
Cura?oa,  365 

Custine,  Comte  A.-P.  de,  215 
Cuxhaven,  300 

Czartoryski,  Adam  George,  Prince,  316, 
332-41,  442,  460,  468,  470 

Dalberg,  E.-J.,  Due  de,  448 
Dalmatia,  281,  348,  351 
Dalrymple,  Sir  H.  W.,  369,  370 

—  John,  Viscount  (Earl  of  Stair),  145, 
163 

Danby,     Thomas     Osborne,     Earl    of 

(Duke  of  Leeds),  34 
Danton,  Georges- Jacques,  217,  262 
Danube,    the,    192,    2.02,    272;    (1805) 

342-3,  349,  381 
Danzig,  179,  192,  204;  taken,  360;  386, 

403 

Dardanelles,  the,  358 
Darnley,    John    Bligh,    Lord    Clifton, 

Earl  of,  364 
Debry,  J.-A.,  285 
Decaen,  Comte,  316,  326 
Declaration  of  Independence  (American), 

131,  137,  138 

—  of  Indulgence,  38 

—  of  Neutrality  (1792),  213-4 
Delacroix,  Charles,  270,  272,  278 
Demerara,  259,  272 

Democrats,  the,  in  U.S.A.,  527-8,  540 

Dendermonde,  57 

Denmark,  12,  14;  Commercial  Treaty 
with  England  (1653),  22;  and  Grand 
Alliance,  43,  63-4,  73,  75,  86,  182  ff., 
191-2,  203,  206-7,  230,  268,  290-303 
passim,  332,  341,  343  ;  fleet  of,  361  ff.; 
and  Norway,  382-5 ;  454 

Derby,  224 

Desmoulins,  Camille,  186 

Dettingen,  battle  of,  88 

"  Devolution,  Right  of,"  28  ff. 

—  War  of,  30 

Devonshire,  Wm  Cavendish,  4th  Duke 

of,  1 06 

Diet,  the  Germanic,  96,  251,  255,  260 
Dietz,  H.  F.  von,  183 
Dijon,  448-9 
Directory,  the  French,  263-4,  268-96 

passim 

Dniester,  the,  204,  208-9 
Dobrudja,  the,  202 
Doris,  frigate,  327 
Dornberg,  Baron  W.  C.  von,  372 
Dorset,  John  F.  Sackville,  Duke  of,  169, 

i?5 

Dover,  Secret  Treaty  of  (1670),  31 
Downs,  the,  226,  228 
Drake,  Sir  Francis,  8 

—  Francis,  diplomatist,  207,  242,  330 
Dresden,  405-6 

—  Peace  of  (1745),  89 
Droysen,  J.  G.,  cited,  83 
Drummond,  Sir  William,  379 


Dubois,  Abbe  (Cardinal),  67,  69,  75 

Duckworth,  Vice- Admiral  Sir  James,  358 

Dumont,  P.-E.-L.,  213 

Dumouriez,  C.-F.,  202,  214-5,  217, 
225,  227-8,  233, 239 

Dunbar,  battle  of,  15 

Duncan,  Adam  (Viscount  Camper- 
down),  280,  282,  295 

Dundas,  Henry  (Viscount  Melville), 
220,  254,  278,  295,  298,  303,  331,  334, 
347,  412 

Dunes,  battle  of  the,  26 

Dunkirk,  18,  22,  25,  26 ;  sold,  28 ;  49-50 ; 
138 

Duquesne,  Fort,  112 

Duroc,  Michel  (Due  de  Friuli),  328 

Dury,  John,  22 

Dutch,  the,  n,  24-7,  73,  in;  and  the 
French  War,  ch.  n  passim,  315,  319 

—  War,  the  (1652),  17  ff.;  (1664),  29; 
see  Netherlands,  the  United 

East  Frisia,  345,  482 

—  India  Company  of  London,  the,  10, 
in,  298 

—  —    —  (the  Dutch),  n,  162,  165, 

255 

—  —    —  (the  French),  165 

—  Indies,  the,  n,  90,  138,  232,  243, 
273,  275,  280,  306,  313,  431,  440,  573 

—  —  the  French,  316,  440 

—  Prussia,  178 

Eastern  Question,  the,  178,  318,  326, 
332 

—  Venetia,  281 

Eden,  Sir  Morton  (Lord  Henley),  178, 
222,  236-7,  241,  255,  263-4,  269,  271, 
273-4,  277,  288  ff.,  foreign  corresp.  of, 
App.  A,  B,  D,  E 

—  William ;  see  Auckland 

Eden's  Commercial  Treaty  (1786),  164- 

70 
Edward  I,  2,  3 

—  Ill,  alliances  of,  3,  4;  226 

—  IV,  4 

Egremont,  Charles  Wyndham,  Earl  of, 

121,  124,  127 
Egypt,  149;  Napoleon's  expedition  to, 

282,  285-6,  296-329  passim 
El  Arisch*  Convention  of,  298 
Elba,  259,  297,  306,  311,  320,  387; 

Napoleon  at,  449,  488,  500-1 
Elbe,  mouth  of  the,  14,  64,  300,  303, 

Eldon'  John  Scott,  Earl  of,  359,  373, 

394,  446 

Elective  Capitulation,  the  (1658),  27 
Elgin,    Thomas    Bruce,    Earl   of,    206, 

208-9,  274,  283,  313 
Elizabeth,  Queen,  8 

—  Tsarina,   88,    101,    103,   112,    113, 
116,  122 

Elliot,  Sir  Gilbert  (Earl  of  Minto),  257, 
284,  293,  296 


6i6 


INDEX 


Elliot,  Hugh,  183-4,  201,  206,  349 
Elphinstone,    George   Keith   (Viscount 

Keith),  256 

Emigres,  the,  210, 212, 216,  242,  266, 313 
Empire,     the     Germanic,     the     Holy 
Roman,   13,  28;  attacked  by  Lewis 
XIV,  36;  43,  48,  93,  267,  292;  dis- 
solution of,  282,  285,  569-70 
Ems,  mouth  of  the,  303,  350,  482 
Enghien,    Louis-A.-H.    de    Bourbon- 

Conde",  Due  de,  331-2 
England  and  Peace  of  Westphalia,  13  ff. 
Erfurt,  negotiations  at  (1808),  370,  386; 

482 
Erskine,  David  M.,  2nd  Lord,  367,  524 

—  Thomas,    Lord,    A    View    of   the 
Causes  and  Consequences  of  the  present 
War  with  France,  273  ;  364 

Essex,  Rob.  Devereux,  Earl  of,  9 

Esthonia,  66,  77 

Etruria,  kingdom  of,  320,  365 

—  Charles  Lewis,  King  of  (Duke  of 
Parma),  365 

Eugene    Fran?ois,    Prince    of    Savoy- 

Carignan,  46,  53,  55,  62 
Ewart,  Joseph,  161-2,  177  ff.,  190-208 
Exclusion  Bill,  the,  37 
Eylau,  battle  of,  356 

Pagan,  Emigre,  375 

Falkland  Isles,  130 

' '  Family  Compact, ' '  the  Bourbon  (1733), 
84 ff.;  renewed  (1743),  89,  115;  the 
3rd  (1761),  120,  121,  134,  145,  198  ff., 
454 

Federalists,  the,  in  U.S.A.,  527,  540 

Ferdinand  II,  Emperor,  10 

—  VI,  King  of  Spain,  93,  114 

—  VII,  King  of  Spain,  170,  77«>.  454 
-  I  (IV),  King  of  the  Two3Siciliet, 
238,  287-9,  322,  327,  349,  353,  379, 
380,  408-9,  456,  459,  485-93 

—  of  Brunswick ;  see  Brunswick 
Finisterre,  battle  of,  90 
Finkenstein,  Count  Fink  von,  160,  178 
Finland,  77,  182,  185,  381,  464 

First  of  June,  battle  of  (1794),  247 
Fitzherbert,  Alleyne  (Lord  St  Helens), 

138,  199  ff.,  222,  242 
Flanders,  2,  4;  see  Netherlands,  245, 

248,  254,  282,  510 

—  (Province  of),  187,  191 
Fleurus,  battle  of,  247 

Fleury,  Andr£  Hercule,  Cardinal,  80, 

83 
Florence,  193,  500 

—  Treaty  of  (1801),  297,  332 
Florida,  125,  138,  527,  535 

—  Blanca,  don  J.  M.,  Count  of,  134, 
198,  200 

Flushing,  233,  256,  372 
Fontainebleau,  Peace  Preliminaries  at, 
123-4 

—  Treaties  of  (1785),  163 


Fontainebleau,  Treaties  of  (1807),  365; 
(1814),  449, 485, 487,  492-3,  500,  501 , 

503-4 

—  Decree,  the,  377 
Forster,  Georg,  206 
Foster,  A.  J.,  524,  526 

Fouche",  Joseph  (Due  d'Otrante),  330, 
333>  375.  5°2,  504;  arranges  con- 
vention (1815),  506-7,  513 

Four  Great  Powers,  the  (1814),  444; 
Ministers  of,  at  Vienna,  462  ff.;  493, 
502,  514 

Fox,  Charles  James,  137,  139-40,  150, 
160,  192,  228-9,  260,  272, 314, 320-50 
passim;  negotiates  with  Napoleon, 
351-5;  death,  355;  359 

—  Henry,  95,  100,  106 

France,  and  England,  2  ff.,  5  ff.,  9  ff. ; 
and  Thirty  Years'  War,  13  ff.;  and 
Cromwell,  18  ff.;  Treaty  of  1655, 
23 ;  28-58  passim ;  succession  in,  67 ; 
see  Lewis  XIV  and  Seven  Years'  War, 
97-127;  130;  and  U.S.A.,  131-8; 
chs.  i  and  u  passim;  and  Peace  of 
Amiens,  305-25 ;  see  Napoleon ;  after 
Waterloo,  507  ff. ;  occupation  of,  509 ff. 
Franche-Comte",  34,  36,  291-2,  294 
Francis  II,  Emperor  (Francis  I,  Em- 
peror of  Austria),  211,  ch.  n  passim, 
3ii,  33i,  340-1,  403,  442,  448,  481 

