Chapter XX: Part 20

The Convention had also been successful in its wars in the interior of France. After six weeks of bombardment, on the 9th of October, Lyons yielded, without conditions, to be given up to the fearful cruelty of Collot d'Herbois; and the victorious troops hurried southwards to besiege Toulon, which had placed itself in the hands of the English, and had admitted the allied fleet to its roadstead. The genius of Bonaparte is said to have secured its capture. He saw that one fort called the Equilette commanded the roadstead, and that its possession would oblige the English, who were the soul of the defence, to withdraw. The capture of the fort answered his expectation; Lord Hood, without making terms for the inhabitants, collected such of the royalists as could crowd on board his ships, and sailed away, having first set fire to all the stores, and to forty ships of war which were in the harbour (Aug. 27, 1793). The insurrection of La Vendée had also been suppressed. Intrusted at first to ignorant men, with no claim to command except the strength of their revolutionary principles, the Convention troops had been everywhere defeated. But when Kleber was put in practical command the course of victory changed. Terribly defeated, and with all their chiefs of importance mortally wounded, the insurgents determined to try the fortune of war upon the other side of the Loire. They marched northwards towards Laval, defeated their pursuers, and had they made common cause with the Bretons might still have been successful. But trusting to help from England, which never came, they undertook a fruitless assault upon Granville in Normandy. Thinking themselves betrayed, and longing for their homes, the ill-organized mass of peasants insisted on being led southwards: even then there was some life in them. They defeated the republican General Rossignol and threw him back upon Rennes; but failing in an attack upon Angers, they marched pointlessly towards Le Mans. They were there received with terrible slaughter by Westermann, Kleber and Marçeau; 18,000 men, women and children were killed, and the rest fled, pursued by the pitiless Westermann. The fugitives reached the Loire, fought one final battle at Savenay near its mouth, where they were all, with the exception of some eight or ten thousand men, either put to death or captured.

[Sidenote: Pitt's difficulty in keeping up the coalition.]

Thus revolutionary France had proved itself no contemptible enemy to the united troops of Europe, and established its rule unquestioned in France. It was plain that all hope of an easy subjugation of France was over, and it was with the greatest difficulty that Pitt was able to keep the coalition together; the eyes of Prussia were eagerly bent upon Poland, an easier prey than France. Of increase of territory England had no hope; the war had been forced on her, and was honestly a war of opinion. But any cessation of her efforts would have placed her in a worse position than when the war began, and Pitt and the upper classes of England were not blind to the fact that the occupation of the continental nations in the great war afforded England immense advantages both at sea and in the colonies; it was worth making great efforts to gain the undisputed mastery of the sea both in commerce and in arms. Nor did the large sums of money, raised chiefly by way of loan, appear so ruinous as they really were. The effect of large loans is to increase the wealth of the capitalist at the expense of the working man; nor, as the chief weight of the accumulating taxation falls on posterity, does it become immediately evident. Thus supplied with almost unlimited means, Pitt succeeded in keeping up the coalition, taking into English pay, it is almost true to say, the whole of the Prussian army, and doing nearly as much for the Austrians.

[Sidenote: Continued success of the French in 1794.]

[Sidenote: The French capture Amsterdam and the Dutch fleet. 1795.]

Pitt's energy was equalled by that of France, and the Convention had the additional advantage of being free from constitutional rules. Vast conscriptions filled their armies, forced requisitions supplied them with arms and equipments. It was with the army of the North, 160,000 strong, under Pichegru, that the English had most to do. On each side the armies were divided into three divisions, and the duty of marching with 100,000 men on Paris was intrusted to Coburg. Defeated in the centre, the French had met with unexpected success on the left, Clairfait, the Austrian general, having been twice beaten at Moucron and at Courtray. Upon this, Pichegru almost destroyed his centre to strengthen his wings, and the threefold manœuvres became twofold. The key of the campaign was the possession of the Sambre; the Austrians lay in an advancing angle with their left upon that river from Mons to Charleroi. If the French could cross the Sambre they would be virtually in the rear of the Austrians. To this point, therefore, the Commissioners of the Convention, St. Just and Lebas, repaired, and attempted to inspire the troops with something of their own enthusiasm. Again and again the French were driven back. But Carnot's plan of massing troops was at length employed; the greater part of the army, which under Jourdan had been facing the Prussians on the Moselle, was turned northward, and Jourdan took command of 100,000, well known as the army of the Sambre and Meuse, just as the Commissioners had been driven back for the fifth time behind the river. After a sixth failure, the Commissioners insisting upon a seventh effort, the river was successfully crossed, and on the heights of Fleurus a battle was fought in which, though it was not completed, the Austrians were practically defeated. Step by step the English and the Austrians retired, the one towards Holland, the other towards the Rhine. By July the English were behind Breda, the Austrians beyond the Meuse. Want of supplies checked the French advance for a few weeks, but by October the English were driven into the corner between the Yssel and the Rhine, and the army of the Sambre and Meuse had captured Cologne and Coblenz. The occupation of Belgium by the French compelled the Prussians further south also to fall behind the Rhine, the left bank of which was thus in possession of the French army from Basle to the sea. Even south of that point successes had been won. The Sardinian position of Saorgio had been turned, and the passes of the Alps were opened to the French, who were thus in a position to invade Italy on the one hand and Holland on the other. The lateness of the season, and the wretched state of the equipment and commissariat, might have induced the French to be satisfied with these conquests, and few armies would have thought of facing an unusually severe winter shoeless and in rags, for to such a plight had the bad management of the Revolutionary Government brought them. But to this army of enthusiasts the winter was but a useful ally for the conquest of Holland, where a strong feeling in their favour already existed among that large section of the people, who had seen with anger their attempted Revolution of 1787 suppressed by the arms of Prussia, and to whom the Government of the Stadtholder was very distasteful. The failure of the preceding campaign had obliged Pitt to insist upon the recall of the Duke of York, much to the King's displeasure, and Pichegru now found himself opposed to General Walmoden, the Hanoverian commander. But of opposition there was really none. The lines of the three great rivers, the Meuse, the Waal and the Lech, were abandoned without a fight, and crossed by the French, either upon the ice or by means of pontoons; and finally Walmoden left Holland to its fate, and retreated across the Yssel and the Ems to embark his army safely in Bremen. The Stadtholder had already fled from the Hague and taken refuge in England. Amsterdam was occupied by the French without difficulty, the ragged regiments waiting patiently in the bitter snow in the streets of the rich city till their quarters were arranged for them without the least attempt at disorder. A striking finish was put to the campaign by the capture of the Dutch fleet in the Texel. The ships were ice-bound, and fell into the hands of a regiment of cavalry, who galloped across the ice to secure them. Holland was at once erected into a republic upon the French model.

