The wealth of France rendered her less susceptible to these feelings, and her statesmen took less account of them; but to prove the unquestioned power of her Crown, it became necessary for her to assert herself, like her neighbours, at sea. Just before the Restoration, an insecure peace had been patched up between France and Spain. But while France consented to abandon her support of Portugal, she had no mind that Portugal should be left at the mercy of Spain. It was her first business to contrive a counterpoise to the power of Spain. But it was more difficult for France to decide what should be her relation to England. She had cultivated an alliance with Cromwell, and in order to consolidate that alliance, she had treated the Royalist cause with contemptuous neglect. Neither on the part of the people of England, nor on the part of its Court, was any close connection with France desired. The old jealousies, bred of close neighbourhood, could not be effaced. An alliance with Spain had seemed at first more desirable.
But overtures from Charles for a Spanish marriage had been treated somewhat cavalierly by the Spanish Court. This naturally prompted the obvious alternative of a Portuguese marriage, and such a marriage offered to France precisely the opportunity she desired. A marriage treaty between England and Portugal seemed certain to secure for Portugal the support of England in her struggle with Spain; and France welcomed the appearance of an ally who might render to Portugal that help against Spain, which she herself was precluded by treaty from openly offering. The King of England had been encouraged to prosecute the treaty of marriage with Portugal by assurance of French sympathy. Such sympathy would not, in itself, have been a sufficient inducement. Other more powerful motives operated. "The principal advantages we propose to ourself," wrote Charles to his envoy in Portugal, "by this conjunction with Portugal, is the advancement of the trade of this nation." These words were perfectly true, and the possession of Tangier and Bombay, with equal trading rights in the East Indies and Brazil, were real and substantial advantages to England. They were not lessened by the fact that the alliance brought England and France, for a time, to a better understanding.
But France had her own causes of jealousy, and it was necessary for Clarendon to take all care that these should not drive her into the hands of that chief enemy, with whom England must sooner or later come to deadly grips-the Dutch Republic. Clarendon fully appreciated the great work of Cromwell in making England feared in Europe, and he was anxious that she should not, under the monarchy, suffer any abatement of the power which Cromwell had so triumphantly established. But he knew also the inherent weakness of the country at the moment, and her inability to sustain the burden of a war. To Clarendon it was a matter of supreme and vital importance that war should not come until her resources were consolidated. Even at the cost of a crippling debt, her naval stores and arsenals were equipped with careful industry. But Clarendon knew well that though definite and detailed preparation of that kind might help her to meet a sudden emergency, England was in no financial condition to maintain the annual pressure of a long-continued war. France, alive to the embarrassments of English Ministers, soon put forward new topics of complaint, and pressed for redress as the price of her continued friendliness. Disputes arose as to the respective rights of the fishing fleets of each country, and acts of violence and privateering occurred on both sides. France refused to comply with the custom that had prevailed since it was conceded by Henry IV. to Elizabeth, which recognized England's naval supremacy by prescribing that all other fleets should salute the English flag. [Footnote: The following statement, which has kindly been supplied to me, has high authority:—
"From the 14th to the 18th century the salute (at first by lowering the topsail, and later by dipping the flag) was more or less jealously claimed by English ships of war from all other ships, whether foreign men-of-war or English or foreign merchantmen. While there was no nation strong enough to resist the English claim (and this was especially the case while England held possessions on both sides of the Channel) the salute was pretty generally accorded, and it was not until the 17th century that any serious resistance was made. During almost the whole of that century an acute controversy raged about the meaning and the scope of the Sovereignty of the Seas. The English case was bolstered up by doubtful documents, such as an alleged Ordinance of King John, said to have been issued at Hastings in 1200, but now acknowledged to be a forgery.
In 1635, Selden published his 'Mare Clausum' in support of the English claim. Apparently he was moved to this by the publication by Grotius in 1633 of 'Mare Liberum,' though the latter was more directly aimed at the monopoly claimed by the Portuguese in the East Indies. Probably Selden wrote with his tongue in his cheek to please Charles I., for he is said to have made ridicule of his own book in private conversation.
