The Years of Endurance (45 page)

Budget in its history. He had to face a deficit of nineteen millions. Reckoning the taxable income of the country at just over a hundred millions, he proposed to raise a quarter of it for national purposes during the coming year, besides demanding a further loan of fifteen millions to support the war. To do so he trebled and in cases quadrupled the assessed taxes, an impost which, levied on larger inhabited houses and windows, on male servants, horses, carriages and similar luxuries, fell almost entirely on the propertied classes. This augmentation of what was virtually a direct tax on wealth threatened to undermine the whole basis of the British fiscal system.

At the first shock this revolutionary proposal was almost too much for the patriotism of the possessing classes: it outraged both their native conservatism and their sense of liberty. The Opposition argued that its result would be universal starvation, for, though the poor would escape its direct effect, it would dry up the wealth which employed them. Fox, making one of his rare appearances in the House, declared it would annihilate trade and property. When Pitt drove to the City to attend t
he thanksgiving service for Cam
perdown his coach was hooted by a hired mob. " The chief and almost only topic of conversation," wrote one society lady, " is the new taxes; how people are to live if the Bill is passed I know not." Even Fanny Burney, establish
ed with her refugee husband in C
amilla Cottage on the proceeds of her latest novel, felt that the increased assessment, though just and necessary, would spell ruin to herself and her father. " We have this very morning," she wrote at Christmas, " decided upon parting with four of our new windows."

Yet the Finance Bill passed the Commons—on January 5th, 1798 —by 196 votes to 71, and the Lords by 75 votes to 6. For it expressed, if not the wishes of all taxpayers, the will of the country. Down in Somerset, Hannah More reported that the poor villagers of Blagdon, fired by the glories of Camperdown, went in a body to their parson and stated their readiness to be taxed double. And after a little reflection and a good deal of characteristic grumbling, their betters proved worthy of them. By a happy suggestion of the Speaker, the pill of compulsion was sweetened by the addition of a self-imposed or voluntary contribution towards the cost of defending the country. And this, illogically enough, was subscribed with enthusiasm. Pitt, a poor man heavily in debt, headed the list with ^2000: every member of the Government gave a fifth of his

official salary, the King £20,000 a year—a third of his Privy Purse income—the Bank of England £200,000. A rough Lancashire calico maker named Robert Peel, whose son was one day to lead Pitt's party, subscribed £10,000 and was rebuked by his partner on his return to Bury for not having given double. The manager of Covent Garden, with the habitual loyalty of the theatre, devoted the profits of a special performance to the patriotic contribution. At the Royal Exchange, where a platform was erected in the piazza for the receipt of donations, subscriptions came in at the rate of £400 a minute, and when the Lord Mayor left the hustings on the first day a merchant called out, " Gentlemen, let us give a cheer for old England." In all, nearly two and a half millions was received in sums ranging from the £100,000 of the Duke of Bedford—hitherto a strong opponent of the war—to the 10s. subscribed by every seaman of H.M.S.
Argonaut
" to drive into the sea all French scoundrels and other blackguards."
¹

Danger alone could not explain the national revival, for Britain had long been on the verge of disaster. But danger there was, and as 1797 drew to a close it grew more urgent. On October 17th, a few days after Camperdown, the formal treaty between Austria and France was signed at Campo Formio. It was accompanied by the cynical elimination of an ancient sovereign state—for many centuries the bulwark of Europe against eastern barbarism—and most ominously for England, a commercial oligarchy. A week later the Directory appointed "
Citizen General " Bonaparte Com
mander-in-Chief of the Army of England.

There could be no doubt what that army was for. " Either our government," its chief wrote to Talleyrand, " must destroy the English monarchy or must expect to be destroyed by the corruption and intrigue of those active islanders. The present moment offers us a fair game. Let us concentrate all our activity upon the navy and destroy England. That done, Europe is at our feet." After a brief stay at Rastadt, where he attended the Imperial Conference

¹
Nelson,
now
recovered
from
the
loss
of
his
arm
and
waiting
at
Bath
for orders,
wrote
on
January
29th,
"
I
hope
all
the
Nation
will
subscribe
liberally. You
will
believe
that
I
do
not
urge
others
to
give
and
to
withhold
myself; but
my
mode
of
subscribing
will
be
novel
in
its
manner,
and
by
doing
it I
mean
to
debar
myself
of
many
comforts
to
serve
my
country,
and
I
expect great
consolation
every
time
I
cut
a
slice
of
salt
beef
instead
of
mutton."—
Nicolas,
III,
5.

which was arranging the new French orientation of Germany, Bonaparte set out for Paris. " Conquest," he declared, " has made me what I am, and conquest can alone maintain me."

He was received with wild enthusiasm. But he saw with the perception of genius that the corrupt, pleasure-loving capital was not ready for his sway. With Madame Tallien enthroned at the Luxembourg by her keeper, Barras, with society a huge demimonde, and the only conversation of fashions and balls, theatres and restaurants, terror-purged Paris could not yet brook the yoke of the Caesars. Hungry, desolate France—the embittered peasants and ragged provincials who cheered the young conqueror so deliriously in every town and village on the road—would have to wait a little longer. So would Bonaparte. " After all," he remarked to his aide-de-camp, Junot, " we are only twenty-nine."

