Chapter XIX: Part 19

But it was not only in its political position that England had developed with extraordinary rapidity after the American War. The whole condition of those industrial arts which give work to the lower orders was changed, and an enormous impulse given to the employment of industry. In spite of the constant complaints of those who were bent upon asserting the decline of the nation, the population had been gradually increasing ever since the Revolution of 1688; the rate of increase in the thirty years preceding 1780 was about 400,000 a year. This increase of population had already begun to call fresh land into cultivation; between 1760 and 1770 no less than a thousand enclosure Bills were passed. The improved processes of husbandry did even more than the mere extent of cultivable area to increase the productive power of agriculture. But this agricultural production could never have increased at the rate it did had it not been that the proportion between consumers and producers of food was rapidly being altered; for it was this period which changed England from an agricultural to a manufacturing country, and placed the weight of population, which had hitherto been greater in the South, entirely in the North. By successive steps all the great improvements in spinning and weaving were introduced; the discovery that iron could be worked as well with pit coal as with charcoal gave an immense impetus to the second great branch of industry; and the improvement in the steam engine, which enabled machinery to be worked irrespective of local peculiarities, spread the manufactures, which had hitherto nestled among the hills for the sake of obtaining water-power, into all parts of the coal-producing districts. This burst of industry of necessity produced great economic changes. The employment of labour in manufactories tended to increase the population rapidly. The increase of numbers, the growth of wealth among the manufacturers, called into activity more skill in agriculture, and demanded the occupation of more land. Land to which recourse is had under this pressure is naturally the worse land; it therefore requires more labour to produce its crop, and the most laboriously produced crop sets the value of the whole; the prices of the necessaries of life began rapidly to rise. Though the use of machinery made many things cheaper, and improved methods of husbandry prevented prices from rising as they would otherwise have done, as a general rule, while the price of luxuries decreased, the price of necessaries rose. Wages did not rise with a proportionate rapidity, and it was still a question whether, if the French war had not intervened, the relation between food and consumption, between prices and wages, would have been satisfactorily arranged. It was however evident that all these improvements, while they created great wealth for the middle and mercantile classes, by no means rendered the position of the mechanic and artisan easier, while, at the same time, higher and more intelligent employment, and the more sedentary life led by the mechanic, were well suited to foster habits of thought, and to make the half-educated man a shallow reasoner, ready to accept crude ideas as to the measures best fitted to produce improvement in the social position of himself and his class; and such ideas, emanating from France, had been for some time widely spread among the people.

[Sidenote: Active condition of England abroad and at home.]

Thus, while England had gradually resumed her commanding position abroad, and was ready with allies to join in any external movement, and while the growing wealth of the mercantile world was rendering it daily more certain that any such movement would be in a conservative direction, the people--increased in numbers and intelligence, but not bettered in their general condition--were becoming ready to lend a willing ear to any measures which promised to improve the political position of their class. And it was just at this time that the French Revolution broke out.

[Sidenote: Causes of the French Revolution.]

On the 5th of May 1789 the States-General of France was assembled for the first time since the year 1614. The causes of this momentous event, which produced nothing less than a complete change in the history of the world, were of ancient growth; the explosion had been slowly preparing ever since Louis XIV. had completed the mistaken policy of centralization, and had been able to say that the King and the State were one. The power and importance of the Crown had been secured at the cost of the destruction or degradation of all the conservative elements of society. The nobility, deprived of their local power, had been summoned to the capital to swell the splendour of the Court; without duties they still continued to enjoy privileges, while the administrative power was practically centred in the hands of the royal intendants; they were exempt from direct taxation, and known to their tenantry and dependants only by the feudal dues which they exacted, and by certain remnants of feudal services they could still claim. The judicial body, the "nobility of the robe," held their position, not by merit or by legal knowledge, but by purchase. The upper clergy were drawn to the Court like the nobles, and lived in splendour, while the village curé had hardly the means of livelihood. The people, oppressed by unjust taxation, excluded from all hope of bettering their condition, saw themselves deserted by their natural guardians and leaders, who seemed to enjoy wealth wrung from their toil, and honours earned by no merit of their own, but solely on the ground of birth. The misery of their position was aggravated by the constant recurrence of famines, and they saw with rage the corn trade so manipulated by men in the highest position as to all appearance to increase the scarcity. But an oppressed people will suffer long in silence unless the temper of the class above them be such as to favour the expression of their discontent. Such a temper had been called into existence among the thinking middle classes by the growth of scepticism and materialistic philosophy. Drawn originally from English sources, from the writings of the philosophers of the English Revolution, this form of thought had found its exponent in Voltaire, from the keen shafts of whose wit no abuse and no institution was secure. Montesquieu had pushed the same spirit of inquiry into political and constitutional questions, and Rousseau, more sentimental and spiritual in his views, had supplied a firmer but no less revolutionary basis to society than was afforded by the purely negative teaching of Voltaire. The literary power of these men make them the best known exponents of the spirit of the time, but the spirit itself was prevalent everywhere. Thus, while the institutions of the country were radically bad, they were exposed to the fiercest and most destructive criticism, and ideas of the possibility and rightfulness of a happier state of things were suggested to the public mind. The conduct of the Court and Government was not of a character to blunt the criticisms directed against them; the finances were in a state of hopeless disorder. The accession of Louis XVI. had for a moment raised hopes of a change of system; Turgot, an honest and able man of reforming views, was summoned to the ministry. But as his plan included of necessity retrenchment on the part of the Court and the taxation of the privileged classes, Court, nobles, and magistracy made common cause against him, and he found their opposition too strong for him. The same fate attended every effort at reform. Minister after minister was called to office, content either to follow the old course, which was inevitably leading to bankruptcy, or obliged to yield before the selfish opposition of the privileged classes. In turn, Clugny, Necker, and Calonne withdrew discomfited. At length, in 1787, the Cardinal Lomenie de Brienne accepted the difficult post. Like his predecessors, he soon found that there was no resource but the extension of taxation. This brought him into collision with the Parlement, the chief court of justice, whose members were drawn from among the privileged class. They contrived for a while to give their opposition the appearance of a popular movement against the power of the Crown; they even went so far as to declare that the right of extending taxation resided in the States-General alone. It was in vain that the King superseded the Parlement, and produced a new and by no means injudicious constitution; the mention of the States-General had seemed to open a new view to the people; nothing short of them would now be accepted. The new constitution fell hopelessly to the ground; the King found it necessary to recall Necker, the only minister who had enjoyed any popular confidence, and his triumphant return was speedily followed by the meeting of the States.