—  I,  King  of  France,  6 

Franco- Germanic  Treaties  (1796),  269 

—  Neapolitan  Treaty  (1796),  269 

—  Portuguese  Treaty  (1797),  278 

—  Prussian  Secret  Treaty  (1796),  274 

—  Russian  Commercial  Treaty  (1787), 

—  Sardinian  Treaty  (1796),  268,  290 

—  Spanish  Convention  (1803),  333 
Franconia,  255 

Frankfort  on  the  Main,  215, 224, 244, 416 


"  Frankfort  Proposals, 

435,437 
i,  Be 


the,  416  ff.,  429, 


Franklin,  Benjamin,  137,  138,  150,  153 
Frederick  IV,  King  of  Denmark,  65 , 66,75 

—  VI,    King    of    Denmark    (Prince 
Royal),  184 

—  I,  King  of  Prussia,  39 

—  II,    King  of  Prussia,   92,   98-127 
passim;   132,   135,   143  ff.,   160,   162, 
170,  243-4 

—  I,  King  of  Sweden,  73 

—  Augustus  I,  King  of  Saxony,  470, 
473,  478 

—  —  Elector  of  Saxony;  see  Augus- 
tus I,  King  of  Poland 

—  William  I,  King  of  Prussia,  87 

—  —  II,     King    of    Prussia,     162, 
170  ff.,    191  ff.,    197,    204  ff.,    222-3, 
237  ff.,  244-66  passim,  283 

—  —  III,  King  of  Prussia,  283-95 
passim,  311,  328,  333,  343~5O  passim, 
37i,  453,  459,  469,  47i,  480;   and 
Poland,  545-6 


INDEX 


617 


Frederikshald,  74 

French  Empire,  proclamation  of  the,  331 

—  Republic,   the,    221,    223,    228-88 
passim 

—  Revolution,  the,  220,  235,  253,  267, 
280,  302,  465 

Frere,  John  Hookham,  334,  369 
Friedland,  battle  of,  356,  360 
Front,  Comte  de,  238 
Fructidor,  coup  d'etat  of,  279-81 
Fulda,  the,  267 

Gabbard,  naval  battle  of  the,  20 
Gagern,  Hans  C.  E.,  Baron  von,  512 
Galicia,  179,  186,  188,  191  ff.,  204 
Gallatin,  Albert,  531-41 
Gallo,  Marzio  M.,  Marchese  di,  288 
Gambier,  James,  Lord,  Admiral,  362-3, 

Gardiner,  Colonel  Wm,  214,  222 

Garlike,  British  Envoy,  361-2 

Geneva,  341 

Genoa,  French  annexation  of,  293,  296, 
340,  342,  351 ;  offered  to  Savoy,  432, 
453,  464,  473,  483,  485  et  al. 

Gentz,  Friedrich  von,  491 

George  I  (Geo.  Lewis,  Elector  ol 
Hanover),  58-78  passim 

—  II,  81,  84,  87,  88,  95,  100,  io6ff., 
114,  118,  250 

—  Ill,  118,  125,  133,  137,  138,  139, 
140,  chs.  I  and  n,  311,  314,  322,  324, 
328  ff.,  345-6,  350-2,  3?6 

—  IV  (Prince  of  Wales),  192,  252,  314, 
330;  (Regent),  377,  394~5,  4°o,  439, 
446,  453,  459,  460,  504,  507,  514-5 

German  Confederation,  the,  482,  493 

—  Ecclesiastical  States,  secularisation 

of,  3°7>  311 

—  League  of  Princes  against  Austria 
(1785),  161-2 

Germany,  100  et  al. ;  French  invasion  of, 
215,  269,  273,  240  ff.;  rearrangements 
in,  274,  282,  335,  465  ff.;  see  Empire, 
North  Germany 

Gertruydenberg,  Conferences  of  (1710), 
46 

Ghent,  Treaty  of  (1814),  480,  522,  530- 
42 

—  Louis  XVIII  at,  502 
Gibraltar,  45,  52  and  note,  79-83  et  a/.; 

Spain  and,  134,  279;  battle  in  Gut  of, 

3°4 

Girondins,  the,  234-5 
Gitschin,  403,  404  n. 
Glatz,  124 
Gloucester,  William  Henry,  Duke  of, 

364 

Gneisenau,  Augustus  N.,  Count,  371 
Godolphin,  Sidney  Godolphin,  Earl  of, 

45,  46 

Godoy,  Manuel  de,  Duke  of  Alcudia 
and  Prince  of  the  Peace,  223,  257  ff., 
3H,  364 


Gondomar,  Diego  Sarmiento  d'Acufta, 
Count  of,  Spanish  Ambassador,  9 

Good  Hope,  Cape  of;  see  Cape  of  Good 
Hope 

Goree,  125 

Gortz,  George  Henrik,  Baron,  66-7,  72 

—  Johann  Eustach,  171 
Gothenburg,  182,  184,  533 
Goulburn,  Henry,  534-40 

Gower,  G.  Leveson  Gower,  Earl  (Mar- 
quis) of  Stafford,  136 

—  John  Leveson-Gower,Earl, 212, 216 
Crafton,  A.  H.  Fitzroy,  Duke  of,  129 
Graham,   Thomas   (Baron   Lynedoch), 

273,  424 

Grantham,  Lord ;  see  Robinson,  T. 
Granville,    Granville  -  Leveson  -  Gower, 

Earl  334,  338  ff.,  361,363 

—  John  Carteret,  Earl,  75, 78, 85 ff.,  91 
Grasse-Tilly,  F.-J.-P.,  Comte  and  Mar- 
quis de,  Admiral,  134 

Great  Britain  (from  1603),  8  ff.  passim; 
and  Baltic  States,  63-78;  and  Spain, 
79-86;  and  Seven  Years'  War,  97- 
127;  and  colonies,  125  et  al.;  and 
North  America,  128-40,  149-57;  m~ 
ternational  position  of,  143-215 ;  neu- 
trality of  (1789),  216-25;  and  the 
Scheldt,  225-36;  and  the  Revolu- 
tion War,  237-304;  and  Peace  (1801), 
305-8 ;  and  Napoleonic  War,  309-91 ; 
diplomatists  and  influence  of,  392  ff . ; 
and  peace  negotiations  (1813-4),  401- 
59 ;  and  Congress  of  Vienna,  459-500 ; 
and  the  return  of  Napoleon,  501  ff. ; 
and  French  settlement,  506-21;  and 
American  War  (1812),  522-42;  see 
Castlereagh,  Orders  in  Council,  etc. 

Gre"goire,  Abbe",  495 

Greifswald,  Treaty  of  (1715),  66 

Grenada,  272 

Grenville,  George,  124,  127  ff. 

—  Thomas,  137,  249,  251,  290,  306, 
322,  33.0,  347-8,  372 

—  William,   Lord,    140,    155  ff.,    175, 
206  ff.,  ch.  II,  311-2,  314,  322,  330- 
47;   Ministry  of,  348-66;  372,  377, 
391,     399,    495  >    correspondence    on 
foreign  affairs,  App.  A  (1792-3),  B 
(1793-5),  D  (1795-7),  E  (1798) 

Grey,  Charles,  2nd  Earl  (Lord  Howick), 
262,  327,  348,  35i,  359,  373,  377, 
399,  5°3 

Grimaldi,  Marquis  de,  118,  120,  130 

Grisons,  the,  294 

Guadaloupe,  139,  306,  378 

Guastalla,  duchy  of,  449 

Guelfs,  the;  see  Brunswick,  Hanover 

Guiana,  307 

Gustavus  III,  King  of  Sweden,  182, 
184,  203,  212,  218 

—  IV,  King  of  Sweden,  332,  341,  343, 

374 
Gyllenborg,  Carl,  Count,  67 

39—5 


6i8 


INDEX 


Habsburg,  House  of,  6,  7,  10,  12,  47; 

see  Austria,  House  of 
Hague,  Court  and  Ministry  of  the,  159, 

163,  172,  174,  205-6,  221,  226,  233, 

244,  246,  462 

—  the,    Convention    of    (1710),    63; 
(supplement  to,  1718),  57;  (i733>,  84; 
(1748),  90 

—  negotiations  at  (1760),  116;  158 

—  Treaty  of  (1794),  246 
Hailes,  Daniel,  204 
Hainault,  187 

Halifax,  Nova  Scotia,  537 

—  G.  M.  Dunk,  Earl  of,  124,  127 
Hamburg,  64,  300,  333,  358,  416 
Hamilton,  Alexander,  155,  157 

—  Emma,  Lady,  222,  288-9 

—  Sir  William,  222,  238,  288-9,  297 
Hammond,  George,  155,  157,  221,  267, 

274,  276-7 

Hanau,  416 

Hanover,  58,  59  et  a/.;  see  Seven  Years' 
War;  Treaty  with  Denmark  (1715), 
65;  and  Sweden,  65,  72;  Alliance  of 
(1725),  80;  Neutrality  Treaty  for, 
99  ff. ;  303,  328-47  passim ;  annexed  to 
Prussia,  349  ff . ;  395 ;  Prussian  cessions 
to,  400-1,  479,  481-2 

—  House  of,  49,  96 

Hanoverian  "Junta"  and  interest,  61 

and  note,  74,  78 ;  92 
Hansa  League,  the  Baltic,  2,  5,  403 
Harburg,  64 
Hardenberg,   Charles,   Prince  of,   247, 

254,  320,  340,  345  ff.,  371,  395,  401, 

404,  411,  419,  434,  436,  440,  461, 
T  466  ff.,  510,  559 
Hardy,  Thomas,  224 
Harley,  Robert  (Earl  of  Oxford),  46-7 
Harrington,  Wm  Stanhope,  Earl  of,  70, 

82,89 

Harris,  James ;  see  Malmesbury,  Earl  of 
Harrowby,  Dudley  Ryder,  Earl  of,  331, 
T   333,  335-6,  343  ff.,  394,  428,  446 
Hartley,  David,  138,  150,  155 
Hastings,     Francis     Rawdon-Hastings, 