The English, however, were not content to enforce their claim by words, but often during the 16th and 17th centuries enforced it by cannon shot.
The arrogant claim that any vessel (a yacht for instance) bearing the
Union flag must be saluted by foreign ships, and even by a foreign fleet
of men-of-war, was much resented by the Dutch after they had crushed
Spain, and was one of the causes that led to the outbreak of the First
Dutch War (1652-4) though commercial jealousy was the prime cause.
The first battle (Dover, May, 1652) was occasioned by Tromp flaunting his flag in the face of Blake.
This war turned out, on the whole, sufficiently favourable to the English to enable them to secure a clause in the Treaty of peace in 1654—
'That the ships and vessels of the United Provinces, as well those fitted for war as others, meeting any Ship of War of the said Commonwealth in the British Seas, shall strike their Flag, and lower their Topsail in such manner as had been any time before practised under any Government.'
Similar clauses occur in the Treaty of Westminster, 1662, and that of
Breda (which ended the Second Dutch War), 1667. The Treaty closing the
Third Dutch War (Westminster, 1673) has a similar article, but the seas
are defined.
During the 18th century the claim does not seem to have been often enforced, and by the time of the Peace of Amiens, 1803, when the ancient claim to the Sovereignty of France was formally abandoned, the claim to the salute had become extinct."] The traditional, but none the less galling, assumption of the titular sovereignty and arms of France, by the English King, was another cause of emphatic complaint. The French Court knew enough of England's financial weakness, to judge the moment propitious for pressing these subjects of dispute. Clarendon thought it well, to begin, at least, by assuming an independent and combative tone. He strove, under the compulsion to which many a diplomat has had to yield, to cover his weakness by proud words, and he managed to provoke Louis XIV. to angry remonstrances, and even to threats of war. It was to Clarendon personally that the French King ascribed the supercilious tone of the English demands, and it was his compliance that Louis and his Ministers chiefly sought to gain. The Powers abroad knew what Clarendon's work for the exiled Court had been. They could estimate the value of his statesmanship, and dreaded him as England's most efficacious Minister. But they attributed to him a power which, hampered as he was, was never truly his. Clarendon was in truth attempting an impossible task, and he fought with fettered hands. He could expect no support from the King, who was already allured by the prospects of financial assistance, skilfully held out by Louis. It was hard to maintain a proud defiance amidst the perplexities of divided counsels, of selfish intrigues, and of a bankrupt exchequer. He had to temporize as to the King's title, and to accept the abrogation of the token of respect to England's supremacy upon the seas. The imperious tone was one which no Minister of Charles II. could longer safely assume.
Another far more substantial concession to French demands soon after came up for discussion.
It was a striking tribute to Cromwell's influence abroad that the sea-port of Dunkirk, when conquered by the allied Powers, had, according to treaty, been handed over to the keeping of the English Commonwealth. It was not the only important possession which the restored King of England owed to the prowess of the rebels by whom he had been exiled, and to whose conquests he was now the heir. As to its value there were doubts. Although it had been a troublesome hive of privateers, the place was reckoned not to be really of much strategical importance, and the naval experts had already expressed doubts whether its value was equivalent to the expense which it involved. The revenue of England was sorely crippled, and the possession of Dunkirk not only involved heavy expenditure, but was a very probable source of expensive warlike complications. It was from Lord Southampton, who, as Treasurer, felt the financial burden most, that the first suggestion of parting with it came. The exchequer was in ill state to stand further drains, and Tangier and Bombay, however beneficial their possession might ultimately become, were now nothing but sources of heavy expense. Southampton imparted his misgivings to the King, and sought for some device by which he might shift some part of the constantly growing expenditure. Could Dunkirk not be handed over as a damnosa hereditas? The naval experts were consulted, and were ready not only to acquiesce, but to avow their opinion that Dunkirk offered no advantages equivalent to its cost, which was reckoned at not less than a hundred and twenty thousand a year. Southampton told the Chancellor of his difficulties, and propounded to him the scheme for lightening them; but found Clarendon so averse to a proposal for parting with any naval stronghold, that even the entire confidence bred of their old friendship did not tempt the Treasurer to reopen a subject so distasteful until some definite proposal could be