[Sidenote: Assembly of the States-General. May 5, 1789.]

[Sidenote: The King brought to Paris. Oct. 6.]

The assembling of the States-General, which was by many regarded with hope as the close of the difficulties of France, proved but the beginning of troubles. The unprivileged classes had at length obtained the means of expressing their wants, and would be satisfied with nothing short of complete revolution. Unfortunately, the King, a well-meaning man, with a real love for his people, was of a slow intellect, and easily guided by those around him. He fell into the hands of the princes and courtiers, and was induced to make common cause with the privileged classes, which were at first the real object of attack. When the Commons, or Tiers Etat, declared themselves the real representation of the nation, and changed the States-General into a National Assembly, he attempted to check them by a royal sitting, only to find his authority disregarded. The Commons assembled in the Tennis Court at Versailles (June 20), swore to perfect the constitution, and became the dominant power in the nation. An attempt to check their further advance by force of arms, the collection of troops around Paris, the removal of the popular minister Necker and the appointment of the Marshal de Broglie to the command of the army, drove Paris to insurrection. The thorough untrustworthiness of the army was proved; the Bastille fell (July 14); the National Guard sprang into existence; and a revolutionary Commune at the Hôtel de Ville governed the capital. The power of the sword passed into the hands of the people. Though the Assembly continued the work of the constitution, though, on the 4th of August, the aristocracy, in a moment of wild enthusiasm, surrendered all its old feudal rights, the mistrust of the Parisians, aggravated by the famine and the difficulty of subsistence, continued to increase. The Court imprudently gave colour to its mistrust, Lafayette, at the head of the National Guard, desired to get the management of the Revolution more entirely in his own hands. On the 6th of October a crowd of National Guards and starving women marched to Versailles and brought the King in triumph to Paris. He was followed by the National Assembly, which henceforward worked under the eyes of the Parisian Commune and people. The prestige of royalty disappeared, the King was in fact a prisoner in his own capital; the power had passed even from the National Assembly, and was centred in the people of Paris.

[Sidenote: Excitement produced in England.]

Such scenes, marked by acts of sanguinary vengeance on the part of the people, and showing the absolute powerlessness of the old system of Louis XIV., could not fail to excite the strongest interest in Europe. Nowhere was this more the case than in England. To some it appeared that our great enemy was perishing before our eyes of its own natural decay; while from another point of view, to lovers of liberty, there was a whole world of hope in the vigorous life exhibited by a people, downtrodden as the French lower orders were believed to be; to another party the hurried and irregular vehemence which had marked the changes in France seemed proof only of an anarchy shocking to all respect for form or antiquity, and sad evidence against the possibility of an orderly growth of reform. "The French have shown themselves," said Burke, "the ablest architects of ruin that have hitherto existed in the world. They have done their business for us as rivals in a way which twenty Ramillies or Blenheims could never have done." "How much is it the greatest event that ever happened in the world and how much the best," said Fox after the taking of the Bastille. While a third view, and this at first was Pitt's, rested complacently on the possible approximation of the Government of France to a constitutional monarchy similar to that of England.

[Sidenote: First reactionary movement.]

[Sidenote: Rejection of the Abolition of Tests and of the Reform Bill.]

[Sidenote: Burke's "Reflections on the French Revolution."]