Earl  of  (Lord  Moira),  364 

—  Warren,  148 

Haugwitz,  Count  C.  A.  H.  Kurt  von, 

246-7,  254,  267,  283,  291,  346-7,  35° 
Havana,  123,  125 

Hawke,  Edward,  Lord,  Admiral,  114 
Hawkesbury,  R.  B.  Jenkinson,  Lord; 

see  Liverpool,  2nd  Earl  of 
Hayti,  247,  257  ff.,  266,  272,  315,  318, 

323 ;  see  St  Domingo 
Heinsius,  Grand  Pensionary,  43,  45 
Helder,  the,  295 
Heliopplis,  battle  of,  298 
Helvetic  Republic,  the,  307,  310,  312, 

336 

Helvoetsluys,  181 
Henry  II,  2 

—  V,  4 


Henry  VI,  4 

—  VII,  policy  of,  5,  6 

—  VIII,  6,  7 

—  IV,  King  of  France,  n,  262 
Herald,  the,  307 

Hertzberg,  Count  Ewald  Fr.  von,  173-4, 

178-206  passim 
Hervey,  Lord,  193-4 
Hesse-Cassel,  74;  Treaty  with,  80,  97; 

343,  353 

—  Landgrave  Charles  of,  39 
-  Prince  Frederick  of,  96 

Hildesheim,  400-1 

Hispaniola  (San  Domingo),  23 

Hobart,  Robert,  Lord  (Earl  of  Bucking- 
hamshire), 302,  314 

Hoche,  Lazare,  271-2 

Holderness,  Robert  d'Arcy,  Earl  of,  94, 
97  ff.,  118 

Holland,  Province  of,  17,  172,  174 

—  (the    state    of)    before    1806;    see 
Netherlands,  the  United 

—  (kingdom   of)   from    1806,    374-5, 
377;  liberation  of,  424,  430,  450;  at 
the  Peace  (1814),  452,  460,  479  ff., 
502,  525 

—  Henry  R.  V.  Fox,  3rd  Lord,  354-5, 

Hollandsdiep,  the,  239 
Holstein,  64,  184,  361 
Holstein-Gottorp,    Charles    Frederick, 

Duke  of,  74-5 
Holyrood,  313 
Honduras,  138 

Hood,  Samuel,  Viscount,  238,  241,  259 
Hope,  Messrs,  158 
Horn,  diplomatic  agent,  395 
Horner,  Francis,  486,  495 
Hotblack,  Kate  (cited),  108  n. 
Hotham,  Sir  Henry,  259 
Howe,  Richard  Howe,  Earl,  247 
Howick,  Lord ;  see  Grey,  Charles 
Hubertusburg,  Peace  of  (1763),  126 
Hudelist,  Josef  von,  434 
Huguenots,  the,  8,  12,  18,  21 
Hungary,  186,  193 
Huskisson,  William,  347,  394 
Hutchinson,     John     Hely-Hutchinson, 

Lord  (Earl  of  Donoughmore),   299, 

361,  363-4 
Hyder  Ali,  136 

Illyria,  403 

India,  107,  in,  113,  125,  136,  138,  148, 

157,  256,  285,  298-9, 306-8, 313, 316, 

326,  355,  451-2 
Indians  in  North  America,  the,  and  the 

Treaty  of  Ghent,  535-42 
Indies ;  see  East,  West 
Ingelheim,  Countess,  181 
Inquisition,  the  Spanish,  21,  22 
Intercursus  Magnus  (1495),  17 
International  Rivers,  Commission  for, 

500 


INDEX 


619 


Ionian  Isles,  the,  281,  306,  316,  317, 

329,365,387,493,519 

Ireland  (1689),  war  in,  39;  invasion  and 
revolts  (1759),  "4;  (1796),  232,  272, 
279,  280,  282,  285;  (1799),  295;  and 
Union,  148,  304;  136,  167,  364 

Ischia,  380 

Ismail,  202 

Istria,  281,  348,  351 

Italian  Republic,  the,  310-1,  320,  322 

Italinski,  Russian  Envoy,  388-9, 600,601 

Italy,  208-9;  and  the  French  Revolu- 
tionary War,  264-90;  309,  329,  343, 
351;  and  the  Peace  Treaty  (1814), 
455  ff.,  483,  486-500,  519 

Jackson,  Sir  George,  311,  344,  361, 
398  ff.,  416,  418,  428-9 

—  Francis  J.,  222,  257,  262,  362-3, 
367,  524 

Jacobi  Kloest,  Baron  von,  237,  251 
Jacobins,  the,  218,  234-5,  243,  245,  262, 

278,  281;  attack  on  British  Empire, 

357 

Jacobites,  the,  82,  85,  90,  98 
Jamaica,  taken,  23;  138 
James  I,  King  of  Great  Britain,  9 

—  II  (Duke  of  York),  33 ;  38,  43 

—  Prince  of  Wales  (Pretender,  Che- 
valier), 43,  49,  67,  68,  80,  82 

Java,  378 

Jay,  John,  138,  150,  156,  523 

—  Treaty,  the  (1794-5),  156,  357,  523 
Jefferson,   Thomas,   President   U.S.A., 

152,  357-8,  367,  526 
Jemappes,  battle  of,  215,  224 
Jena  (Auerstadt),  battle  of,  346,  356 
Jenkinson,  Charles ;  see  Liverpool 
Jervis,  Sir  John  (Earl  St  Vincent),  270, 

273,  287,  302,  321,  331,  570-1 
John,  King,  2 

—  IV,  King  of  Portugal,  16 

—  VI,     King    of    Portugal     (Prince 
Regent),  365 

Jomini,  Baron  Henry,  Russian  General, 

423 
Joseph  I,  Emperor,  45,  46 

-  II,  Emperor,  132,  138,  144-5,  149, 
160,  163,  174,  182,  187  ff.,  193 

—  Archduke,  92 
Juliers,  341,  345 

Junot,   Andoche,   Marshal   (Due   d'A- 

brantes),  370 
Jutland,  battle  of,  226 

Kalisch,  palatinate  of,  179 

-  Treaty  of  (1813),  396,  398,401,466 
Kaunitz,  Wenzel  Anton,  Prince  von,  92, 

96  ff.,  119,  127,  182,  185,  195,  197 
Keene,  Sir  Benjamin,  86 
Keith,  George  K.  Elphinstone,  Viscount, 

296,  298-9 

—  J.   K.   Elphinstone,  Viscount,  96, 
103,  112 


Keith,  Sir  Robert  Murray,  158,  194-5, 

202,  210,  221 
Kentucky,  533 

Kersaint,  G.-P.  de  C.,  Comte  de,  232 
Kiel,  Treaty  of  (1814),  454 
Kinckel,  Dutch  Vice-admiral,  244,  247 
King,  diplomatic  agent,  395 
Kingsbergen,  Dutch  Admiral,  206 
Kleber,  J.-B.,  298 

Klosterseven,  Convention  of  (1757),  no 
Kolin,  battle  of,  no 
Korsakoff,  Alexander,  291  ff. 
Kulm,  battle  of,  399 
Kurakin,  Prince  Boris,  65,  66 

Labouchere,  Pierre  C.,  financier,  374-5 

Labrador,  Don  Pedro  Gomez,  484-5, 
498 

Lacey  (Lasci),  General,  338,  349 

Lafayette,  M.-J.-P.-Roch-Yves  Gilbert 
Motier,  Marquis  of,  148,  202 

La  Harpe,  Fr<§d£ric  C.  de,  Swiss  poli- 
tician, 423 

Lakes,  the  North  American,  537,  539-40 

Lampedusa,  321-2,  326 

Lancashire,  367 

Landau,  452,  512-3 

Langara,  Don  Juan  de,  241 

Langres,  434,  437 

Laon,  battle  of,  442,  445-6 

La  Rothiere,  battle  of,  439 

Lauderdale,  James  Maitland,  Earl  of, 

Laudon,  Field-marshal,  119 

Lauriston,  J.  A.  B.  L.,  Marquis  de,  323 

Lebrun,  Pierre,  216-7,  225,  231,  235 

Leeds,  5th  Duke  of;  see  Carmarthen 

Leghorn,  288,  456 

Lehrbach,  Count  L.  K.  von,  244-5,  297 

Leipzig,  481 ;  battle  of,  411,  416,  485 

Leith,  384 

Leoben,  Preliminaries  of,  276-7,  283 

Leopold  I,  Emperor,  27-8,  34,  36,  43, 


_44,59_ 


Emperor,  145,  193  if.,  202-12 
Les  Saintes,  431,  451 
Levant,  the,  52,  93,  313,  316,  326,  329 
Leveson-Gower;  see  Granville 
Lewis  IV,  Emperor,  3 

—  XIV,  King  of  France,   18,  28-58 
passim;  death  of,  61;  228,  263,  325, 

-  XV,  King  of  France,  84,  115,  131 

—  XVI,   King  of  France,   132,   164, 
199  ff.,  209,  213,  216,  221,  223,  232, 

—  XVII,  son  of  Lewis  XVI,  242 

—  XVIII,  King  of  France  (Count  of 
Provence),  242,  262,  439,  449,  461-2, 
477-8,  487,  492,  501-16  passim 

—  Dauphin,  41 
Lie"ge,  228,  239,  245,  263 

Lieven,  Christoph  Andreievich,  Prince, 
421-43  Passim,  531 


620 


INDEX 


Lieven,  Princess,  460 

Ligurian  Republic,  the,  307,  310-1,  320, 

322,  338-9,  342 
Lille,   239,   249,   509;   negotiations   of 

(1797),  278-80,  App.  D,  576-7 
Lionne,  Hugues  de,  Marquis  de  Berny, 

28 

Lisbon,  blockaded  (1650),  15;  365 
Lisola,  Baron  Franz  Paul  von,  28,  32 
Listen,  Sir  Robert,  206,  384,  390 
Lithuania,  386,  468 
Liverpool,  Charles  Jenkinson,  Earl  of, 

169,  278 

—  Robert    Jenkinson,    2nd    Earl    of 
(Lord  Hawkesbury),  302,  305-6,  310- 
3i>  359,  372  ff.J  Prime-  Minister,  386, 
3967464  passim,  474  ff.,  537  ff. 

Livonia,  77  and  note 

Lobanoff,  Prince,  360 

Lombardy,  268,  345,  457 

London,  188-9,  I92>  216-7,  224,  231, 

238,  242,  295,  459,  464,  497-8,  532 

etal. 