[Sidenote: Indirect advantages gained by England.]

[Sidenote: Defeat of the French fleet. June 1, 1794.]

But in spite of these continual reverses of the allies, in spite of the perpetual failure of the British arms in the Low Countries, Pitt had not been mistaken in the indirect advantages which the war would give him. The conflagration at Toulon had inflicted an almost irreparable loss upon the French fleet. In Corsica the veteran patriot Paoli had aroused the feeling of his countrymen against France. Nelson and Hood, with 1000 British soldiers serving as marines in their ships, had taken Bastia, which was regarded as almost impregnable, and the people of Corsica had begged King George to accept their crown. While thus in the Mediterranean English supremacy had been established, a still greater success had attended her fleet off the coast of France. By immense exertions a powerful and well-equipped fleet of twenty-six ships had been assembled by Bon St. André and placed under the command of Villaret Joyeuse. It left the harbour of Brest for the purpose of convoying a large fleet laden with flour from America. The English Channel fleet, under Lord Howe, sailed to meet it. In number of ships and weight of metal the English fleet was somewhat inferior, but the Revolution had stripped the French marine of its best officers, who had habitually been supplied by Brittany, now royalist in its tendencies. Bon St. André, originally a Calvinistic clergyman, had all the fearful energy belonging to the Conventional Commissioners, but little of the skill of a seaman, yet he frequently overruled the commands of Villaret Joyeuse. Thus, when the fleets met upon the 1st of June, the French were unable to prevent Admiral Howe from repeating Rodney's well-known manœuvre of breaking the line. The defeat of the French was complete; several ships went down, and five line of battle-ships remained as English prizes.

[Sidenote: Prussia, Spain and Holland leave the coalition.]

Upon the Continent, however, success had been wholly on the side of the French; the campaign of 1794 and the winter of 1795 had added Belgium, Holland, the left bank of the Rhine, part of Piedmont, Catalonia, and Navarre, to their dominions. The coalition began at once to fall to pieces. As it was plain that there was no further hope of a military promenade to Paris or of territory to be gained at an easy price, the King of Prussia, who had been only kept up to the mark by enormous subsidies from England, made his peace with the French. It was the pressure of England alone which had driven Spain and Holland into the war. Although Pitt had procured a change of ministry in Spain in accordance with his own views, and the substitution of Godoy for Miranda, the Spanish Government now awoke to its true interests. All the advantages of a maritime war of necessity fell to the lot of the English, and Spain saw herself aiding in the destruction of the only efficient rival to the English upon the sea, and thus in fact rendering certain her own insignificance on that element. The Spanish Government was therefore willing to treat. Holland, completely conquered, and with half its population preferring the French rule to that of the Prince of Orange, who had been forced upon the country, obtained peace by giving up its chief fortresses, paying a large indemnity, and making an offensive alliance with France against England, by which thirty ships of war were placed at the disposal of the French. Many of the smaller states both of Germany and Italy declared themselves neutral. England was thus practically left without allies, with the single exception of Austria, which was only induced to continue its engagements by a subsidy of four millions and a half. This series of treaties was completed in the course of the year 1795, chiefly by Barthélemy at Basle; the treaty with Tuscany, Feb. 9; with Holland [at the Hague], May 15; with Prussia, April 5; and with Spain, July 14.

The campaign of the following year, 1795, was confined to the Rhine, where Pichegru commanded the army of the Rhine and Moselle, Jourdan that of the Sambre and Meuse. Pichegru was meditating treachery, and lay idle opposite the Black Forest till the advance of Jourdan from the North to co-operate with him for the purpose of retaking Mayence forced him into action. He took Mannheim, and might have taken Heidelberg, but he wilfully resigned this advantage, and fell back in disorder upon the lines of Weissembourg, where he signed an armistice with the Austrians preparatory to joining them. His retreat had compelled that of Jourdan also.