The three years which elapsed between 1789 and the end of 1792 drew more distinctly the line which separated the two first of these opinions, and proved that the third was untenable. It was clear from the first which of them would ultimately gain the upper hand among the governing classes in England. Already, as early as March 1790, a proposition for the relief of Protestant Dissenters, and for the abolition of Test and Corporation Acts, which had been lost by only a small majority the preceding year, was thrown out by overwhelming numbers. A Bill for the reform of the representation, introduced by Flood, though Pitt had several times himself brought the subject forward, met with a similar fate; and shortly after the meeting of the new Parliament on November 25th, Burke issued what may be regarded as the manifesto of his party in his work entitled "Reflections on the French Revolution." It was called forth by signs of the sympathy which the French Revolution was meeting in England. Its more enthusiastic admirers had determined to reap what advantages they could from the present state of excitement, and two societies--the Constitutional Society, founded a few years before, and the Revolution Society, an old established body connected with the Dissenting interest, and intended to support the principle of the Revolution of 1688--had entered upon a course of renewed activity. On its anniversary, in November 1789, the Revolution Society had not only listened to an inflammatory and revolutionary discourse by Dr. Price, a Unitarian minister, but had also sent an address of sympathy, signed by Lord Stanhope, their President, to the National Assembly, by whom it had been rapturously received. It was upon this text chiefly that Burke wrote. His book had a wonderful success, 30,000 copies were speedily sold, and writers have been found bold enough to imply that the safety of Europe was owing to this work. In truth, Burke saw more clearly than those around him the inevitable course of the Revolution; he foresaw its excesses and its miserable end in a military despotism; he saw, too, that it must of necessity become proselytizing. Terrified by these dangers, and unable to conceive the excellence of any government unlike our own, which was at that time a highly aristocratic limited monarchy, he did not see the truths which the French Revolution embodied, and which, had they been wisely directed and not rudely assailed, would have allowed Europe to pass into the new and inevitable phase of progress for which it is still struggling, without the constant outbreaks of passion on one side or the other which have marked the last seventy years. This work drew forth many replies, the most important of which were Macintosh's "Vindiciæ Gallicæ" and Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man,"--the first a temperate and excellent work of the man who was afterwards to be one of the greatest philosophical statesmen in England, the other the rough but sensible production of a revolutionist by profession.

[Sidenote: The Canada Bill. 1791.]

[Sidenote: Breach between Fox and Burke. May 6, 1791.]

The sentiments which Burke had declared in his essay he soon took an opportunity of declaring in Parliament. The question before the House was a new constitution for Canada. This was called for by the extremely antagonistic character of the inhabitants of the two parts of the colony. The inhabitants of Lower Canada were French, and used to French habits, those of Upper Canada entirely English. The province was in future to be divided, and the constitution of the Upper Province assimilated as nearly as possible to the English model. Hereditary peerages even were to be established. The Bill, granting as it did a sort of self-government to the colony, was a wise one, but Fox opposed it, and took the opportunity of speaking in high praise of the new constitution of France. Some days afterwards, upon the same measure, Burke arose and proceeded to reply, inveighing strongly against the Revolution. His own side vociferously called him to order; he persisted in his speech, deploring that he should be obliged to break with his friends, but ready, as he said, to risk all, and with his last words to exclaim, "Fly from the French constitution." Fox whispered there was no loss of friends, but Burke rejoined, "I have done my duty at the price of my friend; our friendship is at an end." Fox rose afterwards, and with tears in his eyes repeated that he regarded Burke as his master and teacher in politics, but he could not withdraw what he had said in praise of the French constitution; and thus the friendship of years was severed, and Burke was ranked with the ministerialists.

[Sidenote: The Birmingham riots. July 1791.]

But it was not only in Parliament that the strong division of opinion caused by the Revolution was beginning to be evident. The conservative temper of the upper and middle classes was shown clearly in the riots at Birmingham. The friends of the Revolution had determined to have a public dinner to celebrate the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille. The dinner was chiefly planned by Dr. Priestley, a Unitarian minister, a man of much scientific repute. Hearing that his movement was unpopular, he attempted to postpone the dinner, from which he was himself absent; some eighty persons however met, and in the evening a fierce riot broke out against them; from Thursday till Sunday the riots continued, Dr. Priestley's house and library were destroyed, and much wanton mischief done. It was constantly reported, though never proved, that the magistrates of the district, far from trying to check the rioters, had been seen urging them on.

[Sidenote: Pitt's policy as yet unchanged.]

Up till this point Pitt had certainly shown no sign of yielding to the conservative feeling of the country. He had declared distinctly that he intended to pursue a policy of neutrality, to hold carefully aloof from any interference in the domestic affairs of France, and had even entirely neutralized the effect of the Convention of Pilnitz (Aug. 1791) by refusing to accede to the project of concerted action on the part of European powers which had there been broached. He even felt so certain of the continuance of peace, that his Budget, in the spring of the year 1792, was framed entirely upon a peace footing. He suggested the diminution of the number of sailors by 2000; he allowed the subsidiary treaty with Hesse to come to an end, and drew up a plan for the reduction of the interest of the Funds from 4 to 3½ or 3 per cent. He even continued his measures of improvement; he again supported, in a speech of unusual excellence, the immediate abolition of the slave trade, although without success; while, in conjunction with his great opponent, he carried through a Bill for a change in the libel law known as Fox's Libel Bill, which placed in the hands of juries the right of determining not only the fact of the publication of a libel, but the more important question whether the matter published was in its character libellous or not. The opposition offered to this Bill by Lord Chancellor Thurlow cost him his position; the Great Seal was put into commission. But the crisis had in fact arrived. The events which had taken place in France, and which continued to take place during the year 1792, and the corresponding excitement aroused in England, were gradually driving the minister to the persuasion that his peaceful policy of non-intervention was no longer tenable.

