Part 44 (1/2)

[659] Hansard, i, 1899-1902.

[660] ”Mems. of Lady Hester Stanhope,” i, 174.

[661] Lady Hester's second brother.

[662] G. Rose, ”Diaries,” ii, 70-2; Desbriere, ”Projets de Debarquement,” iii, 98-105; Wheeler and Broadley, ”Napoleon and the Invasion of England,” ii, ch. 14; Cornwallis (”Corresp.,” iii, 500) thought ill of our chances if the French landed, but he doubted if they could. (_Ibid._, iii, 503.)

[663] Pitt MSS., 157.

[664] ”Dropmore P.,” vii, 193, 196.

[665] Pretyman MSS. It is in answer to the one referred to in ”Dropmore P.,” vii, 209.

[666] ”Dropmore P.,” vii, 211-14.

[667] Pretyman MSS.

[668] ”Creevey Papers,” i, 25-7.

[669] Pretyman MSS.

[670] Stanhope, iv, 139-44.

[671] Pretyman MSS.

[672] From Mr. A. M. Broadley's MSS.

[673] Stanhope, iv, App. viii-ix.

[674] G. Rose, ”Diaries,” i, 4.

[675] Stanhope, iv, 177.

[676] Pitt thoroughly approved of Castlereagh taking the India Board under Addington in July 1802; in October he entered the Cabinet (”Private Papers of Wilberforce,” 131).

[677] Wraxall (iii, 281) with his usual bias says that Pitt ”affected”

to desire the inclusion of Fox.

[678] ”Life of Wilberforce,” iii, 168, 182, 184, 211, 212.

[679] _Ibid._, iii, 230-4; Pitt MSS., 189.

CHAPTER XXIII

PITT AND NAPOLEON

I made a mistake about England, in trying to conquer it. The English are a brave nation. I have always said that there are only two nations, the English and the French; and I made the French.--NAPOLEON TO MACNAMARA (1814), _Lord Broughton's Recollections_, i, 180.

The two protagonists now stood face to face--Napoleon, Emperor of the French, President of the Italian Republic, Mediator of the Swiss Republic, controller of Holland, absolute ruler of a great military Empire; Pitt, the Prime Minister of an obstinate and at times half-crazy King, dependent on a weak Cabinet, a disordered Exchequer, a Navy weakened by ill-timed economies, and land forces whose martial ardour ill made up for lack of organization, equipment, and training. Before the outbreak of war in May 1803, Napoleon had summed up the situation in the words--”Forty-five millions of people must prevail over sixteen millions.” And now after a year of hostilities his position was far stronger. In Hanover the French troops were profitably installed on the Elector's domains. Soult's corps occupied the Neapolitan realm, thus threatening Malta, the Ionian Isles, the Morea, and Egypt. The recent rest.i.tution of several colonial conquests by England not only damaged her trade, but enabled her enemy to stir up trouble in India. There, thanks to Wellesley's dramatic victory at a.s.saye, the Union Jack waved in triumph; but at other points Napoleon might hope to gain the long contested race for Empire.

So convinced was Pitt of the need of fighting out the quarrel thrust upon us by Napoleon's aggressions, that he waved aside an offer of Livingston, American envoy at Paris, to effect a reconciliation. During a brief visit to London, Livingston sent proposals to this effect through Whitworth, who declined to meet a man hitherto remarkable for a strong anti-British bias; and Pitt approved this repulse.[680]

Nevertheless, on 5th June Livingston, accompanied by Fox and Grey, called on Pitt at Downing Street; but his proposals proved to be merely the outcome of informal conversations with Joseph Bonaparte, who was known to be far more peacefully inclined than his brother. Joseph's notions were that Malta should perhaps be garrisoned by Russians, and must in any case be relinquished by England; that France should withdraw her troops from the Dutch and Swiss Republics, the status of which was not defined.[681] Pitt set little store by these shadowy proposals, doubtless seeing in them a way of discovering whether England was concerting a league against France.