—  City  of,  83,  108,  374 

—  Court  and  Ministry  of  (Court  of 
St     James's,     Whitehall,     Downing 
Street),  200,  203  ff.,  ch.  u  passim,  310, 
314,  318-22,  340,  361 

—  Declaration  of  (1758),  112 

—  Preliminaries  of  (1802),  310 
Long  Parliament,  the,  18 

Loo,  the,  1  80 
Lorraine,  33  et  al.,  509 
Loughborough,  Alexander  Wedderburn, 

Lord,  278 
Louisa,  of  Mecklenburg-Strelitz,  con- 

sort of  Frederick  William  III,  283 
Louisiana,  125,  200,  311,  315,  526,  535, 

540 

Lubeck,  2 
Luc,  M.  de,  284 
Lucchesini,  Jerome,  Marquis  de,  185, 

240,  243  ff. 

Luddite  Riots,  the,  381 
Lune"ville,  Treaty  of  (1801),  297,  307, 

310,  321,  325-6,  339,  345 
Lutter,  battle  of,  12 
Liitzen,  battle  of,  401-2 
Luxemburg,  37,  339,  482,  512 
Lyons,  261 
Lys,  the,  246 

Maastricht,  161,  163,  228,  249,  256 
Mack,  von    Leiberich,    Frhr.  Charles, 

288,  342,  344,  346 
Mackenzie,  diplomatist,  361-2 
Mackintosh,  Sir  James,  319 
Madeira,  365 
Madison,  James,  President  U.S.A.,  367, 

377-8,  505,  526,  533,  536,  540 
Madras,  90,  136 
Madrid,  115,  197,  199,  2oo,  206,  222, 


1VT 
Mahan,  A 


,, 
A.  T.,  523 


Mahmoud  II,  Ottoman  Sultan,  388 

Maida,  battle  of,  349 

Main,  the,  343 

Mainz,  215,  247,  297,  466,  469 

—  Frederick  von  Erthal ,  Elector  of ,  25 1 

—  Treaty  of  (1793),  238 
Maitland,  Sir  Frederick  Lewis,  505 
Mallet  du  Pan,  Jacques,  283 
Malmesbury,  James  Harris,  ist  Earl  of, 

13°,  J35>  136,  158,  160-81  passim, 
221,  243  ff.,  269  ff.,  278-9,  301,  319, 
322, 367 ;  corresp.  with  Grenville,  App. 
B,  556  rT. 

Malplaquet,  battle  of,  46 

Malta,  285,  297-300,  306-8,  312-56 
passim,  366,  379,  431,  451-2,  519, 
App.  E;  see  St  John,  Knights  of 

Mamelukes,  the,  315 

Man,  Isle  of,  366 

Manchester,  224 

—  George  Montagu,  4th  Duke  of,  138 
Manilla  ransom,  130 

Mansfeld,  Count  Ernest  von,  10,  12 

Mantua,  269,  273,  345 

Marat,  Jean-Paul,  216 

Mardyke,  50,  68 

Marengo,  battle  of,  296 

Maret,  Hugues  B.  (Due  de  Bassano), 

229,  231,  233,  279,  280,  407,  414,  417, 

420 

Margaret  Tudor,  Queen  of  Scotland,  5 
Margarot,  Maurice,  224 
Maria    Carolina,    Queen    of   the    Two 

Sicilies,  269  «.,  288-9,  349,  379,  380; 

death  of,  485 

—  Theresa,  Queen  of  Hungary,  Em- 
press, 79,  87,  88,  90-2,  97  ff.,  119,  124 

—  —  consort  of  Francis  II,  Empress, 
26971. 

Marie  Antoinette,  consort  of  Lewis  XVI, 
145,  218,  221,  223,  244 

—  Louise    of   Austria,    Archduchess, 
consort  of  Napoleon  I,  Empress  of 
the  French,  375,  435,  449,  485,  487, 
492  n.,  501 

Mariembourg,  513 
Maritime  Code,  the,  336-42 

—  Powers,  246,  498 

—  Rights  of  Britain,  397,  419,  420, 
426,  429,  437,  524,  531-42;  see  Right 
of  Search 

Markoff,  Russian  Ambassador,  319,  323 
Marlborough,  John  Churchill,  Duke  of, 

45,  46,  55 
Marmont,  A.  F.  L.  Viesse  de  (Due  de 

Raguse),  Marshal  of  France,  448 
Martinique,  247,  275,  306,  378,  573 
Mary  I,  Queen  of  England,  7 

—  II,  Queen  of  England,  34-5,  59 

—  Queen  of  Scots,  7,  8 
Massachusetts,  and  the  War  of  1812,  528 
Masse"na,    Andre",    Marshal    (Due    de 

Riyoli),  294,  296,  349,  375 
Maulde,  French  Envoy  at  the  Hague,  233 


INDEX 


621 


Mauritius   (lie   de   France),    in,   378, 

451-2,  519 
Mazarin,  Jules,  Cardinal,  14,  18,  19,  23, 

25,  26,  28 

Meadowe,  diplomatic  agent,  26 
Meares,  John,  198 
Mecklenburg,  61,  73 

—  Schwerin,  Duke  Charles  Leopold 
of,  66,  67  n. 

Mediterranean  Sea,  15,  16,  44,  70,  in, 
130;  British  policy  in,  chs.  II  and  HI; 
at  the  Peace,  452,  465 ;  501 

Melas,  Michael,  F.  B.,  292 

Melcombe,  George  Bubb,  Lord,  68 

Melville,  Viscount;  see  Dundas 

Memel,  361-3 

Menou,  Baron  J.-F.  de,  305 

Mercy  d'Argenteau,  Count  F.  C.  von, 
244,  250 

Merfeldt,  Count  von,  416-8,  460 

Merry,  Antony,  197,  307 

Messina,  349 

Methuen,  Sir  Paul,  54 

—  Treaty  (1703),  166 
Metternich-Winneburg,  Clement  W.  N . 

L.,  Prince  of,  320,  396;  ch.  iv  passim 
Meuse,  the,  225-6,  228 
Michigan,  lake,  154 
Mier,  Austrian  Envoy,  455 
Milan,  duchy  of,  41 

—  Decrees,  the  (1807),  366,  526 
Miles,  William  A.,  201,  206 
Mincio  river,  frontier,  345,  453 
Minden,  battle  of,  114 

Minorca,  52,  79  et  al.,  109,  119,  124, 

136,  138,  339,  34° 
Minto,  Lord;  see  Elliot 
Mirabeau,  Honore"-G.  de  R.,  Count,  177, 

199  ff. 

Miranda,  Francisco,  199,  201,  233 
Mississippi,  the,  537,  540-1 
Missouri,  the,  259 

Mitchell,  Sir  Andrew,  104-5,  127,  130 
Modena,  336 

—  Hercules  III,  Duke  of,  282 
Mohilev,  145 

Moira ;  see  Hastings 

Moldavia,  178,  192 

Mollendorff,  R.  J.  Heinrich  von,  245  ff. 

Moniteur,  the,  313,  315 

Monroe,  James,  President  U.S.A.,  528, 

537 

—  Doctrine,  the,  530 
Mons,  215 
Montmorin-Saint-He'rem,    Count    Ar- 

mand-Marc  de,  172,  175  ff.,  199,  200 
Moore,  Captain  Graham,  334 

—  Sir  John,  370 

—  political  agent,  311 
Moravia,  182,  194 
Morea,  the,  313,  316,  329  ff. 
Morier,  David,  388 

Morning  Chronicle,  The,  307,  504 
Morning  Post,  The,  307 


Morocco,  Emperor  of,  285 

Morris,  Gouverneur,  154,  267,  272,  367 

Mortier,  E.-A.-C.-J.  (Due  de  Treviso), 

328-9,  448 
Moscow,    182;    Napoleon's    march    to 

(1812),  390 

Muhlberg,  battle  of,  7 
Mulgrave,  Henry  Phipps,  Earl,  336,338, 

341,  343  ff.,  362,  373,  394;  corresp.  of, 

App.  F 
Miinster,  bishopric  of,  267 

—  Count  Ernest  von,  395,  400,  436, 

Murat,  Joachim,  Marshal  (King  of 
Naples),  379;  dispossession  of,  408- 
10,  413-4,  423,  432,  45 5-5°°  passim, 
521 ;  see  App.  E 

Murray,  Sir  James,  238 

Muscovy,  13 

Nagel,  Dutch  Ambassador,  226-7 
Namur,  57 

Nantes,  Edict  of,  18;  revocation  of,  38 
Napier,  Sir  William  F.  P.,  376 
Naples,  kingdom  and  government  of, 
72,  218,  222 ;  negotiations  with  (1793), 
238;  Treaty  with  France  (1796),  269, 
with  Austria  (1798),  287 ;  at  war,  288- 
308;  (1803),  327;  479  et  al.',  Bourbon 
restoration  in,  484-9 ;  493 ;  see  Murat; 
see  App.  E 

Napoleon  I,  226,  256,  264-308  passim, 
ch.  HI  passim ;  declared  King  of  Italy, 
339;  and  the  Treaty  of  Fontaine- 
bleau,  449;  return  from  Elba,  484, 
488-9,  500-4 ;  abdication  of,  504,  532 ; 
described  by  Bernadotte,  595 

—  Duke  of  Reichstadt,  449,  485,  487, 
492,  501,  504 

Narrow  Seas,  England  and  the,  49 
National   Assembly,   the  French,   199, 
200 

—  Convention,  the  French,  217,  224  ff., 
357;  November  Decrees  of  (1792), 
225  ff.,    236;    December    id.,    229; 
October  decrees  (1795),  262  n.,  265 ; 
see  Scheldt  Decree 

Navigation  Act,  132 

—  Code,  the  British,  152  ff. 
Neerwinden,  battle  of,  239 
Negapatam,  148,  176-7 

Neipperg,  Count  Albert  Adam  von,  455 
Nelson,    Horatio   Nelson,    Lord,    279- 

308  passim,  313,  329,  335,  582 
Nesselrode,  Charles  Robert,  Count  von, 

403,  404  n.,  418,  422,  440,  449,  466  ff. 
Netherlands,  the  Austrian  (from  1714), 

