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The Political History of England – Vol XI

The Political History of England – Vol XI / From Addington's Administration to the close of William IV.'s Reign (1801-1837)

CHAPTER I.
ADDINGTON

When, early in March, 1801, Pitt resigned office, he was succeeded by Henry Addington, who had been speaker of the house of commons for over eleven years, and who now received the seals of office as first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer on March 14, 1801. He was able to retain the services of the Duke of Portland as home secretary, of Lord Chatham as president of the council, and of Lord Westmorland as lord privy seal. For the rest, his colleagues were, like himself, new to cabinet rank. Lord Hawkesbury (afterwards the second Earl of Liverpool) became foreign secretary, and Lord Hobart, son of the Earl of Buckinghamshire, secretary for war. Loughborough reaped the due reward of his treachery by being excluded from the ministry altogether; with a curious obstinacy he persisted in attending cabinet councils, until a letter from Addington informed him that his presence was not desired. He received some small consolation, however, in his elevation to the Earldom of Rosslyn. Lord Eldon was the new chancellor and was destined to hold the office uninterruptedly, except for the brief ministry of Fox and Grenville, till 1827. Lord St. Vincent became first lord of the admiralty, and Lord Lewisham president of the board of control. Cornwallis had resigned with Pitt, but it was not till June 16 that a successor was found for him as master general of the ordnance. It was then arranged that Chatham should take this office. Portland succeeded Chatham as lord president, and Lord Pelham, whose father had just been created Earl of Chichester, became home secretary instead of Portland. An important change was introduced into the distribution of work between the different secretaries of state, the administration of colonial affairs being transferred from the home to the war office, so that Hobart and his successors down to 1854 were known as secretaries of state for war and the colonies. Soon afterwards Lewisham succeeded his father as Earl of Dartmouth.

Though the Addington ministry has, not without justice, been derided for its weakness as compared with its immediate predecessor, it is interesting to observe that in it one of the greatest of English judges as well as a future premier, destined to display an unique power of holding his party together, first attained to cabinet rank; and in the following year it was reinforced by Castlereagh, who disputes with Canning the honour of being regarded as the ablest statesman of what was then the younger generation. The weakness of the ministry must therefore be attributed to a lack of experience rather than a lack of talent. It was unfortunate in succeeding a particularly strong administration, but is well able to bear comparison with most of the later ministries of George III. Addington himself was in more thorough sympathy with the king than any premier before or after. Conversation with Addington was, according to the king, like "thinking aloud"; and with a king who, like George III., still regarded himself as responsible for the national policy, hearty co-operation between king and premier was a matter of no slight importance.

In the early days of the new administration Pitt loyally kept his promise of friendly support, and it is to be deplored that Grenville and Canning did not adopt the same course. While the issue of peace and war was pending, domestic legislation inevitably remained in abeyance. In Ireland serious disappointment had been caused by the abandonment of catholic emancipation; but the disappointment was borne quietly, and the Irish Roman catholics doubtless did not foresee to what a distance of time the removal of their disabilities had been postponed. The just and mild rule of the new lord lieutenant, Lord Hardwicke, contributed to the pacification of the country. But in reality the conduct of the movement for emancipation was only passing into new hands; when it reappeared it was no longer led by catholic lords and bishops, but was a peasant movement, headed by the unscrupulous demagogue O'Connell. In these circumstances it is to be regretted that the new administration neglected to carry that one of the half-promised concessions to the catholics which could not offend the king's conscience, namely, the commutation of tithe. Nothing in the protestant ascendency was so irritating to the catholic peasantry as the necessity of paying tithe to a protestant clergy, and its commutation, while benefiting the clergy themselves, would have removed the occasion of subsequent agitation. The spirit of disloyalty, however, was believed to be by no means extinct either in Ireland or in Great Britain, and two stringent acts were passed to repress it. The first, for the continuance of martial law in Ireland, was supported by almost all the Irish speakers in the house of commons, where it was carried without a division, and was adopted in the house of lords by an overwhelming majority, after an impressive speech from Lord Clare. The second, for the suspension of the habeas corpus act in the whole United Kingdom was framed to remain in force "during the continuance of the war, and for one month after the signing of a definitive treaty of peace".

THE HORNE TOOKE ACT.

The only other measure of permanent interest which became law in this session was the so-called "Horne Tooke act," occasioned by the return of Horne Tooke, who was in holy orders, for Old Sarum. Such a return was contrary to custom, but the precedents collected by a committee of the house of commons were inconclusive. It was accordingly enacted that in future clergymen of the established churches should be ineligible for seats in parliament, while Horne Tooke was deemed to have been validly elected, and retained his seat. The house of commons found time, however, for an important and well-sustained debate on India, in which among others Dundas, now no longer in office, showed a thorough knowledge of questions affecting Indian finance and trade.