framed. The General (Albemarle) and he laid it before the King so urgently, that Charles was attracted by a scheme which offered the tempting bait of financial provision, and at length it was formally brought before that secret and select Council which consulted upon all matters of prime importance. It could no longer be kept from the Chancellor; and Clarendon's illness made it necessary on this, as on many other occasions, to summon the Council to his sickroom, where, besides the King and the Duke of York, the Chancellor and the Treasurer, with Albemarle, Sandwich, Sir George Carteret, and the two secretaries of State, were present. Southampton knew the opposition he had to expect from Clarendon, and playfully asked the King, when he entered the room, "to take the Chancellor's staff from him, otherwise he would break his Treasurer's head." Charles told Clarendon that the business to be debated was one which he knew that Clarendon would oppose; but when he had heard the arguments, he thought they would change his view. Steps had evidently been taken with care to prepare the ground and marshall the arguments. The naval and military experts explained the small strategical value of the place, its ineffectiveness as a naval base, and the deficiencies of its land defences. Against such arguments Clarendon was, of course, powerless; and it was equally impossible for him to argue away the heavy burden on a crippled treasury, of which the Treasurer begged to be relieved. To hold the place longer was only too likely to involve a costly war with one or both of the Powers of France and Spain, and it was a source of irritation to the United Provinces as well. Not only were the arguments strong, but the Chancellor was soon convinced that he had not been consulted until those who desired to effect a profitable bargain had already gained the determined adherence of the King. It was no part of Clarendon's practice to argue in the face of impossibilities. Little remained for him or any other Minister but to decide with which Power it was possible to strike the best bargain, and which it was most expedient to conciliate.
There are some variations between the various accounts that have reached us as to the first author of the suggestion. Sandwich, in a conversation with Pepys, [Footnote: In February, 1666.] averred that he himself was the first adviser, and this account is partially confirmed by what Sir Robert Southwell told, in 1670, of a conversation between Sandwich and himself in October, 1667. On the other hand, D'Estrades, the French envoy, asserts— what would give the lie to what Clarendon avers in his Life with convincing proof and elaborate circumstantiality—that Clarendon had told him that he was himself the author of the proposal. As regards Pepys's report, Sandwich, probably, after the common fashion of experts, assigned too much importance to his own expert advice; while the French envoy might easily have misunderstood the attitude assumed by Clarendon, who was bound, of course, to submit to the French diplomat even proposals which he disliked as if he entirely concurred in them. We need have no difficulty in assuming Clarendon's own deliberate and written account to be substantially correct. That he was brought unwillingly to concur in a proposal which had virtually obtained the assent of the King, is confirmed by the fact that in his speech to Parliament in May, 1662, he condemned the murmurs against the cost of Dunkirk, on the ground that it was a diadem of which the English Crown could only be deprived at the cost of great danger. It was no part of Clarendon's character to decline a responsibility which was his own; nor was it his inclination to part lightly with anything that added to the dignity of the English Crown. That the first suggestion did not come from him may be accepted on his own solemn averment; but it is also strongly confirmed by inherent probability.
It remained only to decide with which Power the bargain should be made. Policy, it might have been held, should have some influence in determining the choice, at a moment when international relations were so delicately poised. But Clarendon tells us that, strangely enough, the only question was, Who would give the highest price? Both Spain and France were eager to have the sea-port. Of the two Spain was by far the most popular in England; but she was not likely to be so good a purchaser. She claimed the cession of Dunkirk as a right, and it is always improbable that one who puts forward such a claim should be inclined either to pay heavy purchase- money, or to owe a deep debt of gratitude, for what is claimed as a right. Above all, the coffers of Spain were in no condition to meet a heavy payment. At best, there would have been tedious delay, during which the heavy expenditure on the maintenance of Dunkirk would have continued to fall on the English Treasury. To part with the sea-port to the United Provinces might have secured a better price than from either of the Crowns; but it would have been a signal of war to both of these, and the United Provinces themselves might have found it a costly and embarrassing possession.
