Read Online Years of Victory 1802 - 1812 by Arthur Bryant - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Arthur Bryant
Tags: History, Non-Fiction
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at crossing swords with the First Consul had exposed the inherent weakness of what Lady Malmesbury called the "Dumplin' Ministry" and Canning the " Goose Administration."
1 "I begin most cordially to wish for the apotheosis of Bonaparte," wrote Auckland "He is too much for modern mortals."—Auckland, IV, 174.
2 We have had enough of war and its direst calamities."—Pellew, II, 162.
It was hard after that to feel any confidence in the complacent Addington and his lugubrious Foreign Secretary, Lord Hawkesbury —the " Stinkingson" of Lord Wellesley's contemptuous phrase. 1
The prosy, platitudes of Addington, so suited to the summer mood of 1802 when the country, tired like the King of the " confounded men of genius," had welcomed a Government of mediocrities, sounded perilously thin against the rumble of French guns on the Swiss cobblestones. The Prime Minister's constant references to the state of the revenue, his deplorable habit of being " too candid on his legs," 2 his feeble oratorical riddles of "Never venture to foretell" and "To doubt is to decide" aroused contempt. "What a damned decided fellow this," observed one, "he is always doubting!" "Those on whom our salvation rests," wrote another, "are weak in sense, in spirit, in character and in conduct. Would you trust the island of Nevis, the smallest of our possessions, to be fought for, to be argued for, to be played at push-pin for between Bonaparte and Addington ?" It was not only yesterday's " fallen warmongers" who now asked such questio ns. Even the unpopular Grenville s—those uncompromising aristocrats from the frigid shades of Stowe and Dropmore—and the pushing, theatrical Canning who had derisively given the Doctor's Peace six months, found auditors at last. For events across the Channel were proving their unpalatable opinions right. 3
Yet it was not to Opposition frondeurs that men turned for an antidote to an appeasing Premier. "Whether Pitt will save us," Canning had written in the spring, "I do not know; but surely he is the only man that can" Since his resignation in Addington's favour nineteen months before, the great Minister had shown little interest in politics. He seemed to prefer lounging through the streets of a morning—"generally by himself and seeming not to have anything to do."—and spent most of his time at Walmer Castle planting fruit-trees and growing corn which since the famine of 1801 he prescribed as the first duty of a patriot. In September he was ill; gossip had it through over-indulgence in port. Later he took a cure at Bath where, he confided to his friend, Lord Bathurst, the regimen did not permit him to speak in terms of a bottle.
But though he now confessed in private his disappointment in Addington and the decay of his hopes that the dictator's insatiable
1 The Jenkinson of the past, and Lord Liverpool of the future. "Fit to roast pigeons and the longest neck in England. ... He looked as he always looked—as if he had been on the rack three times and saw the wheel preparing for a fourth."—Granville, 1, 329,345,
2 Wcllcslcy, I, 140.
3 Festing,'o9, Granville, I, 325, 269; Pellew, II, 45, 76, 99-100, 110; H. M. C. Dropmore, VII, 112-14, 123; Malmesbury, IV, 74, 132-3; Minto, HI, 263-4; Plumer Ward, 76-9, 106-7; Campbell, I, 388.
ambition could be satisfied peaceably, he continued to support his uninspiring protege and to lend his Administration the prestige of his name. In vain Canning chidcd his leader's inveterate prudence, dubbed him as tame as a chaplain and asked how much longer he would cherish the sheep of his hand. Pitt had not been a parliamentary leader for twenty years without learning to wait on events. When Canning assembled a thousand partisans at a public banquet to celebrate his birthday and bellow, with much' rapping of hands, feet and knives, the provocative chorus he had written for the occasion,
—"And O! if again the rude whirlwind should rise, The dawning of peace should fresh darkness
1 "I begin most cordially to wish for the apotheosis of Bonaparte," wrote Auckland "He is too much for modern mortals."—Auckland, IV, 174.
2 We have had enough of war and its direst calamities."—Pellew, II, 162.
It was hard after that to feel any confidence in the complacent Addington and his lugubrious Foreign Secretary, Lord Hawkesbury —the " Stinkingson" of Lord Wellesley's contemptuous phrase. 1
The prosy, platitudes of Addington, so suited to the summer mood of 1802 when the country, tired like the King of the " confounded men of genius," had welcomed a Government of mediocrities, sounded perilously thin against the rumble of French guns on the Swiss cobblestones. The Prime Minister's constant references to the state of the revenue, his deplorable habit of being " too candid on his legs," 2 his feeble oratorical riddles of "Never venture to foretell" and "To doubt is to decide" aroused contempt. "What a damned decided fellow this," observed one, "he is always doubting!" "Those on whom our salvation rests," wrote another, "are weak in sense, in spirit, in character and in conduct. Would you trust the island of Nevis, the smallest of our possessions, to be fought for, to be argued for, to be played at push-pin for between Bonaparte and Addington ?" It was not only yesterday's " fallen warmongers" who now asked such questio ns. Even the unpopular Grenville s—those uncompromising aristocrats from the frigid shades of Stowe and Dropmore—and the pushing, theatrical Canning who had derisively given the Doctor's Peace six months, found auditors at last. For events across the Channel were proving their unpalatable opinions right. 3
Yet it was not to Opposition frondeurs that men turned for an antidote to an appeasing Premier. "Whether Pitt will save us," Canning had written in the spring, "I do not know; but surely he is the only man that can" Since his resignation in Addington's favour nineteen months before, the great Minister had shown little interest in politics. He seemed to prefer lounging through the streets of a morning—"generally by himself and seeming not to have anything to do."—and spent most of his time at Walmer Castle planting fruit-trees and growing corn which since the famine of 1801 he prescribed as the first duty of a patriot. In September he was ill; gossip had it through over-indulgence in port. Later he took a cure at Bath where, he confided to his friend, Lord Bathurst, the regimen did not permit him to speak in terms of a bottle.
But though he now confessed in private his disappointment in Addington and the decay of his hopes that the dictator's insatiable
1 The Jenkinson of the past, and Lord Liverpool of the future. "Fit to roast pigeons and the longest neck in England. ... He looked as he always looked—as if he had been on the rack three times and saw the wheel preparing for a fourth."—Granville, 1, 329,345,
2 Wcllcslcy, I, 140.
3 Festing,'o9, Granville, I, 325, 269; Pellew, II, 45, 76, 99-100, 110; H. M. C. Dropmore, VII, 112-14, 123; Malmesbury, IV, 74, 132-3; Minto, HI, 263-4; Plumer Ward, 76-9, 106-7; Campbell, I, 388.
ambition could be satisfied peaceably, he continued to support his uninspiring protege and to lend his Administration the prestige of his name. In vain Canning chidcd his leader's inveterate prudence, dubbed him as tame as a chaplain and asked how much longer he would cherish the sheep of his hand. Pitt had not been a parliamentary leader for twenty years without learning to wait on events. When Canning assembled a thousand partisans at a public banquet to celebrate his birthday and bellow, with much' rapping of hands, feet and knives, the provocative chorus he had written for the occasion,
—"And O! if again the rude whirlwind should rise, The dawning of peace should fresh darkness
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