The naval expedition which had been prepared in the last days of Pitt's administration sailed for Copenhagen on March 12, 1801, under Sir Hyde Parker, with Nelson as second in command. The admiral in chief was of a cautious temper, but was wise enough to allow himself to be guided by Nelson's judgment when planning an engagement, though not as to the general course of the expedition. The fleet consisted of sixteen ships of the line and thirty-four smaller vessels; all these with the exception of one ship of the line reached the Skaw on the 18th. A frigate was sent in advance with instructions to Vansittart, the British envoy at Copenhagen, to present an ultimatum to the Danish government,¹ demanding a favourable answer to the British demands within forty-eight hours. For three days Parker waited at anchor eighteen miles from Elsinore, and it was only when Vansittart brought an unfavourable reply on the 23rd that he took Nelson into his counsels. He readily adopted Nelson's plan of ignoring the Danish batteries at Kronborg and making a circuit so as to attack Copenhagen at the weak southern end of its defences, but set aside his project of masking Copenhagen and making straight for a Russian squadron of twelve ships of the line which was lying icebound at Revel. The fair weather of the 26th was wasted in irresolution, and it was not till the 30th that the fleet was able to weigh anchor. It passed Kronborg in safety and anchored five miles north of Copenhagen.

Parker placed under Nelson's immediate command twelve ships of the line and twenty-one smaller vessels, by far the greater part of the British fleet. With these he was to pass to the east of a shoal called the Middle Ground and attack the defences of Copenhagen from the south, while Parker with the remainder of the fleet was to make a demonstration against the more formidable northern defences. The wind could not of course favour both attacks simultaneously, and it was agreed that the attack should be made when the wind favoured Nelson. The nights of the 30th and 31st were spent in reconnoitring and laying buoys. On April 1 a north wind brought Nelson's squadron past the Middle Ground, and on the next day a south wind enabled him to attack the Danish fleet, if fleet it may be called. At the north end of the Danish position stood the only permanent battery, the Trekroner, with two hulks or blockships; the rest consisted of seven blockships and eleven floating batteries, drawn up along the shore. An attack on the south end of the line was also exposed to batteries on the island of Amager. Nelson's intention was to close with the whole Danish fleet, but three of his ships of the line were stranded and he was obliged to leave the assault on the northern end entirely to lighter vessels.

BATTLE OF THE BALTIC.

The Danish batteries proved more powerful than had been anticipated, and as time went on and the Danish resistance did not appear to lose in strength, Parker grew doubtful of the result of the battle and gave the order to cease action. The order was apparently not intended to be imperative, but it had the effect of inducing Riou, who commanded the frigate squadron, to sail away to the north. For the rest of the fleet obedience was out of the question. Nelson acknowledged, but refused to repeat the order, and, jocularly placing his glass to his blind eye, declared that he could not see the signal. At length the British cannonade told. Fischer, the Danish commander, had had to shift his flag twice, at the second time to the Trekroner, and all the ships south of that battery had either ceased fire or were practically helpless. The Trekroner, however, was still unsubdued and rendered it impossible for Nelson's squadron to retire, in the only direction which the wind would allow, without severe loss. He accordingly sent a message to the Danish Prince Regent, declaring that he would be compelled to burn the batteries he had taken, without saving their crews, unless firing ceased. If a truce were arranged until he could take his prisoners out of the prizes, he was prepared to land the wounded Danes, and burn or remove the prizes. A truce for twenty-four hours was accordingly arranged, which Nelson employed to remove his own fleet unmolested.

The destruction of the southern batteries left Copenhagen exposed to bombardment, and the Danes, unable to resist, yet afraid to offend the tsar by submission, prolonged the time from day to day till news arrived which removed all occasion for hostility. Unknown to either of the combatants, the Tsar Paul, the life and soul of the northern confederacy, had been murdered on the night of March 23, ten days before the battle, and with his death the league was practically dissolved. When Nelson advanced further into the Baltic, he found no hostile fleet awaiting him, and the new tsar, Alexander, adopting an opposite policy, entered into a compromise on the subject of maritime rights. The battle of the Baltic is considered by some to have been Nelson's masterpiece. It won for him the title of viscount and for his second in command, Rear-Admiral Graves, the gift of the ribbon of the Bath, but the admiralty, for official reasons, declined to confer any public reward or honour on the officers concerned in it

At the same time, the French occupation of Egypt was drawing towards its inevitable close. Kléber, who was left in command by Bonaparte, perished by the hand of an assassin, and Menou, who succeeded to the command, was not only a weak general, but was prevented from receiving any reinforcements by the naval supremacy of Great Britain in the Mediterranean. On March 21, 1801, the French army was defeated at the battle of Alexandria by the British force sent out under Sir Ralph Abercromby, who was himself mortally wounded on the field. His successor, General Hutchinson, completed his work by taking Cairo, before the arrival of General Baird, who had led a mixed body of British soldiers and sepoys from the Red Sea across the desert to the Nile. The capitulation of Alexandria soon followed. In September the French evacuated Egypt, the remains of their army were conveyed to France in English ships, and Bonaparte's long-cherished dreams of eastern conquest faded away for ever – not from his own imagination, but from the calculations of practical statesmanship.