[Sidenote: Insurrection of La Vendée.]

The English meanwhile had engaged in a lukewarm way in an expedition which, had it been carried out with vigour, might have changed the face of affairs. After the great destruction of the Vendéan army at Savenay, the war continued to smoulder both in La Vendée itself and in Brittany. But north of the Loire it assumed a somewhat different character; the open, simple and heroic devotion of the Vendéan peasantry, who had followed their priests, gentry, and leaders of their own rank to battle, was wanting, and the hostilities of Brittany assumed rather the form of brigandage than warfare. The country was infested with small bands, who kept up connection with one another by means of private signals, but who seldom appeared in large numbers, and worked chiefly by night-surprises and by rapid and secret cutting off of detached posts. The chief man of the Chouans, as the Breton insurgents were called, was Cormatin. But certain men of higher rank were also among them; the chief of these was Count Joseph de Puisaye, a man of considerable energy and ability, who had been a member of the National Assembly. De Puisaye saw that irregular warfare could produce but little effect, and desired to obtain assistance from England, where the Government was supposed to be ready to assist any endeavour against the French Republic; an impression kept alive by the rumours, probably much exaggerated, spread by agents who were constantly passing and repassing through the Channel Islands between France and England.

[Sidenote: Expedition from England planned.]

[Sidenote: Destruction of the expedition to Quiberon.]

In the autumn of 1794 De Puisaye betook himself to England and laid his plans before Pitt. It was suggested that 10,000 British troops should be joined with the corps of emigrants, and should land in Brittany and seize Rennes, and thence push forward at once over Normandy, Maine and Poitou. It was thought advisable that a prince of the blood should either accompany the expedition or shortly appear upon the scene, and the Count of Artois was selected for the purpose. Lord Moira, favourably known in the American War as Lord Rawdon, was to take command of the English troops. But though speed and secresy were of the first necessity, the expedition hung fire, and news of it reached the ears of the French Government. The reason for this delay was partly jealousy and disunion among the emigrants themselves, partly Pitt's mistrust of the readiness of the French to join him, and his knowledge of the danger of relying on the assertions of sanguine exiles, and partly the discovery of the feeling existing among the royalists themselves in La Vendée and Brittany against the introduction of any large foreign army; for the belief seems to have been prevalent that Pitt's objects were selfish, and that an English army would be rather a danger than an assistance. It is at all events certain that the royalists in Paris, in their dislike that the reaction should be brought about by any means but their own, did their best to injure the expedition. The consequences of the delay were serious. In spite of considerable sums of money sent from England, and a good deal more much cheaper money, consisting of forged assignats, which were exported largely, in the spring of 1795 the skill of Hoche and Canclaux, the generals opposed to the insurgents, and the very favourable terms offered by the Convention, induced the chiefs both of the Vendéans and of the Chouans to accept an amnesty. The terms offered were certainly unusually tempting. A large indemnity of several millions of francs was to be given to the people to repay them for their losses; the houses that had been burnt were to be rebuilt; ten millions were to be given to the chiefs to take up the bonds that had been issued in their names during the insurrection; Charette was to be allowed to keep up 2000 men in the pay of the Government, freedom of religion was to be granted, and there were to be no requisitions in La Vendée for five years. The agreement was made as solemn as possible. The first to accept it was Charette, with whom the treaty was signed with great pomp in the city of Nantes in February. Subsequently, in April, Stofflet gave in his adhesion to the same arrangement, and finally the Chouans did the same. It seemed a proof of their sincerity that they gave up into the hands of the Commissioner of the Convention nearly a million of forged assignats, which they had received from the English fleet round the coast; but on the part of the insurgents it appears that this treaty was illusory, forced upon them by the delay of the English. It was used however as an additional ground for refusing large assistance, and it was an army of emigrants only, with a considerable quantity of stores and money, which in July of 1795 at length set sail from England. Even then the plan of De Puisaye was overruled for the worse. For the sake of a good roadstead for the English fleet, it was arranged that the landing should be upon the peninsula of Quiberon, close to Carnac, instead of in the north of Brittany; and again, apparently in mistrust of De Puisaye's partisan system of warfare, it was thought necessary to give him as second in command a royalist emigrant of the name of D'Hervilly, a red tape soldier, who had displayed considerable courage on the 10th of August, but who was a very bad man for the present irregular warfare. It even seemed doubtful whether his authority did not supersede De Puisaye's, and after Quiberon was reached, it was thought necessary to send an appeal to England to settle this weighty question. Meanwhile, after two days of delay, the troops were landed at Carnac. They were received with an enthusiasm so riotous and irregular, that the commander's love of discipline received a severe shock, and he ceased to trust his wild allies. However, in three days they were joined by some 10,000 men, and De Puisaye was eager to rush forward and raise the whole of the neighbouring country, but the answer from England had not yet been received, and the troops waited on in inactivity. At length something was done. A small fort called Port Penthièvre covers the little isthmus which joins the peninsula of Quiberon to the shore. D'Hervilly proceeded to bring up all his artillery, but before his operations were completed, De Puisaye and a few hundred Chouans had gained possession of the place without difficulty. With his regular troops in the peninsula and holding the fort, and with his Chouans spread along the mainland, De Puisaye was compelled to remain inactive. All the jealousies which existed among the royalists burst out, and even worse than that, time was allowed for General Hoche to increase his 5000 troops, which might easily have been routed, to double that number. He suddenly attacked the invaders, and drove the whole mass, Chouans, emigrants, and all, to the narrow confined peninsula. Their efforts to break loose were unavailing; fresh emigrant troops under Sombreuil came from England. De Puisaye's authority was confirmed, but it was too late. Some republican troops taken in Fort Penthièvre had been admitted to the emigrant ranks. They entered into treacherous correspondence with Hoche's army, and by their assistance the fort was recaptured. The exit from their peninsula was thus entirely closed to them, the enemy's cannon was placed along the corresponding shore, and swept the isthmus and the roadstead, while the republican troops, advancing from the fort, drove the invaders backward into the corner of the tongue of land. They were literally driven into the sea. The scene was a fearful one. Many in despair threw themselves upon their own swords, many tried to reach the boats of the fleet, and were a ready mark for the republican musketry. Some thought themselves fortunate in reaching fishing-boats which were hovering about the coast, but in zeal for their own preservation the boatmen lopped off their hands and suffered them to sink. Some 900, with De Puisaye at their head, reached the English squadron and were saved. About 700, under De Sombreuil, made, as they thought, terms with General Humbert, but the conditions were only verbal, and included, as the French asserted probably with truth, a reference to the Convention. The reactionaries in power were glad of the chance of freeing themselves of the charge of favouring the royalists. Orders were given that the law against emigrants taken in arms should be carried out to the letter. The prisoners were brought out in batches and shot upon the seashore till 700 of them had been killed. After this the fate of the insurgents was sealed. In the following year (1796) the Count of Artois again appeared upon the coast, and Charette and Stofflet were again in arms, but the Count of Artois was content to remain in idleness at L'Ile Dieu, and Hoche succeeded in the difficult work of at once conquering and conciliating all that remained of the insurrection. Charette and Stofflet were both captured and shot.