13;  48,  54-7;  79,  84,  96,  104;   112, 

160-1,  i86ff.,  211,  224,  236,  249,  250, 

266  and  see  Belgium 

—  the  Seventeen  Provinces  of  the  (to 
1584),  8 

—  the  Spanish  (Belgic)  (1584-1714), 
13,  H,  34,  36,  41-2,  44,  54 


622 


INDEX 


Netherlands,  the  United  (the  Dutch  Re- 
public), 13;  Treaty  with  (1654),  21; 
and  Cromwell,  17-27 ;  and  Lewis  XIV, 
28-58;  32-3;  and  Grand  Alliance, 
5Sff.;  Treaty  with  England  (1716), 
62;  with  Sweden  (1700),  63;  68,  70, 
79,83,90,93,96-7;  noff.,  131,  133, 
136,  138,  143,  147,  159-213  passim; 
and  Revolution  War,  222-355  passim, 
477  et  al. ;  see  Barrier  Treaties ;  from 
1806,  see  Holland 

Nettement,  M.,  268 

Neutrality  Treaties  (Hanover,  1755),  99, 
101  ff.;  of  the  Baltic  (1759),  "7 

Newcastle,  Thomas  Pelham- Holies, 
Duke  of,  78,  85,  88,  94,  100  ff.,  122 

New  England,  94,  132 

Newenham,  Sir  Edward,  148 

Newfoundland,  Gulf  of,  and  the  Fish- 
eries, 114,  125,  138,  279,  306,  535-41 

New  France,  50 

Newington,  224 

New  Orleans,  541-2 

—  York,  155 

Ney,  Michel  (Due  d'Elchingen),  Mar- 
shal of  France,  506-7 
Nice,  234,  237-8,  263,  268,  290,  292 
Niemen,  the,  361 
Nile,  battle  of  the,  285,  289,  298 
Nivernais,  Due  de,  100,  124 
Non-intercourse  Act  (U.S.A.  1809),  377, 

529 

Noot,  Henri  van  der,  187-8,  191,  202 
Nootka  Sound,  195,  197-201,  211,  223, 

256,  279,  553 
Nore,  mutiny  at  the,  277 
Norfolk,  Charles  Howard,  i  ith  Duke  of, 

364 
Norris,  Sir  John,  Admiral,  65, 66, 73, 75, 

76 
North,  Frederick  North,  Lord  (Earl  of 

Guildford),  129,  131,  133,  134,  136, 

139,  140 

—  America,  British  Colonies  in,   n, 
12,    16;   see   Canada,    Nova    Scotia; 
under  George  III,  128-9;  and  Seven 
Years'  War,  m;see  United  States 

—  —  French,  50,  93,  98;  see  Acadia 
North  Briton  no.  45,  127 

North  of  Europe,  the ;  see  Baltic  Powers 

—  Germany,  254,  328;  ports  block- 
aded (1803),  329;  (1806),  350;  357, 
377  et  al. 

Norway,  332;  Sweden  and,  382-5,  397; 
410,  450,  454;  see  Sweden 

Norwich,  224 

Notables,  First  Assembly  of,  170 

Nova  Scotia  (Acadia),  n,  50,  94,  137 

Novossiltzoff,  Count  Nicholas,  335  ff., 
400 

Nugent,  Count  Laval,  Austrian  Field- 
marshal,  485,  489 

Nymegen,  Treaties  and  Peace  of  (1678), 
34-6;  172 


Nymphenburg,  Treaty  of  (1741),  88 
Nystad,  Peace  of  (1721),  73,  76-7 

—  Conference  of  (1721),  76 

Oczakoff,  178  ff.,  204  ff.,  212 
Oder,  mouth  of  the,  14 
Odessa,  204    . 
Oginski,  Count,  204 
Ompteda,  L.  von,  395 
Orange,  290 

—  House  of,  16,  21, 131, 143, 1 60, 172, 
177,  290,  306-8,  341 ;  see  William  II, 
William  III,  William  V,  William  I, 
King  of  the  Netherlands 

—  Anne,  widow  of  William  IV  of,  93 
Orders    in    Council    (1793-4),    156-7; 

(1807),  358,  366,  374-8,  384-5,  525-6, 
528;  see  Continental  System,  United 
States 

Orebro,  Peace  of  (1812),  386 

Orleans,  Henrietta,  Duchess  of,  29,  31 

—  Louis  Philippe,  Duke  of  (King  of 
the  French),  439,  459,  484,  503 

—  Philip,  Duke  of,  Regent  of  France, 

67,79 

Orthez,  battle  of,  445 
Ostend,  104,  109 

—  East  India  company  of,  79,  80,  81, 
84 

Oswald,  Richard,  137 

Ottersburg,  65 

Otto,  Lewis  G.,  Comte  de  Mosloy,  305, 

313 

Ottoman  empire,  the,  146 
Oubril,  Comte  de,  345,  353-4 
Oudenarde,  battle  of,  45 
Ouseley,  Sir  Gore,  388 
Ouvrard,  G.  J.,  financier,  375 
Oxford,  Edward  Harley,  Earl  of,  485 
Oxus,  the,  149 

Pacific  Ocean,  the,  87,  201 
Padua  Circular,  the,  209,  212 
Paget,  Sir  Arthur,  254,  342 

—  Sir  Augustus,  297,  311,  364 
Pahlen,  Count  Peter,  303 
Palatinate,  the,  34,  291 

Palatine,    Frederick    V,    Elector,    and 

James  I,  10 

Palermo,  289,  349,  380,  457 
Palmella,  Pedro  de  Souza,  Count  of,  498 
Palmer,  John,  147 
Palmerston,  Henry  John  Temple,  3rd 

Viscount,  394 
Panin,    Count   Nikita   Ivanovich,    135, 

303 
Paoli,  General  Pasquale  de\  130,  241, 

256 
Papacy,  the,  and  our  early  kings,  2 ;  and 

Elizabeth,  8;  and  James  I,  10;  and 

Peace  of  Westphalia,  14;  and  Murat, 

485 
Pardo,  Act  of  the  (1728),  82 

—  Convention  of  the  (1739),  86 


INDEX 


623 


Paris,  215-24  ;  Commune  of,  217  ;  march 
on  (1814),  437  ff.;  the  Allies  and, 
448  ff.  ;  second  capitulation  of,  504  ; 
after  Waterloo,  506  ff. 

—  Government  and  Ministers  at,  chs. 
I  and  n  passim 

—  Commercial  Treaty  of  (1778),  with 
U.S.A.,  133 

—  Peace  of  (1763),  106,  124-7,  I3% 

—  First  Peace  of  (1814),  429,  450-9, 
462,  464,  467,  473,  479,  480,  483,  494, 
500 

—  Second  Peace  of  (1815),  493-4,  500 

—  Peace  Preliminaries  at  (1727),  81-2  ; 
(1782),  137-8 

—  Treaty  of  (1815),  290 

—  and  Versailles,  Treaties  of  (1778), 
138-40 

Parker,  Sir  Hyde,  303 

Parliament  (1802),  3*4-5',  (1803),  327 

Parma,  Philip,  Duke  of,  115 

—  and  Piacenza,  duchies  of,  71,  311, 
449,  485,  487,  492 

Partition  Treaties  of  Poland  (1772),  131  ; 
of  Prussia  (1757),  113;  of  Spanish 
dominions  (1648),  41;  (1689),  40; 

(1698),  41,  43 
Passamaquoddy  Bay,  541 
Passaro,  battle  of  Cape,  72 
Passarowitz,  Peace  of  (1718),  59,  70 
Patras,  329 
"Patriotic"  Party,  the  Dutch,    160-1, 

172,     174,    176,     225,    227-8,    251, 


255-6 
Paul 


I,  Tsar,  222,  271,  276-303  passim', 

assassination  of,  303 
Peel,  Sir  Robert,  412 
Pelham,  Henry,  89,  91,  94 
Peltier,  French  refugee,  L'Ambigu,  319 
Pembroke,   George  Augustus  Herbert, 

Earl  of,  361 
Peninsular    War    and    policy,    369-77, 

379,  381,  384-92,  405,  4io,  432 
Perceval,  Spencer,  359,  373-4;  assassina- 

tion of,  386,  393 

—  Ministry,  the,  376 

Peter  I,  Tsar  of  Russia,  64,  66,  73,  76 

—  Ill,  Tsar,  122 

Potion  de  Villeneuve,  Jerome,  199 
Petrograd,  182,  205,  461 

—  Court  and  Ministry  of,  73,  146,  158, 
192,  222,  230,  248,  252,  283,  286,  292, 
316,  335 

Philip  II,  King  of  Spain,  8,  301 

—  Ill,  King  of  Spain,  10  n. 