So, back in Paris, he bided his time and left the politicians to weave their own ruin. With his slender form, pale face and ascetic ways and his talk of " peace for men's consciences " and " unity for the common good," he seemed more of a Cincinnatus than a Caesar. He simulated an almost embarrassing modesty, wore in the midst of gilded receptions his old shabby uniform, and ostentatiously affected the society of artists, bookworms and savants. All the while he busied himself with preparations for the downfall of England. He spent much time in conversations with naval and port officials, attended secret midnight rendezvous with smugglers and privateers familiar with the English coasts, and even gave three interviews to Wolfe Tone, for whom, however, and his country he quickly conceived an immense contempt. Over all he met he exercised his usual extraordinary ascendancy: his lightning mind and dominant will seemed to evoke all the latent energy of men. Even
the
sleepy'French naval authorities began to stir.

All this was attended with much publicity: it was part of the Revolutionary technique. It was meant not only to inspire France but to frighten England. Tales were circulated of huge armoured rafts that the great mathematician, Monge, was constructing, which, 2000 feet long and 1500 broad, guarded by hundreds of cannon and propelled by giant windmills, were each capable of carrying two divisions complete with artillery and cavalry. They were taken quite seriously by English journalists and cartoonists until an ingenious
emigre,
writing in the
Gentleman s Magazine,
pointed out

that such a raft would absorb 216,000 trees and weigh 44,000 tons.
¹
Fishing smacks were requisitioned in Holland and in the French Atlantic and Channel ports, the naval dockyards hummed with unwonted activity, canals and rivers far inland were reported to be full of strange, flat-bottomed barges moving towards a single destination. " Go," cried Barras at a reception to Bonaparte at the Luxembourg, " capture the giant corsair that infests the seas; go, punish in London outrages that have been too long unpunished... . Let
the conquerors of the Po, the Rh
ine and the Tiber march under your banners. The ocean will be proud to bear you."

More immediate measures were taken against England's commerce. Neutrals, especially those of the Baltic, were warned that every ship carrying British goods or goods of British origin would be seized, and that persistence in trading with the contumacious islanders would mean war. Immense dispositions of men and ships were ordered to be completed by the end of February, 1798, and at the beginning of the month Bonaparte himself left Paris for the northern ports. He was at Dunkirk on the nth—a tornado of energy, issuing orders, rebukes and exhortations, and leaving again for Ostend on the 13 th to arrange for the building of flat-bottomed boats in the Belgian ports. One of Pitt's spies met him on the road to Furnes. The same authority reported that Lille, Douai, Cambrai, Peronne, Evreux and Rouen were full of troops moving ocean-wards. He estimated—a
little
wildly—that there were 275,000 of them within twenty-four hours of the coast.

The British Regular Army in the United Kingdom at that moment did not number 32,000 men, with some 25,000 temporary Fencibles serving for the war only. A further 40,000 troops were in Ireland. By an act passed in January the embodied Militia was increased from 45,000 to 100,000 men, and the Commander-in-Chief was empowered to enrol up to 10,000 existing Militiamen in the Regular Army to bring its depleted regiments up to strength. Since the evacuation of the Continent the quality of the army had been much improved by the Duke of York's administration. But owing to its premature and reckless use in the West Indies it had not been given a chance to mature. New brigades had been sent overseas before their officers ha
d had time to train them—a poli
tician's

¹
Gentleman's Magazine,
Vol.
LXVIII,
Part
I,
1798, 315,
cit.
Wheeler and
Broadley,
I,
81.

pennywise economy that nullified every reform. 40,000 of them had died, mostly of fever, and a further 40,000 had been discharged as unfit through the ravages of that atrocious climate.

For the moment therefore, as in every previous stage in the war, Britain was short of trained troops when she most needed them. But this, though it concerned her rulers, gave little anxiety to her people, for they had now passed far beyond anxiety. Instead of worrying they enrolled in tens of thousands as Volunteers and, lacking arms and training, confidently awaited the attack of the victors of Rivoli and Areola. In London alone, where the City Fathers called on all male inhabitants to rally to the banner of their wards, 40,000 associated volunteers enrolled. The Government, ignoring memories of mutinies, incitements to riot and treasonable Corresponding Societies, called the population to arms. " This crisis which is approaching,'' Dundas declared in the House, " must determine whether we are any longer to be ranked as an independent nation. . . . We must fortify the menaced ports, accumulate forces round the capital, affix to the church doors the names of those who come forward as Volunteers and authorise members of Parliament to hold commissions without vacating their seats. I am well aware of the danger of entrusting arms to the whole population without distinction. . . . But, serious as is
the
danger, it is nothing to the risk we should run if, when invaded by the enemy, we were unprepared with any adequate means of defence."
¹

For the malcontents of three years before had suddenly become insignificant. Most of them had long been swept into the main tide of national consciousness and, like the erstwhile republican exciseman, Robert Burns, had donned the scarlet or blue coat and white nankeen breeches of the local volunteers. In Scotland they were still singing the dead bard's repudiation of his former doubts:

" The kettle o' the kirk and state,

Perhaps a claut may fail in't;

But deil a foreign tinker loon

Shall ever ca' a nail in't;

Our fathers' bluid the kettle bought,

And wha wad dare to spoil it;—

¹
Wheeler
and
Broadley,
I,
126.