[Sidenote: Confidence of the English in Pitt.]

There can be but little doubt that when war was first declared the feeling of the English people was very strongly in favour of it. Accustomed for years to trust to Pitt, they continued their perfect confidence in him though his policy had changed, and, as we have seen, the opposition in the House of Commons was virtually destroyed. The confidence of the nation was chiefly exhibited in the readiness with which it met all the demands for increased taxation and for immense loans; in fact, Pitt was strongly supported by the commercial classes. With them the war was in itself popular, they were clearsighted enough to see how vast was the opening likely to be afforded them by the increase of English power upon the sea.

[Sidenote: Increased by his assistance in a financial crisis.]

In the year 1793 Pitt gained a fresh right to their gratitude by the assistance he afforded them during a brief monetary crisis which threatened to be very destructive. The year had been one of great financial difficulty. The sudden expansion of manufacturing industry which had followed upon the great inventions at the beginning of the reign, and the increase of commerce which followed the close of the American War, had rendered necessary a large amount of capital. The want had been met by a largely increased paper currency. Reckless banking had become prevalent, and provincial banks issued notes far beyond their capital. A very slight panic would be enough to cause the collapse of such a system. It was found that to meet the necessities of the exchange between England and the rest of the world bullion would have to leave England. Bullion was already scarce, and the Bank of England therefore thought it necessary to restrict its issues. This was enough to cause the failure of a few great houses; a panic ensued; there was a run upon the provincial banks; out of 350 more than 100 failed. Yet there was in reality quite enough property both in securities and in goods to enable merchants to meet all demands. It was only for the moment that there was a deficiency of money, that is, of the means of exchange. Pitt, with admirable clearness, recognized the real solvency of the country, and authorized the issue of bills on the Exchequer to the value of five millions. These were advanced to merchants, who could prove their solvency, against securities or goods. As these bills rested on the credit of the nation, they were readily received, the engagements of the merchants were satisfied by their means, and credit was restored. As it proved, not more than four millions was borrowed, and the whole sum was speedily repaid without loss to the nation.

[Sidenote: Effect of Pitt's new policy of repression.]

[Sidenote: The Traitorous Correspondence Bill. March 15, 1793.]