—  IV,  King  of  Spain,  16,  23 

—  V,  King  of  Spain  (Duke  of  Anjou), 
42,  46,  47,  78-9,  82,  83 

Philippeville,  513 
Philippine  Islands,  123 
Philippsburg,  14 
Piacenza  ;  see  Parma 
Picardy,  282 
Pichegru,  Charles,  293,  330 


Piedmont,  311,  317,  327,  329,  345,  348, 

.351,473,485 
Pigot,  Sir  Henry,  297-8 
Pillnitz,  Declaration  of  (1791),  210 
Pitt,  William,  the  elder;  see  Chatham 

—  —  the  younger,  139-40,  143-214 
passim,   ch.   H  passim,   312,   3i7~47; 
death  of,  347;  359,  360,  391,  393-4, 
412,  458,  490-1 

Pius  VI,  Pope,  237 

Planta,  Joseph,  463 

Plantagenets,  the  Early,  2 

Plassey,  battle  of,  107 

Plaswitz,  Armistice  of,  402-3 

Po,  the,  349 

Poland,  13,  74,  77,  93  ;  First  Partition  of, 

131-2,  177-8,  188;  Second  Partition 

of,  191  ff.,  231,  237,  239,  (Prussian) 

240,  247-8;  Third  Partition  of,  248, 
.   252,  255;  282,  335-6,  417,  423,  453, 

460  ff.,  519 

Polish  Succession  War,  84 
Pomerania,  75,  332,  343,  365,  383-4 
Pompadour,  J.-A.  Poisson  le  Normant 

d'fitioles,  Marquise  de,  98,  113 
Pondicherry,  247,  316 
Ponsonby,  George,  364,  464 
Pontecorvo,  353 
Ponza,  455 
Porte,  the,  174,  177,  193,  196-7,  204, 

286,  313,  358;  negotiations  of  1810-2, 

386-91,  492 
Portland,  naval  battle  off,  20 

—  W.   H.    Cavendish   Bentinck,    3rd 
Duke  of,  139,  260,  278,  359,  373 

—  Ministry,  the,  361,  367,  372 
Portugal,  n,  25;  alliance  with  England 

(1654),  15,  16;  22,  29,  54;  and  Seven 
Years'  War,  121-3 ;  126, 133, 166,  170, 
239,  258,  275,  278,  306-7,  341,  358, 
363-4,  372-81 ;  and  the  Slave  Trade, 
497-8 

—  Prince  Regent  of;  see  John  VI 
Posen,  palatinate  of,  179 

Potemkin,   Prince  Gregori  Alexandro- 

vich,  135 
Potsdam,  104 

—  Secret  Treaty  of  (1805),  345 
Pozzo  di  Borgo,  C.  A.,  Count,  420  ff. 
Pragmatic  Sanction,  79,  83  ff.,  91 
Prague,  negotiations  of  (1813),  404-10, 

532 

Princes  Islands,  358 
Provence,  296 

—  Count  of;  see  Lewis  XVIII 
Prussia,  65,  74-6,  84,  86,  88,  91,  95,  97- 

127  passim,  132,  chs.  I  and  II  passim, 
318,  332, 336-65 ;  and  the  War  of  1813, 
396-7 ;  and  Reichenbach  Treaties  ,399- 
406 ;  408 ;  and  Saxony,  417,  423  ;  453, 
461,  465  ff.  et  al.,  App.  D 

—  Prince  Henry  of,  246,  560 
Prussian  Secret  Treaty  (1787),  177 
Prusso-Dutch  Treaty  (1788),  176 


624 


INDEX 


Prusso-Polish  Alliance  (179°),  i9*»  J94 

—  Turkish  Treaty  (Jan.   1790),   194, 
196 

Pultawa,  battle  of,  63 

Pulteney,  William  (Earl  of  Bath),  85 

Pyrenees,  the,  258,  265 

—  Peace  of  the  (1659),  28,  35,  40 

Quadra,  Bishop  Alvaro  de  la,  86 
Quadruple   Alliance,   the   (1814),   444, 

461, 491 ;  renewed  (1815),  514;  Treaty 

of  (sixth  article),  516-7 
Quebec,  114,  117,  537 
Quiberon  Bay,  battle  of,  114 

—  expedition,  261 

Radziwill,  Prince,  442,  460 
Rammekens,  227 

Rastatt,    Conferences    and    Peace    of 
(1713-14),  13,54 

—  Congress  of  (1797),  282-92 
Ratisbon,  Truce  of  (1684),  37 
Rayneval,  Gerard  de,  164,  168,  171 
Razumoffski,   Russian   Plenipotentiary, 

438-9,  480 
Reformation,  the,  and  English  policy,  7, 

8 

Regency  question  (1810-2),  377 
Reichenbach,   Congress    of,    196,   203, 

209 

—  Treaties  of  (1813),  401-11 
Reign  of  Terror,  the,  242 
Repnin,  Prince,  469,  474,  583 
Reubell,  J.-F.,  279 

Reuss,  the,  294 

—  Prince  Henry  (1770),  196 
Reval,  66,  303-4 
Revolutionary  War,  215-305 
Rheede,  van,  196 

Rhine,  the,  222  seq.,  249,  265,  291  seq., 
478-82  et  al. 

—  frontier,  the,  53,  265,  267,  284,  410, 
465 

—  Confederation  of  the,  353,  403,  416 

—  League  of  the  (1658),  27 
Rhineland,    the,    237,    266,    268,    275, 

282-3,  290,293,341,  351 
Richard  II,  4 
Richelieu,  Armand-E.-S.-S.  du  Plessis, 

Due  de,  508,  513 

—  Armand-Jean  du  Plessis,  Cardinal, 
Due  de,  12 

Riga,  77  n.\  Napoleon  and,  391 
Right  of  Search  (British),  in,  136,  357, 
524;  (Spanish),  85-6,  135;  (Swedish), 

Rio,  54 

Ripon,  F.  J.  Robinson,  Earl  of  (Viscount 

Goderich),  433-4,  464 
Ripperda,  Jan  Willem,  Duke  of,  79,  80 
Robespierre,  Maximilien  M.  I.,  199,  217 
Robethon,  Jean  de,  61 
Robinson,  F.  J.;  see  Ripon 

—  John,  Bishop  of  Bristol,  53 


Robinson,  Sir  Thomas,  95,  137 
Rochefort,  expedition  to,  in  ;  285 

—  (Aix  roads),  action  in,  372 
Rochelle,  siege  of,  12 
Rockingham,    C.    Watson- Wentworth, 

Marquis  of,  128,  129,  134 

Rodney,  George  B.,  Baron,  Admiral,'i  34, 
137, 138 

Roe'll,  Dutch  Foreign  Minister,  374 

Roeskilde,  Peace  of  (1658),  26 

Roland  de  la  Platiere,  J.-M.,  217 

Romanzoff,  Count  Nicholas,  385,  530-1 

Rome,  145,  280,  283 

Romilly,  Sir  Samuel,  351 

Rose,  George,  245,  317 

Rosen,  Count,  382 

Rossbach,  battle  of,  no 

Roumelia,  387 

Roussillon,  241 

Ruhr,  the,  267 

Rumbold,  Sir  George,  333 

Rumyantseff,  Count,  76 

Rupert,  Prince  Palatine,  16 

Russell,  Jonathan,  527,  529,  533 

Russia,  66,  73-7,  88,  90;  Treaties  with 
(i755),  97-iQi,  103-5;  and  Seven 
Years'  War,  109-13,  116,  117,  122-6; 
Commercial  Treaty  with,  113,  132, 
134-5,  chs.  I  and  n  passim,  318-86; 
and  Turkey  (1810-2),  386-92;  Na- 
poleon's retreat  from,  390-1;  396; 
393,  397  ff- ;  and  Reichenbach  Treaty, 
406;  408,  461,  464  ff. ;  536 

—  White,  468 
Russians,  the,  330,  370 
Russo-Danish  Convention  (1800),  300 

—  Swedish  Convention  (1800),  300 

—  —  peace  negotiations  (1812),  384-5 

—  Turkish  Armistice  (1811),  388 

—  —  War  (1790),  197;  (1812),  389 
Rutland,   Charles    Manners,    Duke  of, 

148 

Ryswyk,  Peace  of  (1697),  40,  51,  53; 
declarations  of  (1760),  116 

Saarlouis,  452,  513 

Saar  valley,  the,  512 

St  Aignan,  French  agent,  417  ff. 

St  Christopher ;  see  St  Kitts 

St  Cloud,  323 

St  Domingo,  257,  259,  496,  550-1 ;  see 

Hayti 

St  Eustatius,  133,  136 
St  Germain,  Peace  of  (1632),  n,  50 
St  Gothard,  292,  294 
St  Helena,  501,  505 
St  Helens,  Lord ;  see  Fitzherbert 
St  James's  Chronicle,  the,  307 
St  John,  Knights  of,  285,  297-9,  3°6, 

308,313,318,320-1,5*5 

—  Henry;  see  Bolingbroke,  Viscount 

—  Oliver,  C.  J.,  17,3 
St  Kitts,  51 

St  Lawrence,  gulf  of,  124-5 


INDEX 


625 


St  Lucia,  247,  272,  275,  306,  354, 45 1-2, 

573 

St  Malo,  expedition  to,  112 
St  Petersburg,  Treaty  of  (1764),  122  w.; 

see  Petrograd 

St  Priest,  F.-E.  Guignard,  Count  of,  173 
St  Thomas,  Island  of,  365 
St  Vincent,  272 

—  Earl ;  see  Jervis 
Salonica,  381 

Salzburg,  archbishopric  of,  282,  466 

Sambre,  the,  246 

Saratoga,  133 

Sardinia,   16,  70,  224,   237,   241,   260, 

263-4,  290,  292,  306,  335-6,  339,  453, 

457 

—  Charles  Emmanuel  III  of  Savoy, 
King  of,  71,  90 

—  —    —  IV,  King  of,  292 

—  Victor  Emmanuel  I,  King  of,  318, 
320,  322,  332,  338,  345,  432 

Saumarez,  James  S.,  Baron  de,  vice- 
admiral,  304,  374,  382,  386 

Savona,  265 

Savoy,  224-5,  237-8,  263,  268,  290,  452, 
512 

—  House  of,  308 

—  Charles  Emmanuel  II,  Duke  of,  23 ; 
see  Sardinia 

—  Victor  Amadeus  II,  Duke  of  (King 
of  Sardinia),  40,  48,  70-2 

Saxe-Teschen,  Albert,  Duke  of,  187 
Saxony,  105,  114,  124,  126,  254,  343, 

416-7,    423,    453,    461,    464 ff-5    see 

Poland 
Scania,  65,  66 
Schaffhausen,  293 
Schaub,  Sir  Luke,  71 
Scheldt,  closing  of  the,  161,  163,  189, 

312,430,452 

—  Decree,  the,  225  ff.,  227,  231  ff. 
S  chill,  Friedrich  von,  372 
Schleswig,  75 

Schonwalde,  195 

Schouvaloff  Treaties,  the  (1760),  117 

Schwarzenberg,    Karl    Philipp,    Prince 

von,  439,  441-2,  445 
Schweidnitz,  119,  123 
Scotland,  3  ff. ;  and  union,  7 
Sebastiani,  F.-H.-B.,  Comte,  315,  317, 

358 

Sebastopol,  182,  223,  332,  388 
Secret  Treaty  (1676),  34 
Sedan,  249 
Segur,  Louis-Philippe,  Comte  de,  146, 

177 
Selim  III,  Ottoman  Sultan,  192,  196-7, 

285-6,  492 
Se"monville,  C.-L.  Huguet,  Marquis  de, 

202 

Senegal,  125,  134,  378 
Serbia,  387,  390 
Seven   Years'   War,   the,   92  ff.,   99  ff., 

105-27 


Seville,  Treaty  with  Junta  of,  370,  373 

—  Treaty  of  (1730),  83 
Shelburne,  William  Petty,  Earl  of  (Mar- 
quis of  Lansdowne),  123,  136-40,  165 

Sheridan,  Richard  Brinsley,  262,  273, 

314,  359,  368 
Sicilies,  kingdom  of  the  Two,  16;  41-2, 

93,  3495  see  Naples,  Sicily 

—  Francis  I,  King  of  the  Two  (Prince 
Royal),  354,  380,  456 

Sicily,  71,  329,  338,  349,  353-7,  375, 
379,  450,  455;  new  Constitution  in, 
.380,4575459,485,490 
Sidmouth,  Henry  Addington,  Viscount, 
299,   302,  305-8,  309-31,   348,  360, 
364,  394,  446 

Sieyes,  Comte  E.  J.,  Abbe",  286 
Silesia,  90-2,  97,  100  ff.,  113,  119 
Silesian  War,  the  First,  87 ;  the  Second,  89 
Sinzendorf,  Count  P.  L.  von,  53,  55 
Sistova,  211 

—  Congress  of,  202  ff. 