[Sidenote: Progress of the French Revolution.]

[Sidenote: The King's flight to Varennes. June 1791.]

[Sidenote: The Girondin ministry declares war. April 1792.]

[Sidenote: The King suspended. Aug. 10.]

[Sidenote: Massacres of September.]

[Sidenote: Declaration of the Republic. Sept. 21, 1792.]

After its removal to Paris in October 1789, the Assembly, now under the influence of the Jacobin Club, and watched by the Parisians, proceeded rapidly in its work of destruction and reconstitution. All local arrangements and provincial powers disappeared when France was divided into Departments; the Crown lost its hold upon the judicial system, which was now grounded upon a popular basis; the Church became a department of the State, and the necessities of the State were supplied by selling its vast property, or, as purchasers were not forthcoming, by issuing bills payable in Church lands, called assignats. It became plain that the power of the Crown, and with it the power of the executive, was entirely disappearing. Nothing could save it but one of two courses--the King might become a traitor to his country, throw himself into the arms of his brother potentates, and begin a war of kings against peoples, or, withdrawing from his capital, rally round him all the conservative elements which yet remained in France. This was the plan of the one great man of the Revolution, Mirabeau; but Mirabeau died in April 1791; and in June of the same year the King adopted the other and worse course, fled from Paris, and was arrested at Varennes. He was brought back a prisoner, and remained with suspended authority till the Assembly in September, hurriedly completing its work of constitution-making, resigned its office. The King then resumed his authority at the head of the new monarchical constitution, but with power strangely clipped, and with an Assembly the leading members of which, the Girondins (so called because their leaders were representatives from the Gironde, a district near Bordeaux), eager and ambitious men, preferred theoretically a republic, and believed that their power would be best secured by plunging France into a war. It is not in fact true to assert, as is commonly done, that it was the attacks of the combined monarchs of Europe which drove France to war. Much sympathy was no doubt felt for the disasters of the royal family, and the representations of the emigrant nobles and princes had met with some success in Russia and Sweden. But both those countries were far off. The more immediate antagonists of France--Austria and Prussia--were prevented by their domestic jealousies, their fear of Russia, and their relations with Poland, from at first dreaming of an open assault upon France. It was for their own ends that the Girondins stirred up the war spirit in France, and it could best be fostered by exciting the popular feelings by suggestions of interference on the part of foreign kings with the new-born liberty of the country, and by hinting that the King himself was a party to this conspiracy. It was thus, taking advantage of the sympathy which foreign courts no doubt expressed for the King, that the Girondins demanded, in an overbearing tone, immediate and satisfactory replies to their diplomatic questions, and failing these, declared war upon Austria in the month of April 1792. Their declaration of war was speedily followed by the reality of that union between Austria and Prussia which they had falsely urged as an excuse for it. But the Girondins had overreached themselves: by exciting the popular feeling against the King they had played directly into the hands of the Jacobins; and when the King, in June 1792, discarded his Girondin ministry and attempted to rule with something like independence, it was only with the aid of the Jacobins that they ultimately returned to power. For it was by this extreme party, still further excited by the injudicious and threatening manifesto which the Duke of Brunswick had issued on the 25th of May, and by the ill success of the opening of the war, that the great insurrection of the 10th of August was carried out. The King was suspended from his functions, the Tuileries were taken, and though the Gironde was nominally restored, the power of the State was really in the hands of the Jacobins and the revolutionary Commune. The Legislative Assembly lingered but a few weeks longer, to give place in September to a National Democratic Convention. The brief space between the 10th of August and the 21st of September was filled by the terrible consequences of the unbridled triumph of the people. The royalist prisoners were murdered in the prisons, the revolutionary Commune established in Paris, and when the Convention met, in the midst of fear at home and fear of the advancing Prussians abroad, its first step was of necessity the declaration of the Republic and the dethronement of the King.

[Sidenote: Revolutionary character of the war.]

[Sidenote: Edict of Fraternity. Nov. 19, 1792.]

