1755 PITT OPPOses subsidies. 437 Hanover CHAP. ministry, Pitt answered by denouncing subsidies. could not be defended by subsidies. Hanover should be XXVI. defended by the empire and, if invaded, its restitution should be made a condition of peace. At an interview on September 2, Pitt addressed himself to a constitutional question, already raised by Fox with his cognisance. Newcastle, ever fearful of a rival, had persuaded the king "to have no minister at the head of the house of commons". Pitt boldly challenged the principle. He refused to be bought by an offer, made with the king's reluctant permission, of a seat in the cabinet. The utmost he would concede was to vote for the Hessian subsidy, as the duke urged that the king's honour was already pledged to it. For other subsidies, whether Saxon, Bavarian, or Russian, he would never vote. Since an interview Pitt had had with Hardwicke on August 9, the situation of Newcastle, as Pitt very well knew, had become more critical. Legge, the chancellor of the exchequer, had for some time past followed Pitt in cultivating the good graces of the Princess of Wales. The council of regency had signed the Hessian subsidy treaty, without examination and as a matter of course, on the intimation by Newcastle that it was at the king's command. To the general astonishment, when the necessary treasury warrants were laid before Legge, he peremptorily refused his signature. In his desperation Newcastle turned to Fox, who had always regretted his former refusal of promotion. Fox, as a champion of the war party, was in principle favourable to subsidies. He therefore accepted Newcastle's proposals, and in November obtained what the king had before refused to grant, "not only the lead but the power of the house of commons" with the secretaryship of state for the southern province in place of Robinson. Pitt now found himself and his group isolated and could look for support only to his allies of Leicester House, where Fox, as "Cumberland's minister," was in disfavour with the princess. The intermediary who came forward to organise the new opposition was the princess's favourite, Lord Bute, a man with a taste for amateur acting, "a good person, fine legs, and a theatrical air of the greatest importance, but no substantial acquirements". The Leicester I See Fox to the King, April 25, 1755, Chatham Correspondence, i., 128, CHAP, House party thenceforth consisted of Legge, Lord Egmont, Sir George Lee, the Duke of Devonshire, and Dodington, reinforced by Pitt and his followers. XXVI. "He sur The session of parliament which opened on November 13, 1755, at so grave a crisis of affairs, was distinguished by the brilliancy of its debates, recorded by the accomplished pen of Horace Walpole. In the commons an address was moved by Lord Hillsborough, pledging the house "to assist His Majesty against insults and attacks that may be made upon any of His Majesty's dominions, though not belonging to the Crown of Great Britain". It was the language of the act of settlement and directly challenged the issue of Hanover. Pitt, determined upon a final rupture both with the ministry and the court, attacked the policy of the government on the ground that it was directed to the defence of the Electorate. passed himself," writes the enthusiastic Horace Walpole, "and then I need not tell you that he surpassed Cicero and Demosthenes." But the address was carried by 311 to 105 votes. A few days later, Pitt, Legge, and George Grenville were dismissed and James Grenville resigned his place on the board of trade. Dodington had, as usual, played false. On December 17 he received the treasurership of the navy. Another old friend of Pitt, Sir George Lyttelton, also reaped the reward of desertion and was appointed chancellor of the exchequer, the final breach of his "historic friendship" with Pitt. One further incident of this debate remains to be mentioned; a speech which "was at once perfection" by William Gerard Hamilton, thereafter known as "Single-speech Hamilton" from his subsequent failure to redeem the brilliant promise of his first effort. Opposed though Pitt was to a lavishing of promiscuous subsidies, he realised the necessity, in view of a struggle with France, of increasing the military resources of the country, and on December 5 advocated an augmentation of the army by 15,000 men. On March 12, 1756, Colonel George Townshend, afterwards field-marshal, introduced into the house of commons a scheme for the reorganisation of the militia as a defence against invasion. His idea was to substitute for a levy en masse a regularly trained army of reserve, numbering 61,000 men, drilled twice a week and reviewed quarterly by 1756 CONVENTION OF WESTMINSTER. 439 the lords-lieutenants of their counties. Pitt as a soldier knew CHAP. XXVI. the value of military discipline and warmly supported the proposal. But ancient prejudice was strong. Though Pitt's advocacy was successful in securing the passage of the bill through the commons, it was thrown out by the lords. "It would," declared Newcastle, who led the opposition to it, "tend more to make this a military country and government than any scheme I have yet heard of." Indeed, a scheme which proposed by a training of three years to pass 240,000 men through the ranks in twelve years out of a population of under 7,500,0001 merited such a description. The ministry, however, at the end of the year obtained a second augmentation, raising the army in Great Britain to 40,000, and the Irish parliament voted an establishment of 12,000 men. The provocations offered by England at sea since the summer of 1755, which France had been unable to resent, made war imminent. In January, 1756, the French minister of foreign affairs, Rouillé, formally notified it as the alternative to immediate redress. Yet, with the exception of Prussia, there was no first-class power upon whom England could count. The position of Frederick was at the moment one of extreme delicacy. In January, 1753, he had been placed in possession of a