It was with France, therefore, that the haggling had to be done, and it was prosecuted with all the eagerness of the auction mart. Such transactions can never be very dignified. The cession of an important sea- port must necessarily be galling to national pride, and an injury to national prestige; and in this case was the more damaging from the tenure of Dunkirk being the token of Cromwell's proud supremacy abroad. The chaffering went on through all the usual stages of alternate bluff and concession on both sides. The final settlement secured for Charles a payment of some two hundred thousand pounds. In the reckoning of the day that was held to be a considerable sum. It possessed the merit, no inconsiderable one in the mind of the King, of being at least free from any of the embarrassments of a Parliamentary grant. Apart from the actual money paid, the Treasury was relieved of an expenditure of about one hundred and twenty thousand pounds annually. Of all such vantage posts abroad, Dunkirk was perhaps the least useful, and the most risky to hold. Trifling as was the price obtained according to our reckoning, it was nevertheless of importance in the actual state of the exchequer. But the nation invariably shows itself sensitive to the loss of honour implied in such a cession, and is glad to have a victim on which to wreak its irritation. It was on Clarendon that its unreasoning vengeance fell, and at a later day the blame for an arrangement which he did not initiate, and which at first he earnestly opposed, aggravated his growing unpopularity. Once more he had had to content himself, not with the policy he most approved, but with that which suited best the exigencies of the time; and he had to bear the blame for action to which he unwillingly consented. It is the hardest lot for the statesman, because it is that which his enemies impute as a crime, and for which his friends can only offer an apology.
Whatever the injury to national dignity, the transaction not only gave substantial pecuniary relief, but it seemed to promise, for the time, a secure foreign alliance. The irritation on the side of France was allayed, and Louis abandoned that tone of offence against Clarendon, which he had repeatedly used to his ambassador, and which showed that he regarded the policy of the Chancellor as the most serious menace to his power. The cordiality between England and France was perhaps insecure, but it was cemented by their common interest in maintaining the independence of Portugal, and that, again, offered good prospects to the trading interest of England.
But, at home, Clarendon found his influence threatened by increasing virulence of intrigue, and by new scandals and dissensions at Court. To the world at large he was still the all-powerful Minister. Only a few months before, Dryden had poured out a poetical tribute, from that mint of flattery of which his expenditure was so lavish, and had told Clarendon that he and the King bounded the horizon of the universe to their country, and had compared his wise counsels to the rich perfumes of the East. Even Louis XIV. did not think it below his dignity to solicit the Chancellor's favour, and to be jealous of his power. But Clarendon was not blind to the influences that were undermining that power. Hitherto he and Southampton had managed Parliamentary affairs through a small knot of members of tried fidelity and experience. Such management called for wary and cautious treatment, if jealousy was not to be aroused amongst the Parliamentary ranks. The idea of government by an organized party in Parliament was as yet unknown to our political practice, and would not have met with any favour from Clarendon. To him a Minister was the servant of the King, and in no way the nominee of any Party. None the less the germs of the new system, all undiscerned by himself or his contemporaries, were developing during his Ministry. We have already seen the knot of courtiers who were held together chiefly by a common—although not clearly avowed—jealousy of the Chancellor. Ashley, Buckingham, Bristol, and Lauderdale, were the chief members of that confederacy; and they soon found means to introduce new instruments to help in working the Parliamentary machine. The most notable of these were Sir William Coventry, the son of Clarendon's old friend, Lord Chancellor Coventry, and Sir Henry Bennet, who is better known to history by the name of the Earl of Arlington, which was the title conferred upon him in 1672. [Footnote: He was created Baron Arlington in 1664.] The influence of these two in Parliament, as the accredited agents of the Court, began with the session of 1663, which opened on February 18th, and closed on July 27th. For William Coventry, Clarendon had a deep- rooted dislike, which was increased rather than lessened by Clarendon's respect for his father, and his good-will to his brother, Henry Coventry. [Footnote: Henry Coventry was the elder brother of Sir William. He had more than once been useful in embassies to Sweden, where he seems to have acquired some of the convivial habits of that country. Without his brother's wit, dexterity, or eloquence, he seems to have joined more than his frankness to a blustering manner.] William Coventry's was one of those "unconversable" natures which moved Clarendon's aversion. A sullen temper, a censorious habit, and a pride that led him to belittle all in which he was not chief agent, were precisely the traits of character which Clarendon distrusted and disliked. He admits Coventry's abilities, and gives him credit for being exempt from the degrading coarseness which was typical of the Court. His portrait is painted for us in a few sentences with all the consummate skill of the historian of the Rebellion.
