The Years of Endurance (43 page)

For the country was at last losing faith in its power to achieve its war aims. It was no longer prepared to fight for them. It would make further sacrifices only for bare existence. " We can break off upon nothing but what will rouse us from sleep and stupidity into a new life and action," Canning continued. " We are now soulless and spineless." The desperate unity engendered by the menace of the Nore mutiny had been succeeded by a feeling of exhaustion; the sacrifices of the past four years appeared in vain, victory farther off than ever. Men had momentarily lost confidence in their leaders and the organs of public opinion; a naval officer who that summer captured a French privateer commented bitterly on the lying newspapers that gave out that the French were starving, whereas in

¹
" For my part I adjourn my objects of honour and happiness for, this country beyond the grave of our military and political consequence which you are now
digging
at Lille. I believe in our resurrection and find my only comfort in it."—
Malmesbury,
III,
398.

reality their ships were loaded with luxuries.
¹
A cartoon of Gillray portrayed Pitt as a sleepwalker descending, with guttering candle and fixed staring eyes, the gaping stairway of a tottering ruin. Nelson, writing from Cadiz at the end of June, heard that he was out; " it is measures must be changed and not men," he commented. The general feeling in the Fleet was that peace was now inevitable.
²
Even St. Vincent sent Spencer suggestions for demobilisation.

Accordingly at the beginning of July Malmesbury set out for Lille where Republican plenipotentiaries had been appointed to meet him. The recent French elections had clearly shown the popular desire for peace. Though three of the five Directors wanted the war to continue at all costs, an open rejection of the British overtures was more than they dared. They had therefore decided to play for time.

At first the " white lion's " reports were hopeful; he had been treated with courtesy, even old-world ceremony: the French plenipotentiaries were very different from those of the previous year; everywhere the weary, disillusioned country people wanted peace. Britain was no longer under any obligation to press for the return of Austrian territories: she was prepared to abandon the old conception of the balance of power and Tier claim to control the fate of Holland and Belgium. And, as she
was also ready to restore uncon
ditionally all her colonial
conquests except Spanish Trinidad

Dutch Ceylon and the Cape, there seemed little to dispute. But soon the old doubts arose: the Directory was making difficulties, demanding unconditional compensation for the ships destroyed at Toulon four years before and the repudiation of the King of England's historic French title as indispensable preliminaries to negotiation. Before long it was asking still more: that before any discussion Britain should surrender every colonial possession she had taken not only from France but from Spain and the Batavian Republic.

In this doubtful season and while the,Dutch invasion fleet with its transports waited for westerly winds to veer to the east, Burke died. For long he had been in despair. " If I live much longer," he

¹
" Barrels of meat of every description—alamode beef, ham, fowls, and tongues, casks filled with eggs, coffee, tea and sugar, all kinds of cordial, with plenty of brandy and different wines; so that instead of starvation, there appeared the luxury of Lucullus."—Gardner, 200.

²
Wynne Diaries,
II,
183.

had written, " I shall see an end of all that is wort
h living for in this world
' The departure of Malmesbury on yet another abject mission had been the final blow to the angry, vehement old man: he could not survive it. But as he l
ay dying in his home at Beacons
field and his anguished disciples stood around him, a flash of the old prophetic power returned. "Never," he whispered, " succumb to these difficulties. It is a struggle for your existence as a nation, and, if you must
die
, die with the sword in your hand."

Far away off Cadiz, Nelson was preparing with three ships of the line and four frigates to storm the great Spanish island fortress of Tenerife and capture the Mexican treasure fleet which was believed to be sheltering there. On July 15 th, 1797, he parted from St. Vincent and five days later sighted the snow-capped peak and frowning cliffs under which he proposed to take his ships. A more desperate enterprise was never attempted: the fortress of Santa Cruz bristled with guns and was defended by 8000 Spanish troops. Against them Nelson could oppose a bare 1000 sailors and marines. On the night of the 24th, he brought his landing boats to within half a gunshot of the shore before the church bells sounded the alarm and a hurricane of grapeshot swept the harbour. With his right arm shattered to the bone Nelson was borne back half-unconscious to his flagship, while a forlorn hope of four hundred men under Troubridge carried the mole and, driving through the deserted streets, actually reached the great square before their ammunition ran out. Here from a convent into which they retired they prepared fireballs and torches to storm their way into the citadel until the governor—a kindly and sensible man—admiring the extravagance of these mad Englishmen, made propositions so generous that they yielded. Providing them with boats to depart— for their own had been dashed to pieces—he gave to each man a loaf and a pint of wine and sent them back to their ships.
¹

¹
He entertained Captain Troubridge and Captain Hood to dinner and, with the chivalry of his proud race, showed them every kindness. The courtesy was returned by Nelson, who carried the Spaniard's official report of his successful defence to Cadiz. Earl Spencer, on
hearing of the episode, wrote to his colleague, the Foreign Secretary : " Being on the subject of compliments, I really think that some notice should be taken (but I don't exactly know the proper mode) of the Spanish Governor of Santa Cruz who behaved so well to our people after the treaty they made for retreating to their ships."—
H. M.
C.
Dropmore,
III,
375.

At Lille the prospects of peace depended on the moderates in the Legislative Councils prevailing over the corrupt Directors. A secret approach to Malmesbury by one of the plenipotentiaries, urging him to await the triumph of the peace party, prolonged negotiations for many weeks after rational hope of a successful issue had faded. The British Government, needing it so much and assured by Malmesbury that peace would sap the failing strength of the Revolution, abased itself and went on exchanging notes about the return of Dutch and Spanish colonies. It subsequently transpired that the new French Foreign Minister, Talleyrand, was using these delays to speculate in British Funds.