The effect of the complete trust placed in Pitt was to allow him to give full rein to his new policy. Now that policy was one entirely of repression, and the effect of it in the long run, indeed before the year was out, was to divide England much more sharply into the propertied and non-propertied classes, and to bring into existence a state of feeling highly undesirable, and which tended much to produce those very evils it was intended to prevent. While every movement in a liberal direction was certain to be checked, laws of the most stringent description were willingly passed, and at first the execution of existing laws, especially with regard to seditious writing, received great public support. In this class may be mentioned the Traitorous Correspondence Act. There has always been great dislike to tampering with or extending the law of treason, yet there were but fifty-three members of the House of Commons who could be found to lift their voices against this Bill, which declared guilty of high treason, firstly, all those who supplied any arms or military or naval stores to the enemy; secondly, all those who purchased lands in France, for the use of assignats rendered the sale of land the chief support of French finance, and the purchase of land was therefore regarded as indirectly strengthening the hands of the enemy; thirdly, it prohibited all intercourse with France without special license under the Great Seal; and fourthly, the insurance of French vessels by English merchants. The two first of these offences were to fall directly under the old law of Edward III., and to deprive those who were guilty of them of the advantages secured to them by the ameliorations of the law which had since been made, such as the right to employ counsel, and to be furnished with the list of the jury, the necessity of two witnesses to secure conviction, and the lapse of a certain period between the indictment and the trial.

[Sidenote: Trials for seditious writings.]

But it was chiefly in the prosecution for seditious meetings and seditious writings that the character of the Government showed itself. The best known of these in the year 1793 was that of Muir. This young man, a member of the Society of the Friends of the People, was indicted for spreading the works of Thomas Paine. He defended himself with great ability upon the ground that he had only aimed at the reform of Parliament. His speech was greeted with loud applause, but the Lord Justice-Clerk summed up most strongly against him, and asserted the strange doctrine that the Government was made up of the landed interest. "As for the rabble," said he, "who have nothing but personal property, what hold has the nation on them?" He sentenced Muir to fourteen years' transportation. The severity of the judges and the frequent trials that the Government ordered had not the effect of checking the popular feeling. Delegates from various parts of Scotland, in concert with the Friends of the People and other societies, assembled at Edinburgh. The leading spirits were Maurice Margarot and Joseph Gerald, agents from London. These delegates assumed the name of a convention, spoke of the first year of the British Republic, and otherwise mimicked their French brethren. In December the law came upon them, and three of them, with Margarot and Gerald, were transported for fourteen years.

[Sidenote: Pitt resists the growing desire for peace,]

Up till this time the people as a whole had been heartily with Pitt; but the course of the year had tended to change their feelings, the war had been by no means the light undertaking expected, and it began to be seen that its continuation meant fearful expenses, heavy taxes, and a system of government but little in accordance with the general character of English administration. Some even of Pitt's old friends began to whisper of peace, but his will was not one to yield to opposition. In Parliament he was still supreme, and in this first beginning of difficulties he exhibited the greatness of his energy and his resources. He branded with fierce words, which reminded his hearers of his great father, all who dared to think of peace; he openly avowed that the idea was impossible till some total change took place in the French Government, thus putting his actions on their true basis. Backed by his commercial friends, he found means to continue the subsidies to Prussia and Austria, he purchased the adhesion of several of the smaller German states, induced the Spaniards to continue a war which was wholly against their own interests, and obliged the lesser Italian states to join the coalition; he even allowed Russia to perpetrate the second partition of Poland as a price of her neutrality. With such efforts as these he contrived to carry on his war; it was not unreasonably that he became the ogre of the French, the one object of their insatiable hatred.

[Sidenote: and continues the prosecutions for seditious writings.]

At home he would not abate one jot of his policy. Again the prosecutions went forward. So little had the late action of Government been successful that discontent and the intrigues of the societies were becoming even more envenomed. The English had taken a leaf out of the Scotch book; two of the great societies--the Constitutional Society and the Corresponding Society--determined that they too would have a convention. It seems to have been a far more real and dangerous thing than the Scotch convention. The workmen were stirred up, meetings were held in all the great towns attended by delegates from London, revolutionary songs were composed and circulated, and a considerable number of weapons constructed and secreted. It was the intention of the Convention to overawe Parliament somewhat in the same way as the Jacobin Club overawed the French Assembly. The Government determined to act as strongly as possible against it, and instead of accusing the leaders of seditious practices merely, they thought it advisable to treat their conduct as a great and capital crime, and to bring them to trial for high treason. The leaders arrested were Hardy, Secretary of the Corresponding Society, Adams, Secretary of the Constitutional Society, Horne Tooke, the well-known opponent of Junius, the Rev. Jeremiah Joyce, author of the "Scientific Dialogues," and tutor to Lord Stanhope's sons, Thelwall, a political lecturer of some importance, and three others. A secret committee of the House, having examined their books and papers, reported that there were ample proofs of a traitorous conspiracy for overawing Parliament. Upon this report the Government advanced a step further, and in spite of the eager opposition of the minority, carried through the House the suspension of the Habeas Corpus. Trials for high treason followed both in England and Scotland. In Scotland the prosecution was successful, but the English trials did not go off so smoothly. Hardy was tried first on the 28th of October. Sir John Scott (afterwards Lord Eldon) conducted the prosecution; but although the evidence, if true, tended to show that language of a most seditious character had been used, and weapons and plans of insurrection made, yet the skill and eloquence of Erskine, who laid his chief stress on the grave constitutional danger of any enlargement of the Treason Act, procured an acquittal. The Government was not satisfied, Horne Tooke was also tried. He defended himself with his usual effrontery and humour, and again an acquittal was obtained. Still the Crown persisted, and Thelwall the lecturer was tried; again the accused was acquitted. The excitement about the trials was intense, the speeches of the rival barristers were listened to with extreme interest, and the acquittals were hailed with the wildest enthusiasm. It was plain that a considerable change had taken place in the feelings of the people; the strings of repression had been drawn too tight; the line between class and class was becoming more sharply marked.