Almost on the same day that the Convention opened, the advance of the Prussians had been suddenly and unexpectedly checked. Dumouriez had occupied the Passes of the Argonnes, Kellermann had fought the cannonade of Valmy, and the Prussians, bargaining for a safe retreat, began to hurry homeward with ignoble speed. From this time onward the character of the war changed, and became really dangerous to Europe. A party more energetic than the Girondins was now in power. Dumouriez had always recommended the conquest of Belgium for political reasons; but war assumed a different aspect now that it was in the hands of the Jacobins; it went hand in hand with the propagation of revolutionary ideas. The victory of Jemmappes opened the road to Belgium; in the South, Nice and Savoy completed the desired frontier of the Alps; and the temper in which these conquests had been achieved was rendered obvious when, a few days after the battle of Jemmappes, the celebrated decree of the 19th of November was issued, promising fraternity to all nations desirous of liberty, and when, two days afterwards, Savoy was formed into a new department as the Department of Mont Blanc. If further proof was needed of the character of the war, it was afforded by the peremptory orders which were issued to disregard all treaty obligations and to open the navigation of the Scheldt, which treaty after treaty, guaranteed by France and other countries, had closed, and the opening of which could not but bring France directly into opposition both to Holland and to England. The chief points to be remembered as affecting England are the declaration of war with Austria, sought by the French, and upon old fashioned principles; the fall of the Girondins, practically completed on the 10th of August; the union of Austria and Prussia produced by the war, but not contracted formally till after the death of Leopold; the advance of the allies, the consequent establishment of the Jacobins; the massacres of September; the summoning of the Convention; the check to the allies at Valmy; the renewal of the war of aggression upon different principles and with different success, those principles being illustrated by the ordering of the opening of the Scheldt and the appropriation of Savoy; while in Paris the completion of the second stage of the Revolution was marked by the suspension and trial of the King.

[Sidenote: Change of opinion in England as to the Revolution.]

It was thus, with an enlarged knowledge of the principles and inevitable course of the French Revolution, that Pitt had to choose his conduct, and that in the course of this year (1792) the English people finally divided itself into parties, and in Parliament the old party names of Whig and Tory, which had in fact since the Hanoverian succession lost their significance, assumed a new meaning. The first movements of the Revolution were generally hailed with enthusiasm in England. In the grand march of the first days of the States-General and National Assembly there was nothing at first obvious to shock English feeling. On the surface it appeared only as if France had discovered, and was determined to realize, the same truths which England had already discovered; the people and the Crown appeared to be preparing to act hand in hand against the monopoly of the privileged classes, against the Divine right of kings, and for the establishment of that official royalty which already existed among us. To the leaders of the Whigs, who still erroneously believed that that party was the really Liberal party, there was everything to excite enthusiasm in the movement of the people, while Pitt himself could scarcely fail to recognize that the very same process was being carried out to which he owed his own elevation. But, by extraordinary mismanagement on the part of the French Court, and by the sluggish, uncertain character of the King, it came to pass that the cause of royalty became unfortunately and indissolubly connected with the cause of the privileged classes. The direction of the Revolution was shifted, and the assault was directed not only against them, but against the Crown; and not only against the Crown, in the sense that hereditary kingship was attacked, but also against all vigorous executive of which the King, even in his official capacity, might be regarded as the representative. Now Pitt's administration may be regarded as a popular triumph due to the union of King and people. It was quite untrue in England that the interests of the Crown and aristocracy were one; the power of the Crown, in so far as it was antagonistic to the power of the great families, was favourable to liberty. Nevertheless, the ideas of the French Revolution did in fact receive considerable sympathy in England, as was rendered more and more visible daily. The amount of that sympathy assumed an exaggerated appearance under the influence of the fear and horror created by the excesses in Paris, and the relation of classes which had not existed in England, but which those who sympathized with the Revolution chose to believe existed, did in fact arise. The choice seemed again to be offered between people and King. And all the privileged classes, and all the propertied classes, recognizing that a strong executive meant order, and that a strong executive was represented by the King, speedily made their choice, and gathered round the King.

[Sidenote: Formation of a new Tory party.]

There was thus formed a new Tory party, having for its watchword, "The Old Constitution," refusing to listen to any sound of reform or change, regarding every measure in a popular direction as a preliminary to popular excesses, the dominion of the uneducated, and the reign of socialistic ideas. At the head of this party Pitt, of late so liberal, placed himself, supported by Burke, the late Whig leader. Conscious of the strength he had himself derived from the Crown, conscious of the advances in liberty he had been able to obtain by means of his alliance with it, and thoroughly shocked with the disorder and violence of France, Pitt determined that of the two elements of the Constitution, which seemed to be coming into opposition one with the other, it was the Crown which at all hazards required the firmest support. To this new Tory party, before long, the greater part of the Whigs gave in their adhesion. But as a new Tory party was formed, so was a new Whig party. Certain large-minded men, such as Grey, saw no reason why a panic should check such obvious improvements as had already been set on foot. Certain vehement party men, such as Fox and Sheridan, of large and warm hearts, rejoiced when their feelings led them in the same direction as their political opposition, and formed together a small but united band, to whom the French Revolution was admirable, to whom war with France was wicked, and every attempt at the repression of disorder a wanton act of tyranny.

[Sidenote: Sympathy with the Revolution among the lower classes.]

[Sidenote: Revolutionary societies.]