With the expiry of Carnot's term as President of the Directory on August 24th, 1797, his colleagues completed their plans for an appeal to the sword. Behind them were the power and prestige of the young hero to whom their leader, Barras, had given his first chance. General Bonaparte did not love Barras, but he loved the peace party and the Royalists of the Club de Clichy even less. At the moment he was negotiating the final formalities of the Treaty of Campo Formio, which was to set the seal on the preliminary peace of Leoben and substitute France for Austria as the dominant power in Italy and the Adriatic. His bloodless conquest of Venice and the Ionian Islands had fired his imagination: he saw himself as the successor of the Doges, holding the golden East in fee, using the Venetian fleet to seize Malta from the Knights of St. John and striking through Egypt to found a new empire in the Levant and India. Such a policy was utterly incompatible with peace with England: now, when that greedy, soulless power was decaying at the centre
, was the moment to strike off h
er eastern tentacles. Her subsidised allies were all gone and she could do nothing without them.

With these thoughts the young conqueror addressed a flamboyant proclamation to his troops. "France," he told them, "is separated from us by the mountains; but should it be necessary you will traverse them with the speed of an eagle to maintain the Constitution, to defend Liberty and to protect the Government and Republic." This document he had circulated through France, where it made a great impression. For though the war-weary, faction-torn country longed for peace, it longed for a saviour even more, and the romantic hero of Lodi and Rivoli seemed the one

man who could rescue it from a swarm of thieving, inglorious politicians. " The deputies ought to be put in a wood," was a popular saying of the time, " and the wood set on fire." The General was the obvious man to light it.

As Bonaparte—heir of the Revolution—knew better than any man, nothing could be achieved without force. Realist that he was, he sent the rough Augereau from his camp to Paris to command the troops who were to take the place of the Jacobin mob and keep the Revolution in being. The
coup d'etat
of Fructidor on September 3 rd was a repetition of a familiar theme, with soldiers playing the part of the roughs of the " glorious Faubourg." Barras, defying the majority in the Council because he was secure of the armed majority without, screamed across the Chamber to Carnot, once the organiser of victory, " There is not a louse on your body but has
the
right to spit in your face!" The Triumvirate of "Jacobin" Directors called in the military to disperse the Councils and by a savage proscription sentenced several hundred of their chief opponents— deputies, newspaper proprietors, editors, priests—to perpetual banishment in the swamps of Guiana and Cayenne. Carnot and a few others contrived to escape: the rest perished as miserably of fever under the " dry guillotine " as their predecessors had done under its bloodier counterpart.

This was the end of the peace negotiations. " This cursed revolution," wrote Canning, " has baffled our good intentions." The Jacobins had triumphed again, and there was no peace to be had with Jacobins. New French negotiators who arrived at Lille in place of the old at once requested that all former French, Spanish and Dutch possessions should be restored without demur as a preliminary to further conversations. The final terms, according to French Foreign
Office
archives, were to include the surrender of the Channel Islands, Canada, Newfoundland, Gibraltar and British India.
¹
On refusing Malmesbury was ordered to leave within twenty-four hours. He was pursued by dark hints as to the possibility of bribing t
he new Directors. For a sum of
£1,200,000 to be privately divided between Barras and Rewbell, Britain would be allowed to keep Dutch Ceylon, and for another £800,000 the Cape. So desperate was the state of affairs—" Europe abandon
ed," as Grenville wrote, " with
out

¹
Lecky,
IV,
162.

defence of any kind to these monsters "—that Pitt even played with the idea of effecting something by these dubious means. But they came to nothing and appeared to be inspired only by French politicians trying to speculate in British stocks and shares.

" If th
is country could but be brought to think so it would be ten thousand times safer to face the storm than to shrink from it."
¹
So wrote the Foreign Secretary on October 8th. Two days later Windham echoed him: " What are called prudent counsels are the most replete with danger."
²
The French had overstepped themselves. By the Treaty of Campo Formio with Austria they gained Belgium,
the
Rhine boundary, Savoy, Corfu and the Ionian Islands, and unchallenged control of Holland and Italy. The "natural frontiers" of France had been achieved and the war on the Continent liquidated. And Britain after
pouring out her blood and treasure for four and a half years had offered to return Martinique, St. Lucia, Tobago, the French part of Santo Domingo, the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, Pondicherry, Chandernagore and all the French trading factories in the East. In all her history, even in the days of the Grand Monarch, France had never been able to command such terms. And she had spurned them.

That refusal opened the country's eyes. It was not only victory the Republic wanted: it was the domination of the world and the elimination of Britain as a nation. Peace, however much desired, was not to be had with such adversaries. Collingwood when he heard the news summed up the real issue. " The question is not merely who shall be conqueror with the acquisition of some island or colony ceded by a treaty . . . but whether we shall any longer be a people—whether Britain is still to be enrolled among the list of European nations—whether the name of Englishman is to continue an appellation of honour, conveying the idea of every quality which makes human nature respectable, or a term of reproach and infamy, the designation of beggars and of slaves."
³
As for the claim that the Republic was fighting for liberty, that
p
retence was exposed for the nauseating hypocrisy it was by the
b
loodstained clique in power. In the spirit of their own General Bonaparte's cynical " I have shot the municipality of Pavia," they