—  Peace  of  (1791),  205,  209 

Slave  Trade,  abolition  of  the,  348,  398, 
440,  451,  464,  494-5,  504,  5H,  541-2 

Slavs  of  the  East,  Projected  Russian 
Protectorate  of  the,  335 

Sluys,  battle  of,  226 

Smith,  Adam,  149,  167 

—  Joseph,  268 

—  Sir  William  Sidney,  296,  298 
Soissons,  Congress  of  (1728),  82 
Somerset,  Edward  Seymour,  Duke  of, 

Protector,  7 

Sorel,  Albert,  cited,  211 
Soult,  Nicolas  J.-de-D.  (Due  de  Dal 

matia),  Marshal  of  France,  445 
Sound,  the,  300,  353,  361 
South  America,  213,  258,  279 

—  Sea  Bubble,  the,  76 

—  Sea  Company,  the,  86 

Spain,  power  of,  10;  see  Philip  II;  after 
Peace  of  Westphalia,  15  ff.;  Cromwell 
and,  22 ;  War  with,  23  ff. ;  weakness  of, 
27  ff. ;  Succession  to,  see  Partition, 
Spanish  Succession;  and  Peace  of 
Utrecht,  45,  51-3;  Treaty  with  Por- 
tugal (1715),  54;  Treaty  with  England, 
68 ;  under  Alberoni,  67  ff. ;  and  Quad- 
ruple Alliance,  71  ff. ;  War  on  England, 
85  ff.;  and  the  Seven  Years'  War, 
ii4ff.,  120-5;  130;  and  U.S.A.,  132- 
4;  135,  138-9,  143,  145,  171,  .195, 
197  ff.,  211,  223,  230,  237  ff.;  crisis  of, 
255  ff.,  App.  C,  268,  278-9,  305,  311, 
333,  341,  3°S;  rising  against  Napo- 
leon, 368  ff.;  405,  450,  454,  457,  484, 
495 ;  and  the  Slave  Trade,  497-8 ;  525  ; 
and  U.S.A.,  526 

—  Queens  consort  of:  Elizabeth  Far- 
nese,  67-8,  72;  Maria  Amalia,  118 

—  Marie-Anne,  Infanta  of,  79 
Spanish    dominions,   in    Italy,   68;    in 

America,  see  South  America 


626 


INDEX 


Spanish  Succession,  40-58 

Sparre,  Baron,  67 

Spencer,  George  John,  Earl,  249,  251, 

253-4,  278,  300,  348 
Spezzia,  322 
Spiegel,  Lorenz  Pieter  van  de,  171,  176, 

188,  205 

Spielmann,  Baron  Anton,  196 
Spithead,  mutiny  at,  275,  277 
Stadion,  J.  P.  K.  J.,  Count  of,  237,  340, 

403,  406,  434,  445,  469 
Stair,  John  Dalrymple,  Earl  of,  68 
Stamp  Act,  128-9 
Stanhope,  James  Stanhope,  Earl  of,  57, 

60,  62,  67-76,  78 

—  William;  see  Harrington,  Earl  of 
Star,  the,  307 

Starhemberg,  Count  George  Adam,  98, 
101,  104 

—  Prince  Ludwig,  250,  276,  284,  469, 

Stein,  H.  F.  K.,  Freiherr  vom,  421,  423, 
468,  493 

Stepney,  Sir  John,  160 

Stettin,  65,  74,  76,  77 

Stewarts,  the,  58 

Stewart,  Charles  William,  Lord  [Vane] 
(3rd  Marquis  of  Londonderry),  398- 
438  passim,  462-3,  494,  500,  512,  515 

Stockholm,  206 

—  Peace  of  (1719),  65,  75 
Strachan,  Sir  Richard,  373 
Stralsund,  65,  343,  360,  372 
Strangford,  P.  C.  S.  Smythe,  Viscount, 

365 

Strassburg,  37,  509 

Stratford  de  Redcliffe,  Stratford  Can- 
ning, Viscount,  367,  373,  387-91,  395, 
494;  corresp.  from  Constantinople, 
App.  H 

Stuart,  Sir  John,  315 

—  de  Rothesay,  Charles,  Lord,  369, 
462,  504 

Suabia,  275,  294,  337 
Subsidy  Treaties,  British  (early),  3,  54, 
80,  82,  90;  described,  253 

—  —  with  Austria,    101-4;   (1800), 
296;  (1813),  413;  424;  see  Alliances, 
Anglo-Austrian 

—  —  with  Baden  (1793),  239;  with 
Bavaria  and  Wiirtemberg  (1800),  297 ; 
with  Hesse  (1755),  97,  100;  (1793), 
239;  with  Prussia  (1758-62),  112, 114, 
119,  121 

—  —  with  Russia  (1755),  97,   100, 
101 


—    —  general  (1814),  443;  (1815),  504 
-  .French,     for     Denmark     and 
Sweden,  113 


Suhlingen,  capitulation  of,  329 
Suleiman  the  Magnificent,  Sultan,  388 
Sun,  the,  307 

Sunderland,  Robert  Spencer,  Earl  of, 
36,  60,  68-9 


Superior,  Lake,  537 

Surinam,  354 

Suvoroff,  Alexander  V.,  202-3,  252,  287 
29 1-456  passim 

Sweden,  12-15;  Commercial  Treaty 
with  (1653),  22 ;  Treaty  of  1656,  25-6 ; 
3 off.;  Treaty  with  England  (1700), 
6  3 ;  Neutrality  Treaty  (1710),  64 ; 
league  against,  65  ff.,  72-7,  93 ;  and 
Seven  Years'  War,  98,  109-13,  117, 
122,  126,  146,  177,  183  ff.,  206,  223, 
230,  290-1,  294,  299-303,  364,  374; 
and  Britain,  382-6;  and  Turkey 
(1812),  390-2;  3 96;  and  Norway,  397, 
589  ff. 

Swiss,  the,  312  ff.,  327  ff. 

Switzerland,  13,  22,  263;  and  the 
French  Revolutionary  War,  280-94; 
313,  317,  319-20,  329,  339,  341,  348, 

405,  423,  435,  493-4 
Syracuse,  287 

Tagus,  the,  370 

Talavera,  battle  of,  373 

Talleyrand-Pe"rigord,  Charles  M.  de, 
Prince  of  Benevento,  212-3;  Lettres 
sur  les  Anglais,  213  ;  216-7, 235  278-9, 
286,  303,  307,  312,  317,  317-24,  35i, 

m  353,  435,448 

Tandy,  J.  Napper,  148  n. 

Tarnopol,  476 

Taylor,  Brooke,  362-3 

Teheran,  388 

Temesvar,  banat  of,  182 

Temple,  R.  Temple  Grenville,  Earl,  121, 
140 

—  Richard  T.  N.  B.  Grenville,  Earl 
(Duke  of  Buckingham  and  Chandos), 

3H 

—  Sir  William,  30,  36 
Teneriffe,  280 

Tesse",  M.-J.-B.-R.  de  Froulay,  Comte 
de,  Marshal,  52 

Texel,  the,  328 

Thames,  the,  228,  277 

Thiers,  Louis-Adolphe,  342 

Thirty  Years'  War,  the,  13,  22 

Thorn,  192,  204,  453,  481-2 

Thornton,  Edward,  3&2-6 ;  foreign  cor- 
resp. of,  App.  G 

Thugut,  Baron  Franz  M.,  222,  239,  241, 
245,  247,  249,  250,  255,  261  ff.  passim, 
App.  D  passim 

Thurlow,  Edward,  Lord,  140 

Tilsit,  Treaty  of  (1807),  360-2,  364,  386 

Times,  The,  307,  441,  475 

Tobago,  247,  275,  305,  354-5,  451-2, 

Toco,  the  Chevalier,  488,  490 
Toplitz,   Treaty  of   (1813),   413,   417, 

424 

Torgau,  battle  of,  117;  482 
Torres  Vedras,  370;  lines  of,  376-7 
Touche,  Me'he'e  de  la,  330 


INDEX 


627 


Toulon,  89,  241  ff.,  256,  259,  261,  285, 

302,  329,  335 

Toulouse,  battle  of  (1814),  445 
Tournay,  57 
Townshend,  Charles,  129 

—  Charles  Townshend,  Viscount,  46, 
55,60,61,68,69,76,78,80,83 

Trachenberg,  407-8 

Trafalgar,  battle  of,  345-6,  348 

Transylvania,  182 

Trave,  the,  350 

Travendal,  Peace  of  (1700),  63 

Treilhard,  Comte  J.-B.,  279 

Trevor,     John     Hampden     (Viscount 

Hampden),  222,  233 
Trianon  Decree,  the,  377 
Trincomalee,  173 
Trinidad,  259,  275,  280,  305-6 
Triple  Alliance  (1668),  30  ff. 
Trornp,  Martin  Harpertzoon,  admiral, 

20 
Troyes,  Conference  at  (1814),  439,  442 

—  Convention  of  ( 1 8 1 4) ,  448 

—  Treaty  of  (1420),  4 
True  Briton,  The,  307 
Turcoing-Roubaix,  battle  of,  247 
Turgot,  A.  R.  J.  (Baron  de  1'Aulne), 

Comptroller-general  ,132 
Turin,  222,  233,  237,  264,  288,  292 
Turks,  the  Ottoman  (Turkey,  Turkish 
empire),  37,  40,  70,  93,  149,  179,  183, 
191,    202  ff.,    223,    255,    285-6,291; 
Napoleon  and,  313,  315,  332  ff.;  war 
on,    358-9;    368,    371;    and    British 
trade,  380-1 ;  392,  464,  491-2,  5*5 
Tuscany,  71,  260,  336,  456,  500-1 

—  Ferdinand  III,  Grand-duke  of,  273, 

™45? 

