It must be owned, too, that the obect of the Alarmists in the war, however grossly inconsistent with their former principles, had the merit of being far more definite than that of Mr. Pitt; and, had it been singly and consistently pursued from the first, with all the vigor and concentration of means so strenuously recommended by Mr. Burke, might have justified its quixotism in the end by a more speedy and less ruinous success. As it was, however, the divisions, jealousies and alarms which Mr. Pitt’s views towards a future dismemberment of France excited not only among the Continental powers, but among the French themselves, completely defeated every hope and plan for either concert without or co operation within. At the same time, the distraction of the efforts of England from the heart of French power to its remote extremities, in what Mr. Windham called “a war upon sugar Islands,” was a waste of means as unstatesmanlike as it was calamitous, and fully entitled Mr. Pitt to the satire on his policy, conveyed in the remark of a certain distinguished lady, who said to him, upon hearing of some new acquisition in the West Indies, “I protest, Mr. Pitt, if you go on thus, you will soon be master of every island in the world except just those two little ones, England and Ireland.” [Footnote: Mr. Sheridan quoted this anecdote in one of his speeches in 1794.]
That such was the light in which Mr. Sheridan himself viewed the mode of carrying on the war recommended by the Alarmists, in comparison with that which Mr. Pitt in general adopted, appears from the following passage in his speech upon Spanish affairs in the year 1808: —
“There was hardly a person, except his Right Honorable Friend near him, (Mr. Windham,) and Mr. Burke, who since the Revolution of France had formed adequate notions of the necessary steps to be taken. The various governments which this country had seen during that period were always employed in filching for a sugar-island, or some other object of comparatively trifling moment, while the main and principal purpose was lost and forgotten,”
Whatever were the failures of Mr. Pitt abroad, at home his ascendancy was fixed and indisputable; and, among all the triumphs of power which he enjoyed during his career, the tribute now paid to him by the Whig Aristocracy, in taking shelter under his ministry from the dangers of Revolution, could not have been the least gratifying to his haughty spirit. The India Bill had ranged on his side the King and the People, and the Revolution now brought to his banner the flower of the Nobility of both parties. His own estimate of rank may be fairly collected both from the indifference which he showed to its honors himself, and from the depreciating profusion with which he lavished them upon others. It may be doubted whether his respect for Aristocracy was much increased, by the readiness which he now saw in some of his high-born opponents, to volunteer for safety into his already powerful ranks, without even pausing to try the experiment, whether safety might not have been reconcilable with principle in their own. It is certain that, without the accession of so much weight and influence, he never could have ventured upon the violations of the Constitution that followed — nor would the Opposition, accordingly, have been driven by these excesses of power into that reactive violence which was the natural consequence of an effort to resist them. The prudent apprehensions, therefore, of these Noble Whigs would have been much more usefully as well as honorably employed, in mingling with, and moderating the proceedings of the friends of Liberty, than in ministering fresh fuel to the zeal and vindictiveness of her enemies. [Footnote: The case against these Noble Seceders is thus spiritedly stated by Lord Moira: —
“I cannot ever sit in a cabinet with the Duke of Portland. He appears to me to have done more injury to the Constitution and to the estimation of the higher ranks in this country than any man on the political stage. By his union with Mr. Pitt he has given it to be understood by the people, that either all the constitutional charges which he and his friends for so many years urged against Mr. Put were groundless, or that, being solid, there was no difficulty in waving them when a convenient partition of powers and emoluments was proposed. In either case the people must infer that the constitutional principle which can be so played with is unimportant, and that parliamentary professions are no security.” — Letter from the Earl of Moira to Colonel M’Mahon, in 1797. Parliamentary History.]
It may be added, too, that in allowing themselves to be persuaded by Burke, that the extinction of the ancient Noblesse of France portended necessarily any danger to the English Aristocracy, these Noble persons did injustice to the strength of their own order, and to the characteristics by which it is proudly distinguished from every other race of Nobility in Europe. Placed, as a sort of break-water, between the People and the Throne, in a state of double responsibility to liberty on one side, and authority on the other, the Aristocracy of England hold a station which is dignified by its own great duties, and of which the titles transmitted by their ancestors form the least important ornament. Unlike the Nobility of other countries, where the rank and privileges of the father are multiplied through his offspring, and equally elevate them all above the level of the community, the very highest English Nobleman must consent to be the father but of commoners. Thus, connected with the class below him by private as well as public sympathies, he gives his children to the People as hostages for the sincerity of his zeal in their cause — while on the other hand, the People, in return for these pledges of the Aristocracy, sends a portion of its own elements aloft into that higher region, to mingle with its glories and assert their claim to a share in its power. By this mutual transfusion an equilibrium is preserved, like that which similar processes maintain in the natural world, and while a healthy, popular feeling circulates through the Aristocracy, a sense of their own station in the scale elevates the People.
