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William Pitt, in later life. (From a painting by Hoppner in the National Portrait Gallery)WILLIAM PITT
AND
THE GREAT WAR
BY
J. HOLLAND ROSE, Litt.D.
England and France have held in their hands the fate of theworld, especially that of European civilization. How much harm we have done one another: how much good we might have done!—Napoleon to Colonel Wilks, 20th April 1816.
LONDON
G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.
1911
CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
PREFACE
In the former volume, entitled "William Pitt andNational Revival," I sought to trace the career ofPitt the Younger up to the year 1791. Until then hewas occupied almost entirely with attempts to repair theevils arising out of the old order of things. Retrenchmentand Reform were his first watchwords; and thoughin the year 1785 he failed in his efforts to renovate thelife of Parliament and to improve the fiscal relations withIreland, yet his domestic policy in the main achieved asurprising success. Scarcely less eminent, though farless known, were his services in the sphere of diplomacy.In the year 1783, when he became First Lord of theTreasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, nearly halfof the British Empire was torn away, and the remainderseemed to be at the mercy of the allied Houses ofBourbon. France, enjoying the alliance of Spain andAustria and the diplomatic wooings of Catharine II andFrederick the Great, gave the law to Europe.
By the year 1790 all had changed. In 1787 Pitt supportedFrederick William II of Prussia in overthrowingFrench supremacy in the Dutch Netherlands; and ayear later he framed with those two States an alliancewhich not only dictated terms to Austria at the Congressof Reichenbach but also compelled her to forego her far-reachingschemes on the lower Danube, and to restorethe status quo in Central Europe and in her Belgianprovinces. British policy triumphed over that of Spainin the Nootka Sound dispute of the year 1790, thereby[Pg viii]securing for the Empire the coast of what is now BritishColumbia; it also saved Sweden from a position of acutedanger; and Pitt cherished the hope of forming a leagueof the smaller States, including the Dutch Republic,Denmark, Sweden, Poland, and, if possible, Turkey,which, with support from Great Britain and Prussia,would withstand the almost revo