[Sidenote: Portland and his friends join the ministry. July 1794.]

[Sidenote: Desire for peace.]

The same fact is rendered obvious by the completion in this year of the consolidation of the new Tory party. Ever since the middle of 1792 the Duke of Portland and his friends had voted with Government, but they now openly joined it, and were admitted to some of the best places. The Duke of Portland became Secretary for the Home Department, Earl Fitzwilliam Lord President, and Mr. Wyndham Secretary at War. The one point which connected the new recruits with the ministry was the determination all felt to carry on the war. Pitt was therefore hampered in two directions. When Parliament was opened on the 13th of December 1794, there appeared to be a growing feeling in favour of peace, and Pitt found himself opposed to many of his old friends, the country gentlemen; but his union with the Duke of Portland and his party rendered a change of policy at present impossible. He was in the hands of the war party; afraid of losing their support, and buoyed up by an idle belief in the financial exhaustion of France, he determined still to carry on the war vigorously. As he was quite paramount in Parliament[12] in spite of an increased minority, he had no difficulty in getting leave to raise a loan of eighteen millions, and to guarantee another large loan to purchase the co-operation of Austria. He nevertheless slightly changed his tone, and confessed that he should be satisfied with a peace that gave him security, and allowed later in the session that there was a possibility of treating with the present Government of France.

[Sidenote: The Prince of Wales' marriage. April 8, 1795.]

Amongst other minor difficulties which he had to meet was the constant embarrassment of the Prince of Wales. Seven years before he had purchased the payment of his debts by a lie concerning his wife; he was now again £700,000 in debt; the only terms on which he could hope to get relieved were that he should marry legally, and the King had chosen for him a Princess of Brunswick whom he had never seen. Lord Malmesbury arranged the negotiation, but unwisely suppressed, what he saw clearly himself, the absolute unfitness of the lady for the position she was to occupy. He found her frivolous, slovenly, and quite deficient in tact. It was impossible but that she should be distasteful to any English gentleman. Very shortly after the birth of her child a formal separation took place, and a scandalous dispute arose, which afterwards turned into a great party conflict. For the present however, the Prince received the price of his unfortunate bargain. The royal message demanding the assistance of Parliament was couched in humble language, and asked only for some arrangement by which the debts should be ultimately paid; but even thus it excited a perfect storm in the House. None even of the Prince's old friends rose to defend him, and Pitt himself, though no friend of the Prince, intreated that the matter might not be examined by a Parliamentary Committee, for fear of the damaging effect of such an inquiry on the principle of an hereditary monarchy. It was finally arranged that the Prince's income should be raised from £72,000 to £125,000 a year, that the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall should be set apart, which in twenty-seven years would extinguish the debt, and that £25,000 a year more should be devoted to pay the interest. To these enactments was added an extraordinary one, rendering the Prince's servants liable for any contract they should enter into on his behalf, and limiting legal remedy against the Prince to the term of three months.

[Sidenote: Sufferings of the lower classes. 1795.]

[Sidenote: Assault on the King.]

Such demands upon the public purse seemed very badly timed, when the working classes were suffering very heavily from depression of trade, from famine produced by two bad harvests, and from a constantly increasing burden of taxation. Discontent was in fact increasing widely, great political meetings were held in London and elsewhere to expose the abuses of monarchy and aristocracy. Riots and seditious writings were constantly on the increase, and the Government thought the state of affairs so critical that they determined upon an autumn session. Three days before Parliament met a monster meeting was held under the auspices of the Corresponding Society in Copenhagen Fields. The excitement thus produced found vent in an assault upon the King as he went to open Parliament, one of the windows of his state coach was broken by a stone or bullet; on his return his coach was again surrounded by an angry mob, with shouts of "Bread, bread! peace, peace!" and he only escaped with difficulty by driving rapidly in his private carriage from St. James's to Buckingham Palace. The King, who throughout showed great courage, showed himself in the evening at Covent Garden theatre, where he was on the whole well received. This act of violence produced two coercive Bills, one to suppress seditious meetings, the other to extend the law of treason. Every public meeting was to be advertised by a paper signed by resident householders, and all meetings were liable to be dispersed according to the Riot Act if any two justices thought them dangerous; while by the second law, writing, preaching, and speaking, were created overt acts, thus rendering the offender guilty of treason, and writing or speaking against the established Government was made a highly punishable crime. These Bills were commonly known as the Sedition and Treason Bills. They were not passed without strong opposition, and the use of language on the part of Fox so vehement as to excite still further the anger of the Tories. This party was now enjoying its selfish triumph to the utmost. It became necessary again to augment the taxes, and Pitt hit upon the expedient of levying duties upon legacies and successions. The country gentlemen had sufficient influence to confine the Bill to the succession of money and personal property only, and to exclude real property from the action of the Bill. This glaring injustice was not remedied till 1853.

[Sidenote: Changes in France give hopes of peace.]

