William Pitt the Younger: A Biography by Hague William

Author:Hague, William [Hague, William]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780007480937
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2012-05-30T16:00:00+00:00

18

Frustrations of Supremacy

‘I mean to submit to the house, that at the present moment, perseverance in the contest is more wise and prudent, and more likely in the end to effect a safe, lasting, and honourable peace, than any attempt at negotiation.’

WILLIAM PITT, 27 MAY 17951

THE FAILURE TO GAIN a decisive advantage over France in 1793 was arguably the single most calamitous occurrence in the life of Pitt, for from it so much of the pain and tragedy of later years unfolded. On the surface, as we have seen, he retained his sanguine disposition. Jenkinson noted that ‘I never saw any Public Man who appeared so little desponding or who bore up so firmly against misfortunes. He had particularly the faculty of laying his cares aside, of amusing himself with an idle book, or a comparatively trivial conversation, at the time he was engaged in the most important business, & I have heard him say that no anxiety nor calamity had ever seriously affected his sleep.’2 But as the war progressed Pitt would find it harder to sleep soundly, and from 1794 onwards the opportunities for enjoying trivia and idle books would become rarer: ‘I am however fully persuaded that the public misfortunes which he was doomed to witness had the most sensible effect in undermining his Constitution.’3 The mental pressures would now become intense, and would begin to take a physical toll.

1794 opened with a dramatic multiplication of the threats which Pitt had to face: the military situation was more daunting, the unity of the anti-French coalition was faltering, the possibility of an invasion of the British Isles growing, the appearance of domestic rebellion mushrooming, and the carefully calibrated budgetary plans of previous years were broken beyond repair. Such a situation was no longer a mere interruption of routine, but required an entirely new level of effort and concentration. To a mind which was apt to concentrate on one subject at a time it would mean strain, and to a man who felt he must control the whole of the essential business of government it would mean a workload of crushing weight.

Pitt’s declaration that a government based on terror would be overthrown was the centrepiece of his speech at the opening of Parliament on 21 January 1794. It is perhaps revealing that his confidence in victory was predicated on the internal collapse of the enemy rather than the military success of the allies. His new emphasis on the criminal nature of the French regime not only enabled him to avoid the hazarding of military predictions, but helped to unite what was becoming a domestic coalition under his leadership. Fox that day had moved an amendment to the King’s Speech calling for ‘peace with France … without any reference to the nature or form of the government that might exist in that country’.4 The continued opposition of Fox to the ‘madness’ of the war, which he claimed had been started ‘by artifice’5 and ought to result in French success as

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