Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/382

Rh 3G2 ENGLAND [DJSTOEY. Pitt as a war minister. French successes on land. English successes at sea. Ilodie s expedi tion in Ban try Bay. Victories of St Vincent andCam- perdown. untouched for the use of a future generation. The Sedition and Treason Bills, passed in 1795, were limited in their duration, and were never actually put in force. In the meanwhile, Pitt s management of the war was leading, as far as the Continent was concerned, to failure after failure. Nothing else was possible. He had none of the abilities of a war minister, and his system of sending detached expeditions to various points was not calculated to attain success. Nor is it likely that, even if he had been more competent in this respect, he would have accom plished anything worthy of the efforts which he put forth. It has been said that if he had roused the passions of men, aud had proclaimed a holy war upon the Continent, he would have had a better chance of gaining his ends. But passions cannot be artificially excited, and a holy war pre supposes a cause which, if it is not holy in itself, will at least be supposed by men to be so. Except under special circumstances, however, it was impossible to rouse enthu siasm against the French republic. Toulon might be succoured and abandoned in 1793 ; La-Vendee might have fallacious hopes held out to it in 1794. Frenchmen who were shocked at the habitual employment of the guillotine were yet not inclined to rise at the bidding of a foreign invader against a Government which at all events stood manfully up for the integrity of French territory, whilst the long habit of submission to absolute rule had made the nation slow to take the conduct of affairs into its own hands. The middle classes on the Continent too were on the side of the peasants, and looked to French principles if not to French armies as offering an amelioration of their lot. The Austrian Netherlands, regained from France in 1793, were reconquered by France in 1794; and a British force under the duke of York did nothing to avert the misfortune. The land was annexed to the territory of the French republic. Early in 1795 the Dutch Netherlands were revolutionized and constituted into a republic in alliance with France. In the same year Prussia made peace with France. Austria continued the contest alone, receiving large sums of money from England, and doing very little in return. If England could do little for the Continent, she could do enough to insure her own safety. Howe s victory of the 1st of June (1794) inflicted the first of a long series of defeats on the French navy. An attempt in 1795 to sup port the French royalists by a landing in Quibcron Bay ended in failure, but Ceylon and the Cape of Good Hope were taken from the Dutch. The war, however, had become so expensive, and its results were evidently so small, that there was a growing feeling in England in favour of peace, especially as the Ueign of Terror had come to an end in 1794, and a regular Government, the Directory, had been appointed in 1795. Accordingly, in 1796 Lord Malmesbury was sent to France to treat ior peace; but the negotiation was at once broken off by his demand that France should abandon the Netherlands. The French Government, buoyed np by the successes of General Bonaparte, who was driving the Austrians out of Italy, resolved to attempt an invasion of Ireland. In December a French fleet, with Hoche on board, sailed for Bantry Bay. Only part of it arrived there, and retreated without effecting anything. A smaller force, landing in Pembrokeshire, was reduced to surrender. The French attempted to renew the enterprise in the following year. Spain was now in alliance with France, and it was proposed that a Spanish fleet should join the French fleet and the Dutch fleet for a joint invasion. Jervis defeated the Spanish fleet at St Vincent, and Duncan defeated the Dutch fleet at Camperdown (1797). During the same year a mutiny in the fleet at Spithead and St Helens was quieted by concessions to the reasonable com plaints of the sailors; whilst an unreasonable mutiny at the Mutiny Nore was suppressed by firmness in resistance. A renewed in the attempt to negotiate peace at Lille had ended in failure, fleet&amp;gt; because, though the English were this time ready to abandon the Netherlands to France, they were not ready to give back the Cape of Good Hope to the Dutch and Trinidad to Spain. Before the end of the year England had no ally in Europe excepting Portugal. Bonaparte had dictated to Austria the treaty of Campo Formio. luolated as Great Britain was, there was less inclination England to make peace in England in 1798 than there had been in without 1795. In proportion as France fell into the hands of the a ies&amp;gt; less violent but more corrupt of the revolutionists, the enthusiasm which her proclamation of principles had once created amongst the class excluded from political power died away; whilst the antagonism aroused by mere miU- tary conquest under the conduct of the rapacious Bonaparte was on the increase. The attempt at invasion had roused the national spirit to stubborn resistance ; whilst the Government itself, warned by the failure of the proceed ings against Hardy and his associates, and freed from the blind terror which had made it violent during the first years of the war, was able to devote its energies unre servedly to carrying on hostilities. If, however, a French invasion had ever been anything state of more than a dream, it was because there was one quarter Ireland. in which miogovernment had created a state of circum stances by which it was absolutely invited. At the end of 1794 Lord Fitzwilliam had been sent to Ireland as lord- lieutenant, and had set his face against the vile jobbery through which the leaders of the Protestant minority governed Ireland, and had thrown himself warmly into the encouragement of Grattan s scheme for the admission of the Catholics to political power. The aggrieTed jobbers gained the ear of the king, and in 1795 Fitzwilliam was recalled. Then ensued a scene which has no parallel even in the organized massacres of the French Republic. The Catholics joined in a society called the United Irishmen, to enforce their claims, if need be by an alliance with France, and the establishment of an independent republic. Deeds of violence preluded any actual attempt at insurrection. The Protestants, under the name of Orangemen, gathered to the support of the Government as yeomanry or militia men. Before long these guardians of the peace had spread terror over all Catholic Ireland. By the lash, by tor ture, by the defilement of chaste and innocent women, they made their predominance felt. It was in 1796, in the very midst of these abominable horrors, that French ships had appeared but had been unable to land troops in Bantry Bay. Nevertheless, though no assistance The Iris was to be had, the United Irishmen rose in rebellion in rebellio 1798. The rebellion was suppressed, and again the militiamen and volunteers were let loose to establish order by massacre and violence. Fortunately, the English Government intervened, and a new lord-lieutenant, the marquis of Cornwallis, was sent over to Dublin. The raging Protestant aristocracy was held back from further deeds of cruelty and vengeance, and law and order were established so far as it was possible to establish them in a land so torn by hostile factions. Pitt rose to the occasion. He planned a great scheme The of union between the two nations (1799). There was to Union, be one parliament for Great Britain and Ireland, as there was one parliament for England and Scotland. The jobbers who filled the seats in the Irish House of Commons, and who voted in the name of a people whom they in no. sense represented, joined the few members who from a sense of patriotism refused to vote away so easy a source of wealth and influence. Pitt bought the votes which he could not command, and the Irish parlia-