To tremble for the safety of a Nobility so constituted, without much stronger grounds for alarm than appear to have existed in 1793, was an injustice not only to that class itself, but the whole nation. The world has never yet afforded an example, where this artificial distinction between mankind has been turned to such beneficial account; and as no monarchy can exist without such an order, so, in any other shape than this, such an order is a burden and a nuisance. In England, so happy a conformation of her Aristocracy is one of those fortuitous results which time and circumstances have brought out in the long-tried experiment of her Constitution; and, while there is no chance of its being ever again attained in the Old World, there is but little, probability of its being attempted in the New, — where the youthful nations now springing into life, will, if they are wise, make the most of the free career before them, and unencumbered with the costly trappings of feudalism, adopt, like their northern neighbors, that form of government, whose simplicity and cheapness are the best guarantees for its efficacy and purity.
In judging of the policy of Mr. Pitt, during the Revolutionary war, his partisans, we know, laud it as having been the means of salvation to England, while his opponents assert that it was only prevented by chance from being her ruin — and though the event gives an appearance of triumph to the former opinion, it by no means removes or even weakens the grounds of the latter. During the first nine years of his administration, Mr. Pitt was, in every respect, an able and most useful minister, and, “while the sea was calm, showed mastership in floating.” But the great events that happened afterwards took him by surprise. When he came to look abroad from his cabinet into the storm that was brewing through Europe, the clear and enlarged view of the higher order of statesman was wanting. Instead of elevating himself above the influence of the agitation and alarm that prevailed, he gave way to it with the crowd of ordinary minds, and even took counsel from the panic of others. The consequence was a series of measures, violent at home and inefficient abroad — far short of the mark where vigor was wanting, and beyond it, as often, where vigor was mischievous.
When we are told to regard his policy as the salvation of the country — when, (to use a figure of Mr. Dundas,) a claim of salvage is made for him — it may be allowed us to consider a little the nature of the measures by which this alleged s
alvation was achieved. If entering into a great war without either consistency of plan, or preparation of means, and with a total ignorance of the financial resources of the enemy [Footnote: Into his erroneous calculations upon this point he is supposed to have been led by Sir Francis D’Ivernois.] — if allowing one part of the Cabinet to flatter the French Royalists, with the hope of seeing the Bourbons restored to undiminished power, while the other part acted, whenever an opportunity offered, upon the plan of dismembering France for the aggrandizement of Austria, and thus, at once, alienated Prussia at the very moment of subsidizing him, and lost the confidence of all the Royalist party in France, [Footnote: Among other instances, the Abbé Maury is reported to have said at Rome in a large company of his countrymen— “Still we have one remedy — let us not allow France to be divided — we have seen the partition of Poland we must all turn Jacobins to preserve our country.”] except the few who were ruined by English assistance at Quiberon — if going to war in 1793 for the right of the Dutch to a river, and so managing it that in 1794 the Dutch lost their whole Seven Provinces — if lavishing more money upon failures than the successes of a century had cost, and supporting this profusion by schemes of finance, either hollow and delusive, like the Sinking Fund, or desperately regardless of the future, like the paper issues — if driving Ireland into rebellion by the perfidious recall of Lord Fitzwilliam, and reducing England to two of the most, fearful trials, that a nation, depending upon Credit and a navy, could encounter, the stoppage of her Bank and a mutiny in her fleet — if, finally, floundering on from effort to effort against France, and then dying upon the ruins of the last Coalition he could muster against her — if all this betokens a wise and able minister, then is Mr. Pitt most amply entitled to that name; — then are the lessons of wisdom to be read, like Hebrew, backward, and waste and rashness and systematic failure to be held the only true means of saving a country.
Had even success, by one of those anomalous accidents, which sometimes baffle the best founded calculations of wisdom, been the immediate result of this long monotony of error, it could not, except with those to whom the event is every thing— “Eventus, stultorum magister” [Footnote: A saying of the wise Fabius.] — reflect back merit upon the means by which it was achieved, or, by a retrospective miracle, convert that into wisdom, which chance had only saved from the worst consequences of folly. Just as well might we be called upon to pronounce Alchemy a wise art, because a perseverance in its failures and reveries had led by accident to the discoveries of Chemistry. But even this sanction of good-luck was wanting to the unredeemed mistakes of Mr. Pitt. During the eight years that intervened between his death and the termination of the contest, the adoption of a far wiser policy was forced upon his more tractable pupils; and the only share that his measures can claim in the successful issue of the war, is that of having produced the grievance that was then abated — of having raised up the power opposed to him to the portentous and dizzy height, from which it then fell by the giddiness of its own elevation, [Footnote:
— “summisque negatum Stare din.”
LUCAN.] and by the reaction, not of the Princes, but the People of Europe against its yoke.