"He was a sullen, ill-natured, proud man, whose ambition had no limits, nor could be contained within any. His parts were very good, if he had not thought them better than any other man's; and he had diligence and industry, which men of good parts are too often without…. He was without those vices which were too much in request, and which make men most unfit for business and the trust that cannot be separated from it."
Clarendon's genius for character-drawing never suffers him to paint even the portraits of his enemies all in black. [Footnote: Clarendon's prejudice against Coventry, however, in spite of the admission of his ability, was abnormally strong, and we shall find reason later to doubt whether Clarendon did not in this case allow personal resentment to blind him to some of Coventry's merits.] Such was his conception of the man who now became Secretary to the Duke of York, and an active centre of intrigue.
Sir Henry Bennet was a foeman of another kind. It was during the period of exile that he had managed to ingratiate himself with Charles, and their subsequent intimacy was coloured by the scenes which they had once shared together. Bennet was the natural product of an exiled Court, forced to have recourse to shifts of no dignified kind, and breathing an atmosphere of cynicism and distrust. He knew nothing of, and cared, if possible, still less for, the Constitution or the laws of England. He was one of those who cultivated the friendship of Spain, with whose leading statesmen he had close relations, and who saw in that friendship a balance to the Portuguese alliance and the policy which Clarendon was believed to pursue. He had no Parliamentary talents, and entered Parliament for the first time during the session of 1663, But he was a pledged and trusted member of the little Court cabal, which was now determined to organize a party in Parliament to oppose the Chancellor's power. It became a part of their scheme to find a place for Bennet where he could exercise a distinct influence upon administration. The preliminary arrangements for this were made without the Chancellor's knowledge. That stout and faithful servant of the King, and sure friend of the Chancellor, Sir Edward Nicholas, was now feeling the weight of years. His ample experience and tried fidelity weighed for nothing in the minds of the Court clique, who desired his place for Bennet. The King was easily persuaded to adopt the view that the Chancellor found, in two old and weak secretaries, conveniently subservient tools. Tempting terms were proposed to Nicholas. Suggestions were skilfully thrown out that he should quit his employment, receiving the ample provision of £10,000 in lieu of it, and also some notable token of the gratitude and respect of the King. It was only natural that the old man—whose memories of public service carried him back to the days when he had been amongst the followers of the Duke of Buckingham at the time of his assassination, nearly forty years before—should accept the proposal readily. How it seemed to Clarendon is best seen in his own words. "It cost the King, in present money and land on lease, very little less than twenty thousand pounds, to bring in a servant whom very few cared for, in place of an old servant whom everybody loved." [Footnote: Life, ii. 228.] The little faction who were intent upon their selfish plans for ousting the Chancellor recked very little of lavish expenditure. The same move that made the secretaryship of Nicholas vacant for Bennet, left Bennet's place of Privy Purse available for another of the new favourites and conspirators—Sir Charles Berkeley. [Footnote: Soon after created Earl of Falmouth.] Amongst the crowd of discredited and dishonest intriguers none was more vile or contemptible than he. In earlier days his character was too notorious to be tolerated even by Charles; but there were tricks and services, to which Berkeley made no scruple of stooping, and which served to secure, first the tolerance, and then the friendship, of the King. These changes in the official world were all menaces to Clarendon's power.