Tyrol,  294,  371 

Udine,  281 
Ukraine,  the,  388 
Ulm,  capitulation  of,  343  ff. 
Ulrica  Eleanora,  Queen  of  Sweden,  74 
"  United  Irishmen,"  Society  of,  273 
United    States    of   America,    the,    and 
France,     131  ff. ;    and    Spain,     132; 
(1783),    136-40,    146;    Neutrality  of 
(1793),  156;  200,  231,  258,  315,  350, 
357,  367,  375 ;  and  Orders  in  Council, 
377-8,  385,  525;  at  war  with  Great 
Britain  (1812),  528-9 ;  and  the  Pacific, 

527 

—  —     —  Congress  of,  357 
Upper  Gelderland,  345 
Ushant,  327 

Utrecht,  Peace  of  (1713),  43,  47  ff.,  68, 
71,81,  125,  138,259 

—  Treaties  of  (1713),  47-58,  166 

Valdez,   Spanish   Minister  of  Marine, 

257-8 
Valenciennes,    239,    240;    surrendered, 

247, 558 


Valetta,  288,  297,  3°°,  308,  314,  318, 

32i,  339 

Valmy,  battle  of,  215 
Valtelline,  the,  494 
Van  Berkel,  Pensionary,  136 
Vancouver,  George,  223 

—  Island,  197 

Vansittart,  Nicholas  (Lord  Bexley),  394, 

446,  464,  473 
Varennes,  flight  to,  208-9 
Vatican,  the;  see  Papacy 
Vaubois,  C.-H.  Belgrand,  Comte  de,  297 
Vaudois,  Protestants,  23 
Venetia,  348 

Venetian  Republic,  the,  276,  281-2 
Venice,  10,  255,  281,  358,  409 
Venloo,  57 

Vera  Cruz,  naval  battle  of  (1657),  25 
V£rac,  Ambassador,  172-3 
Verden,  61 ;  see  Bremen 
Verdun,  352 
Vere,  Sir  Horace,  10 
Vergennes,  Charles  G.,  Count  of,  132, 

135,  138-9,  146-73 
Vergniaud,  P.-V.,  262 
Vernon,  Admiral  Sir  Edward,  87 
Versailles,  Court  and  Ministry  of,  146, 

175 

—  Treaty  of  (1783),  148  ff.,  164,  535 

—  negotiations  at  (1756),  101,  102 

—  Treaties    of   (1756),    102  ff.,    120; 
(1758),  117;  see  Paris  and  Versailles 

Vesoul,  447 

Victor  Amadeus  III,  King  of  Sardinia, 

225 
Vienna,  37,  182,  193,  291,  372,  462  ff. 

—  Treaty  of  (1725),  79-80 

—  Second  Treaty  of  (1731),  83 

—  Third  Treaty  of  (1738),  84 

—  Treaties  of  (1814-5),  29,  370, 483  ff. 

—  Congress    of   (1814-5),   453,    459, 
461-500;    Secret    Treaty    of    Great 
Britain,  France  and  Austria,  479-80, 
488;  Treaty  of  January  3rd  (1815), 
483,  502;  Declaration  of  March  I3th, 
502-3 ;  Treaty  of  March  25th,  503-4 ; 
539 

—  Court  and  Ministry  of,  158,  185, 
196,  206,  209-10,  218,  221-2,  237-92 
passim,  311,  342,  365 

—  Final  Act,  the,  492-8 

View  of  the  State  of  the  Republic,  318 

Vilna,  386 

Vimeira,  battle  of,  369 

Vincent,  Freiherr  Karl  von,  487 

Virginia,  n,  94 

Vistula,  the,   186,  204,  222,  243,  423, 

465,  470 
Vitrolles,  E.-F.-A.  d'Arnaud,  Baron  de, 

448 

Vittoria,  battle  of,  405 
Volney,  Constantin  F.  C.,  Comte  de,  199 
Voltaire,  Fr.-M.  Arouet  de,  116 
Vonck,  Francis,  188,  202 


INDEX 


Vorontzoff  (Woronzow),  Count  Michael, 
192,  238,  295 

—  Count  Simon,  324-5,  332,  33"-?, 
34°,  345-6 

Vosges,  the,  215 

Waal,  the,  251,  253 

Walcheren  expedition,  the,  372~4,  3^3 

Waldeck,  Prince  George  Frederick  of,  39 

Waldegrave,  James,  Earl,  83 

Wales,  3 

Wall,  Don  Ricardo,  in,  115,  121,  130 

Wallachia,  178,  192 

Walpole,  Horace  (Lord  Walpole),  68,  82 

—  Lord  (afterwards  Earl  of  Orford), 

—  Sir  Robert  (Earl  of  Orford),  60,  69, 
76,  78,  81-8;  128 

Walsingham,  Sir  Francis,  9 

Warren,  Sir  John  Borlase,  316,  332,  334, 

528 
Warsaw,  204,  222,  252,  358,  461 

—  duchy  of,  403,  482-3 
Washington,  221 ;  capture  of,  538,  540 

—  George,  156-7,  198 
Waterloo,  battle  of,  504 
Wedgwood,  Josiah,  167-8 
Wellesley,  Sir  Henry  (Lord  Cowley), 

—  Richard  Colley,  Marquis  Wellesley, 
373  ft-,  378,  382-91,  446,  503 

Wellington,  Arthur  Wellesley,  Duke  of, 
in  Spain,  368-83  passim;  394,  405, 
407;  at  Paris,  444-62  passim;  at 
Vienna,  477-96  passim;  501-12,  539; 
makes  a  Convention  with  Fouche", 
506-7 

Weser,  mouth  of  the,  14,  64,  303,  350 
Wessenberg,  Baron  John  von,  402 
West  Indies,  the  English,  and  conquests 
of,  17,  125,  153  if.,  232,  241  ff.,  272, 
275,  304,  306,  315,  351,  366,  384,  431, 
440,  496,  55.1,  573 

—  —  war  in  (1762),  123 

—  —  the  French,  132,  156,  440 

—  —  the    Spanish,    22,    41,    48-9, 
258-9 

Westminster,  Peace  of  (1674),  33 

—  Treaty  of  (1716),  62 ;  (1756),  100  ff. 
Westphalia,  254-5 

—  Peace  of  (1648),  13  ff.,  40,  225 
West  Prussia,  179 
Weymouth,  218 

—  Thos.  Thynne,  Viscount  (Marquis 
of  Bath),  131 

Whigs,  the,  128,  140;  and  the  War  of 

1812,  528 
Whitbread,  Samuel,  314,  327,  364,  454 

464,  473,  486,  504 
Whitelock,  Bulstrode,  22 


Whitworth,  Charles,  Earl,  179,  204, 
222-3,  230-1.  247,  286-7,  289,  290, 
300,  303,  312-25 

—  Charles,  Lord,  75 

Wickham,  William,  261,  263,  293,  297-8 
Wilberforce,   William,    260,   314,    398, 

495  ff- 
Wilhelmina,  consort  of  William  V  of 

Orange,  162,  171  ff.,  180 
Wilkes,  John,  127 
William  the  Conqueror,  i 

—  I,  King  of  the  Netherlands  (1815), 
of  Holland  (1830)  (Prince  of  Orange), 
422,  424,  430,  434,  452,  460,  462,  482 

—  II  (of  Orange),  Stadholder,  17 

—  Ill    of    Orange,    Stadholder,    32, 
34-8 ;  King  of  England,  39 ;  policy  of, 
40-4,  57,  59 

—  IV,  of  Orange,   Stadholder,    116, 
143,  159;  described,   160,  162;  171, 
226,  234,  251,  255,  290,  295;  criti- 
cised, 588 

Williams,  Sir  Charles  Hanbury,  104 
Wilson,  Sir  Robert,  361,  399,  412,  456, 

459,  460 
Windham,  William,  219, 229, 260,  265-6, 

272,  277-8,  281,  298,  311,  314-5,  330, 

348,  360,  364 
Windsor,  253 
Wingo  Sound,  380 
Wintzingerode,  Baron  Ferdinand  von, 

442,  445 
Wismar,  66 
Witt,  John  de,  Grand  Pensionary,  20, 

26,  28,  30,  32 

Wolfenbuttel,  Treaty  of  (1728),  82 
Wolsey,  Cardinal,  6 
Wordsworth,  William,  Sonnets  of,  315 
Worms,  Treaty  of  (1743),  88 
Wotton,  Sir  Henry,  10 
Wrede,  Karl  P.,  Prince  von,  416 
Wiirtemberg,  297 

Wusterhausen,  Treaty  of  (1725),  80 
Wyndham,  Sir  William,  85 

Yarmouth,  Francis  Seymour- Con  way, 
Earl  of  (2nd  Marquis  of  Hertford), 
240,  243-4,  352,  354 

Yorck  von  Wartenburg,  Hans  D.  L., 
Count,  391 

York,  Frederick,  Duke  of,  240,  244,  246, 

249,  253,  295 
Yorkshire,  367 
Yorktown,  136,  169 
Ypres,  57,  246 
Yriarte,  Spanish  Envoy,  258 

Zealand,  233,  321 
Zuboff,  Platon,  303 
Zurich,  292,  294 


END  OF  VOL.  I 


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