It has been already pointed out that both the social and constitutional condition of England afforded a good ground on which sympathy for the Revolution might take root. Not only were the numbers of the labouring classes largely increased, not only was the condition of the labouring class changing for the worse, the relations between capital and labour were in a much less satisfactory state than they now are, every form of combination among workmen was regarded as a crime, the line between class and class was very strongly drawn. Country people were complaining, in England as in France, of the absenteeism of landlords, the employment of harsh middlemen, and the general resort of all gentry to London. The Test Act and the penal laws were regarded by those who were affected by them as relics of persecution, all efforts to relax them were generally met with scornful rejection, and, before all, the representation was in a condition which, but for its evil effects, might be regarded as simply ridiculous. The sympathy which might thus have been naturally felt was not left without instruction or direction. Those who most strongly felt its influence speedily formed themselves into societies, by whose means, in conjunction it seems pretty certain with assistance from the French themselves, writings and pamphlets, pointing out every flaw in the condition of England, and often using language which was certainly seditious, were spread broadcast among the people, and even among the soldiers. Of these societies by far the most respectable was one known by the name of the "Friends of the People." Its object was to excite and keep alive an agitation for the removal of the inequalities of the representation. It included many men of the greatest respectability, numbering twenty-eight members of Parliament in its lists, and such names as Lord John Russell, Grey, Sheridan, Erskine, and Lord Lauderdale. Far more dangerous were two societies which arose early in 1792, with branches in many of the chief towns of England. These were the London Corresponding Society, numbering between 6000 and 7000 members, organized as a secret society, and governed by a small secret committee of five, and a Society for Constitutional Information, consisting of the more advanced and thoroughgoing educated men of the time, and holding opinions of so dangerous a character that the Society of the Friends of the People thought it necessary to disclaim all connection with it. It was to check the action of these societies that the two first retrograde actions of Pitt were directed.

[Sidenote: Rejection of Grey's motion for reform. April 1792.]

The outcome of the work of the Society of the Friends of the People was a motion brought in by Grey for a general reform of the representation. To this Pitt refused his support. Two things were necessary, he said, to induce a man to support a measure--the possibility of carrying it, and the possibility, when carried, of putting it into execution to the advantage of the people; both these conditions were now absent, not only did he believe that in the present state of feeling the Bill would infallibly be rejected by the House, but also it could not now be carried out without the greatest danger. The Bill was accordingly lost, and all chance of carrying reform disappeared. Yet the necessity for it was made very clear by a petition from the same society presented by Grey in the following year, which exhibited in all its nakedness the inefficiency of the representation, and proved that a decided majority of the House was returned in fact by no more than 154 individuals.

[Sidenote: Proclamation against seditious writings. May 21.]

[Sidenote: Diplomacy of M. Chauvelin.]

But while the respectable reformers were carrying out their efforts by parliamentary means, the two less scrupulous societies went on issuing papers and pamphlets to such an extent, that at length it seemed good to Government to issue a royal proclamation warning the people against seditious writings, and then to proceed to take legal measures against them. This proclamation was issued on the 21st of May, and the address moved in Parliament to thank the King for issuing it may be regarded as the exact point at which the new division of parties sprang into existence, for it was supported by many of the chief leaders of the Whigs, and though an effort made by Pitt to strengthen his party by a coalition with the Whigs failed for personal reasons, the Duke of Portland, Wyndham, Thomas Grenville, and others, came back to their allegiance to the wisdom of Burke, and joined henceforward in the united Conservative party. It is remarkable also for a second point which connects it with the international aspect of the French Revolution. M. Chauvelin had lately been sent over to England, with his far abler secretary Talleyrand, as minister accredited by the French King. But Louis' authority was little more than a shadow, and M. Chauvelin already thought fit to enter upon that peculiar course of foreign diplomacy which was characteristic of the revolutionists; he drew up a strong protest against the Proclamation, and demanded that it should be laid before Parliament. Of course Grenville, the Foreign Minister, had no alternative but to send back the letter, with a sharp rebuke, explaining to him what he seemed to have forgotten, the true position of a foreign minister. This was the beginning of that diplomatic squabble which ended in M. Chauvelin being dismissed from England.

[Sidenote: Congratulatory addresses sent to France by the societies. Sept.]

[Sidenote: Riots in Sheffield and Dundee. Nov.]

But before the breaking off of diplomatic intercourse, the open sympathy expressed for the changes which had taken place in France had begun to rouse the fear of the governing classes in England. The proclamation against seditious writings had but little effect compared with the exciting news of the 10th of August, the massacres of September, and the retreat of the allies. The societies thought fit to send deputations with addresses of sympathy to the National Convention. The Revolution Society sent a present of a thousand pairs of shoes for the army, and the Corresponding Society, with four or five others of a similar character, sent a joint address, congratulating the French upon their republican form of government, especially admiring the outrageous conduct of the mob on the 10th of August, and even approving the sad events of September. Nor was their energy confined to words. Riots broke out in several towns both in England and Scotland. The most important were those in Sheffield and Dundee. At Sheffield the disturbances took the form of a regular revolutionary riot. It was on a day appointed for rejoicing for the success of the French arms; a tree of Liberty was planted, and the procession passed through the streets, headed by an enormous picture of Dundas and Burke plunging their daggers into the heart of Liberty. "They are as resolute and determined a set of villains as ever I saw," writes an officer who was quartered in the place, "and will gain their object if it is to be gained; they have debating societies and correspondence with other towns; they have purchased firearms, and are trying to corrupt the soldiers." At Dundee almost the same events took place; again a tree of Liberty was planted, and the cries of "Liberty," "Equality," "No excise," "No King," were soon universally heard, though the ostensible cause of the riot had been the high price of corn.