[Illustration: SIR EDWARD NICHOLAS. (From the original by Sir Peter
Lely, in the National Portrait Gallery.)]
It was one of the ironies of fate that the baser influences, now gaining new power at Court, created or stimulated discontent, the brunt of which fell on Clarendon, against whose authority these influences were chiefly directed. The moral sense of the nation was being gradually provoked. That sense is regulated by no great judgment, and often moves under violent prejudice; but it slowly yet surely shapes itself on sound foundations. The reaction against Puritanism had carried the nation far in the direction of tolerance even of lax morality; but the scandals of the Court had already begun to outrage the nation's sense of decency; and when outraged decency is combined with increased pressure of taxation and decreasing prosperity, the united force becomes a menacing threat. It was a comparative trifle that the King's alleged bastard [Footnote: He was born in 1646, and the King's age at the time justified doubts, which the lady's lavish favours did not diminish.] by the notorious Lucy Waters, was now formally introduced at Court under the name of Crofts; was married to the heiress of the Earl of Buccleuch, and was speedily created Duke of Monmouth. Such relationships had before been tacitly recognized but not explicitly avowed; now for the first time the patent of nobility declared the youth to be the natural son of the King. Vice laid aside that homage of hypocrisy which it had before paid to virtue. It was an innovation which Clarendon firmly opposed. "It would have," he told the King quite plainly, "an ill sound in England with all his people, who thought that these unlawful acts ought to be concealed, and not published and justified." [Footnote: Life, ii. 255.] Precedents from France and Spain would not pass current in England; and even if these precedents were admitted, they would hardly parallel the ennobling of the bastard of a notorious courtezan, born when the King was scarcely sixteen years of age, and whose parentage was, to say the least, doubtful.
By themselves such domestic scandals may perhaps count for little. But when they are accompanied by growing discontent, resting upon solid grounds, the aggregate of irritation becomes considerable. Our foreign commerce was seriously crippled, and our manufactures found no outlet. The home markets were interfered with by foreign goods imported during the recent years of unsettlement in exaggerated quantities. The large advances made by the bankers to meet taxes heavily in arrear produced a scarcity of money, and this again led to a serious fall in rents. There was hardly a class in the nation which was not suffering by the prevailing insecurity; and these sufferings were aggravated by increasing taxation, by declining national credit, and by the fears of insurrection, and of renewed civil war, caused by the decaying reverence for the Crown. No one recognized more clearly than Clarendon, or detested more cordially, the scandals that tarnished the restored monarchy; to no one did they bring a fuller crop of crushed hopes, and baffled efforts. Fortune's cynical injustice was never more clearly shown.
To some of the clique of Clarendon's enemies it seemed as if the time had come to strike a decisive blow. Stories of his impending fall were rife. Pepys, repeating the gossip of the day, and the tittle-tattle of the back stairs, tells us how "they have cast my Lord Chancellor on his back past ever getting up again." [Footnote: Pepys, May 15th, 1663.] Bristol was the first who determined to take overt action against the Chancellor. His first effort was a singularly inept one, and involved one of the confederates much more than Clarendon. Bristol had hopes, it would appear, of arranging for himself a body of "undertakers" in the House of Commons, who were to take upon themselves the management of measures desired by the Crown. He had offered to Charles the services of Sir Richard Temple, who, he asserted, would, if trusted, undertake that the King's business would be effected, and revenue settled. Coventry, whose special functions were thus threatened, reported the words, as those which had been used to the King "by a person of quality," to the House, which thus saw its independence flagrantly assailed; and on the petition of the House, the King disclosed the name of the Earl of Bristol as his informant. Bristol craved to be heard by the House in his own defence; and addressed them in that tone of theatrical vanity and rhodomontade in which he was apt to indulge. The whole transaction is a little obscure, and its objects seem inconclusive. The world was already accustomed to these outbursts of Bristol's self-advertising folly.