What would have been the course of affairs, both foreign and domestic, had Mr. Fox — as was, at one time, not improbable — been the Minister during this period, must be left to that superhuman knowledge, which the schoolmen call “media scientia,” and which consists in knowing all that would have happened, had events been otherwise than they have been. It is probable that some of the results would not have been so different as the respective principles of Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox might naturally lead us, on the first thought, to assert. If left to himself, there is little doubt that the latter, from the simple and fearless magnanimity of his nature, would have consulted for the public safety with that moderation which true courage inspires; and that, even had it been necessary to suspend the Constitution for a season, he would have known how to veil the statue of Liberty, [Footnote: “Il y a des cas ou il faut mettre pour un moment un voile sur la Liberté, comme l’on cache les statues des dieux.” — MONTESQUIEU, liv. xii. cha.] without leaving like his rival, such marks of mutilation on its limbs. But it is to be recollected that he would have had to encounter, in his own ranks, the very same patrician alarm, which could even to Mr. Pitt give an increase of momentum against liberty, and which the possession of power would have rendered but more sensitive and arbitrary. Accustomed, too, as he had long been, to yield to the influence of Burke, it would have required more firmness than habitually belonged to Mr. Fox, to withstand the persevering impetuosity of such a counsellor, or keep the balance of his mind unshaken by those stupendous powers, which, like the horses of the Sun breaking out of the ecliptic, carried every thing they seized upon, so splendidly astray: —
“quaque impetus egit,
Hac sine lege ruunt, altoque sub aethere fixis
Incursant stellis, rapiuntque per avia currum.”
Where’er the impulse drives, they burst away
In lawless grandeur; — break into the array
Of the fix’d stars, and bound and blaze along
Their devious course, magnificently wrong!
Having hazarded these general observations, upon the views and conduct of the respective parties of England, during the Crusade now begun against the French people, I shall content myself with briefly and cursorily noticing the chief questions upon which Mr. Sheridan distinguished himself, in the course of the parliamentary campaigns that followed. The sort of guerilla warfare, which he and the rest of the small band attached to Mr. Fox carried on, during this period, against the invaders of the Constitution, is interesting rather by its general character than its detail; for in these, as usual, the episodes of party personality are found to encroach disproportionately on the main design, and the grandeur of the cause, as viewed at a distance, becomes diminished to our imaginations by too near an approach. Englishmen, however, will long look back to that crisis with interest; and the names of Fox, of Sheridan, and of Grey will be affectionately remembered, when that sort of false elevation, which party-feeling now gives to the reputations of some who were opposed to them, shall have subsided to its due level, or been succeeded by oblivion. They who act against the general sympathies of mankind, however they may be artificially buoyed up for the moment, have the current against them in the long run of fame; while the reputation of those, whose talents have been employed upon the popular and generous side of human feelings, receives, through all time, an accelerating impulse from the countless hearts that go with it in its course. Lord Chatham, even now, supersedes his son in fame, and will leave him at an immeasurable distance with posterity.
Of the events of the private life of Mr. Sheridan, during this stormy part of his political career, there remain but few memorials among his papers. As an illustration, however, of his love of betting — the only sort of gambling in which he ever indulged — the following curious list of his wagers for the year is not unamusing: —
“25th May, 1793. — Mr. Sheridan bets Gen. Fitzpatrick one hundred guineas to fifty guineas, that within two years from this date some measure is adopted in Parliament which shall be (bonâ fide) considered as the adoption of a Parliamentary Reform.
“29th January, 1793. — Mr. S. bets Mr. Boothby Clopton five hundred guineas, that there is a Reform in the Representation of the people of England within three years from the date hereof.
“29th January, 1793. — Mr. S. bets Mr. Hardy one hundred guineas to fifty guineas, that Mr. W. Windham does not represent Norwich at the next general election.
“29th January, 1793. — Mr. S. bets Gen. Fitzpatrick fifty guineas, that a corps of British troops are sent to Holland within two months of the date hereof.
“18th March, 1793. — Mr. S. bets Lord Titchfield two hundred guineas, that the D. of Portland is at the head of an Administration on or before the 18th of March, 1796; Mr. Fox to decide whether any place the Duke may then fill shall bonâ fide come
within the meaning of this bet.
“25th March, 1793. — Mr. S. bets Mr. Hardy one hundred guineas, that the three per cent. consols are as high this day twelvemonth as at the date hereof.
“Mr. S. bets Gen. Tarleton one hundred guineas to fifty guineas, that Mr.
Pitt is first Lord of the Treasury on the 28th of May, 1795. — Mr. S. bets
Mr. St. A. St. John fifteen guineas to five guineas, ditto. — Mr. S. bets
Lord Sefton one hundred and forty guineas to forty guineas, ditto.
“19th March, 1793. — Lord Titchfield and Lord W. Russell bet Mr. S. three hundred guineas to two hundred guineas, that Mr. Pitt is first Lord of the Treasury on the 19th of March, 1795.
“18th March, 1793. — Lord Titchfield bets Mr. S. twenty-five guineas to fifty guineas, that Mr. W. Windham represents Norwich at the next general election.”
As a sort of moral supplement to this strange list, and one of those insights into character and conduct which it is the duty of a biographer to give, I shall subjoin a letter, connected evidently with one of the above speculations: —
Delphi Complete Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan Page 147