[Sidenote: The militia called out. Dec.]

This state of affairs--the seditious conduct of the societies, and the obvious tendency to riot--induced Pitt, in the beginning of December, to call out the militia. This he could only do legally by alleging insurrection as the excuse, and it was a somewhat strained construction of the word to apply it to these outbreaks. But Pitt had now made up his mind not only for repression in England but for war abroad, and the summoning of the militia was intended in fact as a first step in that direction. It was under these circumstances that an autumnal Parliament was summoned. The discussions naturally turned upon the conduct of the Government in calling out the militia, but Fox was unable to collect more than fifty votes to disapprove of the vigilance of the Government in internal matters.

[Sidenote: Signs of approaching war with France.]

[Sidenote: The Alien Bill. Jan. 4, 1793.]

[Sidenote: Death of Louis XVI. Jan. 21, 1793.]

Much more really important were the indications of the near approach of war, given by the stress laid by the Government upon the decree of November, the opening of the Scheldt, and the irregular and unsatisfactory character of our diplomatic relations with France. From the beginning of 1793, although there was no declaration of war between England and France, it was perfectly clear that war was inevitable. An Alien Bill was introduced, rendered necessary it was urged by the great assembly of foreigners in England, chiefly royalist emigrants, but also in part emissaries from the Jacobin government. Foreigners were by this Bill ordered to state the object of their visit to England, to enter their names on a register, and to obtain passports for moving to and fro. The Bill was at once asserted by the French to be an infringement of Pitt's commercial treaty of 1787, which had promised freedom of access to French citizens. It was followed by measures even more stringent. The exportation of all materials of war, the introduction and circulation of assignats, and the exportation of corn whether English or foreign, to French ports, were prohibited. While affairs were in this attitude, the catastrophe for which Europe had breathlessly waited took place. Louis XVI. was guillotined on the 21st of January 1793. A thrill of horror ran through all classes of society, nearly the whole of London, and not the Court only, appeared in deep mourning, and orders were almost immediately sent to M. Chauvelin to leave England within eight days. The unofficial connections between him and Lord Grenville had been kept up ever since the King's suspension, but M. Chauvelin prided himself upon being in close connection with the Opposition rather than with the Government, and persisted in separating in his papers the interests of the Government and of the people. He had offered explanations and produced a long letter for the same purpose from Le Brun, the French Foreign Minister, with regard to the decree of the 19th of November, but the explanation was of a character to increase the irritation of the English. He had met every measure of the Government with an angry protest: he justified the opening of the Scheldt; he complained that he was obliged to enrol himself with the other aliens; he declared that the prohibitory Bills were distinct breaches of the treaty of 1787; and he was doubtless glad when the consummation he had aimed at was reached and he was ordered to leave the country.

[Sidenote: Efforts on the part of Pitt for the continuation of peace.]

Some slight pretence was still kept up on the part of the French of a desire to keep the peace. M. Maret, well known afterwards as the Duc de Bassano, was sent over to take M. Chauvelin's place. The object of his mission is really unknown; he simply notified his arrival to Grenville, held no communications with him, and very shortly returned to France to find war already declared. At the same time another indirect offer of negotiation arose, strangely enough in Belgium, where Dumouriez desired an opportunity for a diplomatic meeting with Lord Auckland, our ambassador. It speaks well for Pitt's real desire to treat if treating were possible, that he at once accepted this proposition, holding that a general in command of an army might treat, without any implied recognition of the legitimacy or the stability of the Government which employed him. But though the required leave was immediately sent to Lord Auckland, it arrived too late, war had been already declared. It is a further proof of Pitt's pacific tendencies, that when he agreed to Dumouriez' proposal an embargo had already been laid upon English shipping in the French ports, an act of war which he was willing to overlook as long as any hope of negotiation remained.

[Sidenote: Determination of the French for war.]

But it may be fairly asserted, in spite of all that Fox and his friends urged, that there was no real opportunity after the massacres of September of treating with dignity with France. While M. Chauvelin was attempting on the 27th of December to explain away the November decree, on the 31st of the same month the Minister of the Marine wrote thus to the seaports of France: "The Government of England is arming, and the King of Spain, encouraged by this, is preparing to attack us. These two tyrannical powers, after persecuting the patriots in their own territories, think no doubt that they will be able to influence the judgment about to be pronounced on the tyrant Louis. They hope to frighten us. But no; a people that has made itself free, a people that has driven out of the bosom of France the terrible army of the Prussians and Austrians, this people will not suffer laws to be dictated to them by a tyrant. The King and his Parliament mean to make war upon us. Will the republicans of England permit this? Already these freemen show their discontent, and the repugnance they have to bear arms against their brothers the French; well, we will fly to their succour, we will make a descent upon their island, we will lodge there 50,000 caps of liberty, we will plant the sacred tree, and we will stretch out our arms to our republican brethren; the tyranny of their government will be immediately overthrown." In fact, as has more than once happened in our history, the disturbance of a few reckless men, which our free constitution permits to show itself without repression, was construed to mean what it might mean in less free countries. Misinformed by their emissary Chauvelin who saw but one party, willing to believe what they liked to believe, and ignorant of the character of the English nation, the French had persuaded themselves that there was a real division between the Government and the people of England, and were eager for the war.