copy of the secret articles of a treaty between Russia and Austria, dated May 22-June 2, 1746, for the restitution of Silesia to Austria and the partition of the Prussian kingdom. He determined, after some hesitation, to enter into alliance with England. By the convention of Westminster, signed on January 16, 1756, Prussia and England agreed to unite to resist the invasion of Germany by foreign powers. A settlement was made of the outstanding grievance of the Silesian loan. The great object of George II. was now attained, Hanover was placed under a Prussian protectorate. France was isolated. For a while she hesitated. She cared nothing for Silesia. The ministers of Louis XV. knew that in the impoverished condition of the country they could "not support the war both at sea and at land". They intended, 1 Malthus estimated it as 7,721,000 in England and Wales in 1780. Essay on Population, 2 vols., 6th ed., 1826, i., 435. 2 Duke of Newcastle to Duke of Devonshire, January 10, 1756, Newcastle Papers, Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 32,862, f. 58. CHAP. therefore, "to confine the war to their marine and North XXVI. America".1 But the bait of compensation in Flanders and Brabant held out to them by the Austrian ambassador Stahremberg, led them into the first steps of a policy fatal to the real interests of their country. By the treaty of Versailles of May 1, 1756, the traditions of French diplomacy were revolutionised and an alliance entered into with Austria. Pending these negotiations, the French made vigorous preparations for a naval war. Newcastle was well served with intelligence. Among the Newcastle papers are transcripts of the official dispatches of Bunge, the Swedish minister at Paris, and letters of the most confidential character from an anonymous informer.2 The French naval estimates for 1756 exceeded the £3,000,000 estimated for England. Dispatches of Bunge of February 6 and 20 disclosed that transports were being collected under the supervision of Marshal Belleisle for an invasion of England. On January 26 the informer sent intelligence that the "Court had a design on Port Mahon". "An offer," wrote the spy from Versailles on February 22,3 "hath been actually made the Court of Madrid to take Port Mahon at our own expense, to assist them in the siege of Gibraltar, and to guarantee both these places to the Crown of Spain. . . . The Toulon Squadron is fitting out with great expedition and will be employed in convoying our troops to Minorca, if the Court of Madrid come into our measures.” The same news came on the 4th from the British consul at Genoa, and in March warnings as to preparations for an invasion of England and Ireland as well as for an attack on Minorca were repeated. The West Indies and America were also to be attacked, and attempts were to be made on Guernsey and Jersey and an invasion of Sussex simulated in order to "make England keep a number of her ships at home ".5 Similar 1 Secret information to Newcastle, Newcastle to Devonshire, January 2, 1756, Newcastle Papers, Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 32,862, f. 5. 2 Intelligence from Paris on August 25, 1756, ibid., 32,867, £. 42, and Fontainebleau, October 20, 1756, ibid., 32,868, f. 392. 3 Ibid., f. 184, March 4, 1756. "The Cardinal (de Bernis) told me at Rome in 1771 that the cabals ran so high against him at Court that the only struggle there was how to give the most certain intelligence to England of the design against Minorca on purpose that it might fail." _Ld. Shelburne in Fitzmaurice's Life of Shelburne, i., 80. "Newcastle Papers, Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 32,863, f. 59. 1756 STATE OF THE NAVY. 441 intelligence as to Minorca reached Fox, as secretary for the CHAP. south, from Madrid about the same time.1 On March 23, 1756, a message from the king announced the imminence of an invasion and that the 8,000 Hessians stipulated under the Hessian treaty had been summoned. Both houses addressed the king to send over a body of Hanoverians. The convention of Westminster was laid before the house of commons on May 11, and a vote taken of £1,000,000 for general war purposes. But there was a general sense that the country was drifting into war unprepared. Pitt, always attentive to popular feeling, violently denounced the ministry on this account. Newcastle, indeed, had refused to believe it must be war, but Cumberland and his satellite Fox, who were for driving things to extremes, had, as early as Christmas, 1755, pressed for the dispatch of a squadron to Minorca, There were, however, difficulties for which ministers were not wholly to blame. Popular jealousy of freedom had stood in the way of systematic recruitment of the navy. The sailing of Admiral John Byng, who had been nominated to the command, was delayed a few days, while the last 200 men were being brought in by the press-gangs. The crews thus got together were held cheap by the French. The Duke de Mirepoix bragged to Newcastle "that thirty of his master's ships would amuse eighty of ours". Nor was the spirit of the officers always such as to compensate for the doubtful quality of the crews. Anson, first lord of the admiralty, wrote on June 6, 1756, not of Byng but of Boscawen, an officer with a fighting reputation, "I don't know how it comes to pass, that unless our commanders-in-chief have a very great superiority of the enemy, they never think themselves safe". To use a current expression, the sea service was "slack". It responded, indeed, to the general tone. “I want," exclaimed Pitt, "to call this country out of that enervate state that 20,000 men from France could shake it." The last commander capable of this feat was Byng, whom his operations on the southern coast of France in 1747 had already proved wanting in enterprise and energy. But he had solicited 1 Keene to Fox, March 22, 1756, Newcastle Papers, Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 32,863, f. 434. 2 Ibid., 32,865, f. 221. 3 Du Cane MSS., introd., xviii., xix. XXVI. |