The burden of taxation had much to do with the overtures for peace which were set on foot in 1796. Nearly all classes in the kingdom had become weary of the war. Pitt, as has been seen, had been forced into it against his natural tendencies, and though, when once embarked in the war of opinion, he had used language of the most overbearing character, he was eager, now that he found his hope of a speedy bankruptcy of France frustrated, to bring about an honourable peace. Such an opportunity was offered by the changed character of the French Government. The Directory had held its position for upwards of a year, and seemed to give promise of such stability as would render negotiation possible. This change in the Government of France had been the outcome of a series of revolutions which had followed each other in rapid succession.

[Sidenote: Retrospect of French affairs. 1793.]

[Sidenote: The Committee of Public Safety.]

The Girondins had, contrary to their conscientious opinions, voted for the death of the King. It was in fact an act of suicide. After this it was useless to oppose any demand of the Jacobins; the attempt only produced a violent struggle in the Convention, which ended in the complete overthrow of the Girondins by the insurrection of the 1st of June. In the place of the party thus annihilated the Jacobins found themselves supreme. Upon them henceforward lay the duty of saving the Revolution within and rescuing France from foreign assaults from without. The machinery of Government to which they trusted to obtain these ends was a Committee of Public Safety, in whose hands the full powers of the executive were lodged. As far as the external defence of France was concerned, the restless energy of the new rulers was completely successful. La Vendée, Toulon, and Lyons, the centres of opposition within France, were all reduced. Carnot struck out a new plan of warfare, and found means to employ with success the masses with which an almost unlimited conscription supplied the army, and from this time onwards the French were everywhere successful. But while exhibiting this energy abroad, in France the government of the Committee was in the last degree cruel and tyrannical. Nor could the Jacobins agree among themselves. On the one side was a party atheistical in their religion, communistic in their political views, foul and blasphemous in their language. This party, which predominated in the Commune, took its name from Hébert, the editor of an infamous paper called _Père Duchesne_. It shocked the feelings of the world by its excesses, abolishing religion, closing the churches, and holding a blasphemous service in Notre Dame in honour of Reason. On the other side was a party, headed by Danton, intent chiefly on success abroad, and inclined to believe that the work of destruction had gone far enough. Between the two was the party of the Purists, headed by Robespierre and St. Just, who looked with equal hatred on the scandalous and anarchical conduct of the Hébertists and the indulgent and somewhat loose lives of the followers of Danton. Robespierre was able to attack and destroy both these parties in turn. The Hébertists were the first to fall, but very shortly after the same fate befell the Dantonists.

[Sidenote: The Reign of Terror.]

[Sidenote: Fall of Robespierre.]

Atheists and indulgents being thus both removed, Robespierre and his party were virtually masters of France. Under them the Terror knew no relaxation. "The maxim of our policy," said Robespierre, "ought to be to guide the people by reason and the enemies of the people by terror." Whole batches of victims completely unknown to each other were sent off together to the guillotine under pretext of being accomplices in conspiracy. Between the 20th of June and the 27th of July 1400 people were executed. But Robespierre and his friends looked forward to some conclusion of this state of things, desiring to establish a purely moral, stoical, and deistical Republic. As a first step, the worship of the Supreme Being was decreed, and a great festivity held, where Robespierre, decked with flowers, officiated as priest. Thus, too, he began to shelter the priests and nobles. The idea of the cessation of the Revolution thoroughly frightened some of the worst among the Committee, and Robespierre's assumption of authority disgusted them. They contrived to form a coalition with all the discontented parties, Hébertists, Dantonists, Girondists, Royalists, were all ready to combine against the one man whose stoical purity seemed to insult them, and whose cold implacable cruelty gave them no hope if they should offend him. Robespierre was thus hated by the people, and at enmity both with the people and the Committee, but was still influential at the club of the Jacobins, the Convention, and the revolutionary Tribunal. Knowing that an assault would be directed against him, his wisdom would have been to strike first. To this course St. Just urged him, but he seems to have relied upon his influence in the Convention, and was astonished when he found his friends wholly outnumbered and a hearing refused him. On the 27th of July he was arrested with Couthon, St. Just, and his brother. He escaped and fled to the Commune. For a moment it appeared as if an insurrection would have reinstated him. But the richer sections of Paris rallied to the destruction of their tyrant, and on the following day Robespierre, with twenty members of the Commune, was dragged to the scaffold.

[Sidenote: Establishment of the Directory. Oct. 1795.]

The party which had overthrown Robespierre were as cruel and far more depraved than he was. They would gladly have continued the Revolution in its most odious form. But the Terror once destroyed, it was impossible to check a reactionary movement. The revolutionary Committee and Tribunal were modified, the Commune destroyed, the club of the Jacobins dissolved, and the Girondins who had escaped execution recalled. Such measures did not please the mob of Paris, still further excited by the constant continuance of famine. On the 12th Germinal (April 1), and again on the 1st Prairial (May 20), they rose in insurrection, invaded the hall of the Convention, clamouring for bread and the constitution of 1793. For six hours a wild tumult raged within the walls. But soldiers had been collected, and with the aid of the troops of the more reactionary Paris sections order was restored. This was the deathblow of the democratic party. A new constitution was drawn up, the executive power was vested in five directors, and two councils, the one of 500, the other of 250, established. The hopes of the royalists had been raised by the late reactionary movement. Finding themselves thwarted by the new constitution, the richer sections and the partisans of reaction marched on the Tuileries. General Menou proved unequal to his place, and the task of defending the Assembly was given to Barras, who chose as his active lieutenant Bonaparte. With a vigour unchecked by fear of shedding the blood of citizens, this young officer brought up thirty cannon from the camp of Sablons, and received the advancing insurrectionists with such showers of grape, that, though not without a short resistance, they were completely defeated. This was the first step towards military despotism. The new constitution came into effect on the 27th of October 1795.