But his next step was more direct and more audacious. It was no less than the impeachment of the Lord Chancellor. He consulted the King, who endeavoured to dissuade him, but to whose dissuasions Bristol's insolent reply was, that if he were not supported, "he would raise such disorders that all England should feel them, and the King himself should not be without a large share in them." [Footnote: Burnet, i. 339.] The interview was evidently a stormy one, and Bristol did not scruple to threaten his King in language for which he had afterwards to offer the most abject apology.
The charges which Bristol, in spite of these warnings, formulated against Clarendon in the House of Lords, were flimsy and fanciful even for his contriving. Clarendon, it was alleged, had arrogated to himself a superior direction in all his Majesty's affairs. He had abused the trust by insinuating that the King was inclined to popery; [Footnote: These charges from one who, on grounds of conscience that were more than suspected, had joined the Roman Catholic Church, are worthy of Bristol's audacious inconsistency.] he had alleged that the King had removed Nicholas, a zealous Protestant, in order to bring in Bennet, a concealed Papist; he had solicited from the Pope a Cardinal's hat for Lord Aubigny as the price of suspension of the Penal Laws against Catholics; he had been responsible for irregularities in the King's marriage; he had uttered scandals against the King's course of life; he had given out that the King intended to legitimize the Duke of Monmouth; had persuaded the King to withdraw the garrisons from Scotland; had advised the sale of Dunkirk; had told the King that the House of Lords was "weak and inconsiderable," and the House of Commons "weak and heady;" and he had enriched himself and his followers by illegitimate means.
It is difficult to understand how even the blind vanity and over-weening self-importance of Bristol could have persuaded him that this string of absurdities could injure the Chancellor, or obtain credence even from his most prejudiced foes. There was not a single item that could involve a charge of treason even if true, and some of the allegations imputed to Clarendon opinions and aims to which he was notoriously opposed. It was evident that Bristol had been inspired only by an insane desire to charge against Clarendon anything which seemed likely to attach some unpopularity to his name.
At Clarendon's desire the charges laid against him were referred to the judges, who unanimously reported that the accusations had been irregularly made, and that, even if they were admitted to be true, they involved no treason. The King sent a message to the Lords, to inform them that some of the facts alleged were, to his own certain knowledge, untrue. Never were charges more recklessly brought, and never did a weapon, forged against an enemy, towards whom Bristol nursed an almost insane jealousy, turn with more deadly effect upon its contriver. A warrant was issued for Bristol's arrest, and he escaped any more drastic punishment only by absconding. But the episode closed for the time Bristol's career; and for a season it seemed to confirm and re-establish the supremacy of Clarendon. One of his foes at least had been worsted in the attempt to cast him on his back. But harder troubles than those raised by Bristol's ill-aimed attack still awaited him.
CHAPTER XXI
THE DUTCH WAR
Bristol had shot his bolt prematurely, and was foiled in his attack upon Clarendon. For the moment the Chancellor's authority seemed to be consolidated by the very machinations of his enemies. But the rancour of the intriguers was none the less vigorous, and it required all his courage and steadfastness to maintain the load of public care that hung upon him while he saw his influence undermined by secret slander. He knew well that the King was listening to those who spared no effort to excite his jealousy of Clarendon's control; that the easy humour which prompted Charles to avoid a rupture was no trustworthy shield against the effects of his growing irritation. He saw that the Court was sinking deeper in the mire of licentiousness and corruption, and was daily rousing against it more emphatically the anger and contempt of the nation, and making his own task of consolidation more hopeless. The anxieties and hardships of long years of civil war, of exile, and of poverty, were telling sorely upon his own health, and much of his work had to be carried on from a sick-bed, and under the strain of painful illness. Ambition had never played a great part in his life; and even gratified ambition would have been ill-paid by high place and sounding titles, when these were accompanied by baffled hopes, and by the sight of his ideals fading into unreality. But his difficulties were now to be increased, as he saw the nation gradually drifting into war, under the promptings of a selfish and reckless faction, who exploited national jealousies for their own purposes, and, mistaking a spirit of boastful bluster for courage and determination, sought to supply the place of deliberate preparation by thoughtless provocations. And all the while he knew perfectly well that, if disaster ensued, his enemies would lay the blame on him.