[Sidenote: Reasons for the war.]

That war they declared on the 8th of February, and by thus forestalling what must have been sooner or later the action of the English ministry, saved them from much difficulty. For there was considerable difference of opinion as to what should be the _casus belli_. England was pledged to neutrality, and was bound to France by a close commercial treaty. The only two grounds on which, technically, war could be declared, were the opening of the Scheldt and the destruction of the balance of power by the appropriation of Savoy. England being under distinct pledge not to interfere with the internal condition of France, neither the massacres of September, the establishment of the Republic, nor the death of the King, could with any justice be alleged as a ground of war. The appropriation of Savoy was an evident fact, but it was very plausibly urged that England, being in a state of professed neutrality, had entirely disregarded the invasion of France by the great Eastern powers, and had allowed to pass, without observation, the second partition of Poland. The opening of the Scheldt was no doubt contrary to treaties with Holland which England had guaranteed, but it was very reasonably urged that England was not called upon to plunge into a war unless Holland requested her to do so, and Holland remained studiously quiet. The guarantee of the treaty had been to save Holland from war; it might well seem a distortion of duty to force Holland into war for the preservation of the treaty. There can be no doubt that the Opposition was right in asserting that the war was declared against opinion; the point in which they were wrong was this, that they did not recognize the fact that opinion grown to a religion, a religion become propagandist in its nature, and that propagandist religion in arms was the greatest social danger which could threaten the world. Pitt and Burke saw this; the whole body of Tories and conservative Whigs dimly felt it. But the trammels of ages of diplomacy were too strong to allow of the fact being openly recognized. It was then with joy that the ministry found themselves released from their difficulties by the French declaration of war.

[Sidenote: French successes in the campaign of 1792-3, on the Continent,]

When England engaged in the war a campaign had already been fought to the entire disadvantage of the allies. The close of the year 1792 had seen the retirement of the allies from French soil, the battle of Jemmappes, and the occupation of Belgium and Savoy. The accession of England, Spain and Holland to the coalition so far invigorated it that its members believed that a campaign of a few months would complete their work; for dangers surrounded the French Convention on all sides. Dumouriez, a member of the Girondin party, displeased with the conduct of the Jacobin Convention, was meditating defection; the excesses of the governing party in Paris had aroused all the slumbering loyalty of France; La Vendée was in arms for constitutional monarchy and the Catholic religion; and both at Lyons and Toulon the reaction was for the moment triumphant. Dumouriez' treason had an immediate effect. Directly upon the declaration of war he invaded Holland, but seeking rather popularity with his army and the prestige of victory than the success of the plans of Government, he turned aside from Holland, and risked a battle at Neerwinden on the Gheet, in which he suffered a complete defeat from the Prince of Saxe-Coburg; and thus as a defeated general, and without his army, he gave himself up to the Austrians. His defeat and defection allowed the allies to advance along the whole frontier. But their movements were dilatory; instead of marching upon Paris they wasted their time in taking Mayence, Condé, and Valenciennes; they even committed the mistake of binding the captured troops to refrain from war only against themselves; they were therefore available to suppress the insurrection in La Vendée, and the troops hitherto employed there could be sent to the eastern frontier. The same want of energy continually marked the progress of the allies. The Prussians and Austrians were in fact too jealous of each other, and too much bent upon their interests nearer home to act with vigour. Time was again wasted in sieges. While the Austrians sat down before Cambrai, the Duke of York with the English troops besieged Dunkirk. Their communications were kept open by the Dutch at Menin and Hoondschoote. But the French army, under the vigorous management of the Jacobins, and guided by the military genius of Carnot, was no longer to be trifled with; Houchard fell upon the weak position of the Dutch, and York was driven to a disastrous defeat with the loss of all his artillery. The success was indeed only momentary; a panic seized the French troops, and they fell back to Lille, thus affording the allies an opportunity of advancing to the attack of the fortress of Maubeuge, which closed the road to Paris; but Jourdan, who had succeeded Houchard, now put in practice Carnot's principles. Hastily gathering 50,000 men, he fell upon half that number of Austrians, and completely defeated them at Wattigny. Success had also attended the French against the Prussians on the Upper Rhine. There, too, the terrible rigour of the new Government had restored the aspect of affairs. St. Just and Lebas had appeared as conventional commissioners in Alsace, bringing terror with them. The beaten armies were supplied and organized. Two young generals of the revolutionary school, Hoche and Pichegru, were placed in command, and the tide of victory was turned; the Prussians had to fall back, compromising the advanced position of the Austrians, and before the close of the year the French army, which had begun the campaign with a series of disasters, found itself victorious along the whole frontier line.

[Sidenote: and against the royalists in France.]