[Sidenote: Pitt's first negotiations for peace.]

Thus, before it was understood how completely the army had got the upper hand in France, how completely from henceforward its interests would be military, the appearance of something more like a permanent and orderly government in the shape of the Directory seemed for the instant to give hopes of peace. Towards that point Pitt's feelings had been gradually tending. Even as early as December 1795 he had spoken of the possibility of an honourable peace should a more settled government ever be arrived at in France, and since then much had happened to induce him to lower his tone. In spite of all his efforts, he had seen his great coalition disappear at the Congress at Basle. He had seen the complete ruin of his Quiberon expedition. More than that, all his best tendencies had been shocked by the consequences of his own government at home. But the opening of his eyes to the fallacy of his belief in the speedy bankruptcy of France and its rapid conquest, with which in all his difficulties he had hitherto buoyed himself up, came too late. His application for peace through the Swiss minister (March 1796), which the King announced at the close of the session, met with a very cold reception. For the Government of France, having just been re-established on a new and more dangerous basis, would listen to no terms which implied the restoration of the Low Countries to Austria; and as it was impossible for Pitt, after his conduct to that country, to suggest any other terms, the negotiations speedily came to nothing.

[Sidenote: Napoleon's Italian campaign. 1796.]

Indeed, the French Republic had this year reached a pitch of glory unequalled in the palmiest times of the monarchy. Carnot, who was again in power as one of the Directory, had conceived a plan for a campaign of this year upon a gigantic scale. Three armies were to push out from France and strike all of them by the three different roads, of the Maine, the Danube, and the Po, at Vienna. Three young generals were intrusted with the task. Jourdan was given the army of the Sambre and Meuse, Moreau the army of the Rhine and Moselle, Bonaparte succeeded Schérer in the command of the army of Italy. The preceding year the battle of Loano had secured to the French the Riviera as far as Savona, but the troops were destitute of every necessary. Napoleon aroused their enthusiasm by promises, and in a fortnight had separated the Austrians and Piedmontese, defeated the former at Montenotte and Dégo, and thrown them back into Lombardy, the latter at Millesimo, and again at Mondovi, as he pursued them towards Turin, and finally wrung from them a treaty which left him at liberty to pursue the Austrians. Another fortnight was hardly over before he had turned the Austrian position on the Ticino by the passage of the Po at Placenza, driven them from the Adda by the victories of Fombio and Lodi, and having chased them behind the Mincio, secured the whole of Lombardy to the French. Bonaparte completed the first act of the campaign by securing the line of the Adige and forming the siege of Mantua. He employed some weeks in conquering Italy as far south as Naples, but from this work he was recalled by the approach of an Austrian army to raise the siege of Mantua. Wurmser came down the Adige on one side of the Lake of Garda, Quasdanowich down the Chiesa on the other. Bonaparte, giving up every other object for the moment, placed himself between the armies, defeated Quasdanowich, at Lonato on the one hand, and Wurmser at Castiglioni on the other, and thus driving them into the Tyrol, resumed the siege of Mantua. Wurmser made one more effort to raise the siege; again he advanced with two armies, hoping to enclose the French. Davidowich descended the Adige, Wurmser the valley of the Brenta. The battle of Roveredo destroyed the former, while Bonaparte, turning rapidly into the valley of the Brenta in pursuit of Wurmser, came up with and defeated him at Bassano. Thus cut off from Germany, the Austrian general had no resource but to take refuge in Mantua (Sept. 12). The Austrians could not leave their army thus shut up in Mantua, and a fresh effort was made to save it. It was again a double attack, but after three days' fight, Alvinzi, coming from the east, was beaten at Arcola, and the attempt failed. Six weeks later he made one more desperate effort, but was defeated again on the plateau of Rivoli. Alvinzi's attack had been rendered the more dangerous, because upon the Maine and Rhine Jourdan and Moreau had been unsuccessful. There the Archduke Charles had in a certain degree followed the same plans as Bonaparte, and directing his whole force against Jourdan, had compelled the retreat of Moreau also. It was to this victorious general that the Austrians looked to continue their defence. But Bonaparte, in the beginning of the following year, repeatedly drove him backwards, defeated him on the Tagliamento, drove him into the mountains, and defeated him at Neumarck, and finally, having secured the pass of the Semmering, and being within eighty miles of Vienna, he obliged the Archduke to demand a suspension of arms, and opened negotiations known as the Preliminaries of Léoben (April 13), which were completed under the title of Campo Formio on the 17th of October 1797.

[Sidenote: Pitt's second negotiations for peace.]