Free Years of Victory 1802 - 1812 by Arthur Bryant

deform, The regrets of the good and the fears of the wise Shall turn to the pilot that weathered the storm"—
    the pilot was missing.
    Behind the scenes battle was now joined for Pitt's support. The protagonists were his former followers; those who had resigned rather than serve without him and those who at his request had taken office under Addington to continue his policy. The latter had made the peace and the former had denounced it. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the "outs," who included all the most brilliant orators of the former national party, were resentful at their replacement by duller men. This lent gall to their tongues. When they spoke of Addington they did so with a bitterness which was not easily forgotten. They had as spokesman the wittiest, most brilliant and least discreet of all the younger politicians. George Canning viewed the retirement of Pitt as a personal injury to his promising parliamentary career. He poured the vials of his wrath not on the leader he loved but on his napless successor. It became a point of honour with him to get the latter out of Downing Street at all costs. He perpetually ridiculed his political prescriptions, his "wretched, pusillanimous, toadeating Administration," the sinecures with which he endowed his relations, above all his ill-starred peace:
    " 'Tis thro' Addington's Peace that fair plenty is ours; Peace brightens the sunshine, Peace softens the showers; What yellow'd the cornfields ? what ripen'd the hay ? But the Peace that was settled last Michaelmas Day?
    " And shall not such statues to Addington rise For service most timely—for warning most wise—
    For a treaty which s natch'd us from ruin away, When sign'd with a quill from the Bird of To-day.
    "Long may Addington live to keep peace thro 5 our borders— May each House still be true to its forms and its orders— So shall Britain, tho' destined by Gaul for her prey Be saved as old Rome by the Bird of To-day ! "
    Since Pitt refused to countenance a coalition to oust the man he had sworn to support and since the Grenvilles with their pro-Catholic, views were far too unpopular to stand alone, the only alternative Prime Minister was Fox—a contingency which seemed to sober patriots past contemplation. For ten years "old Charley," as his doting followers called him, had opposed the war and praised and excused the French. At a dinner to celebrate the Peace he had publicly avowed his satisfaction that Britain had not achieved her war aims. 1 - And, though his visit to Paris and the extinction of Swiss liberty had robbed him of illusions about Bonaparte, he continued with irresponsible cheerfulness to pooh-pooh the idea of .war. His policy of defending the appeasing Ministers whom he despised— "a judicious dandling of the Doctor," as the delighted Creevey called it—shocked even staunch adherents like Sheridan and Tierney. In his almost fanatic hatred of war and all forms of constraint, the great Whig took the line that, as there was to be no more freedom in the world, Bonaparte was the fittest man to be master. The only sensible thing to do, he argued, was to avoid provocation and continental alliances and comply with the Treaty. He did not believe that the First Consul wanted war, for he could see nothing to be gained by war. 2
    The political confusion was baffling. On the one hand was an appeasing Government that announced simultaneously its confidence in peace and its eleventh-hour resolve to rearm as a precautionary measure 3 ; on the other a chaos of divergent factions—the Foxite Whigs unashamedly pacifist, the ultra-patriotic Grenvilles and Windhams demanding instant war, a small camarilla of younger Tories under Canning ready to employ any intrigue to bring about
    1 The triumph of the French government over the English," he had written in October, 1801, "does, in fact, afford me a degree of pleasure which it is very difficult to disguise."—Fox, III, 349.
    2 Fox, III, 344-5, 349, 372, 387;