Between England and the Dutch Republic, the causes of irritation had been rapidly accumulating. The centre of the commerce of the world had now shifted to North-Western Europe, and the growing commercial interests of the day were a sure and increasing source of international jealousy. The rivalry between England and Holland had begun before the Civil War, and during that war Holland had found in England's distractions a splendid opportunity for stealing a march on her most powerful rival. In her colonial enterprise she had easily outstript Spain and Portugal, and more than held her own with England. Her trade was the largest of the world. Her fleet was admirably equipped, and the great traditions of her naval commanders were worthily maintained since the death of Van Tromp, by De Ruyter. If her marvellous prosperity carried within itself the seeds of decay, these were not as yet apparent; and however dangerous were her internal dissensions, they were for the time neutralized by the cunning and the capacity of De Witt. No Power had better reason to recognize the imperial force of Cromwell, and none was more keenly conscious of the contrast between his master will, and the vacillating and distracted counsels that now prevailed at the Court of England. Clarendon saw the position as well as they. He knew how poor was the bulwark supplied by the noisy loyalty of the Restoration, and how imperatively necessary it was to consolidate authority at home before launching upon a foreign war. We have already spoken of Cromwell's Navigation Act, forbidding any imports into England except those carried in English ships, or in ships belonging to the country of origin, and of the deadly wound which that Act had inflicted upon the Dutch carrying trade. The Act had, as we have seen, been renewed by the Parliament of 1661; but it remained to be seen whether England could maintain by force of arms the supremacy which such legislation assumed. If this was to be done, it could be only by careful preparation, by establishing a sound financial system, and by presenting a united front. All these essentials were ignored by the recklessness of Clarendon's enemies, and his efforts to secure them were baffled by the profusion, the waywardness, and the petty irritation of the King.
The Dutch could offer no direct opposition to the Navigation Laws; but in colonial affairs they had ample opportunity for inflicting injury upon England, and they were not slow to avail themselves of it. A tariff war between the two countries had already begun. The woollen manufacturers of England were threatened by the high import duties imposed by the Dutch upon English goods; and England endeavoured to meet these by prohibiting the export of wool. Each Parliamentary session saw new import duties imposed upon foreign goods imported into England, and in many cases their importation was absolutely prohibited. The rivalry in the fishing trade led to conflicts which were carried almost to the point of war, and the fishing fleets from the Dutch and English ports both reckoned, as an ordinary experience, on having to defend themselves by armed force. But it was on the West coast of Africa, and in the East Indies, that the two Powers came into most serious collision, and there the bitterness of rivalry was increased by a long catalogue of wrongs suffered on both sides. The estrangement was intensified when the chief colonial rival of Holland seemed likely to become, by the marriage treaty, the ally of England, and when Portugal threatened, in the confidence of that alliance, to prosecute her schemes of vengeance for the aggressions of the Dutch. It became of the first importance for the Dutch to patch up some sort of treaty with Portugal before the English alliance should be cemented, and this was the object of the statesmen of the United Provinces. To counteract this seemed to some to be the soundest policy for England.
The negotiations at the Hague were carried on by Sir George Downing, who without being a leading statesman, or wielding any considerable authority in England, yet managed to exert no little influence upon the course of affairs at a very critical juncture. His career had been a strange one. He was of obscure birth, but had managed to ingratiate himself with the Protector, and was employed in various capacities—ranging, it would appear, from chaplain to scout-master—in the Scottish army. In 1656, he appeared in Cromwell's Parliament, as member for Haddington, and secured for himself a plurality of offices, which combined a tellership of the Exchequer, with the captaincy of a troop of horse. The time was favourable for the adventurer whose advance was delayed by no scruples of conscience, and no deficiency of self-assurance; and Downing increased his importance by a marriage with the sister of Howard, first Earl of Carlisle. We next find him resident at the Hague, as Cromwell's representative, and exerting himself, with obtrusive zeal, in urging the exclusion from Dutch territory of the exiled King and his Court. But Downing was one of those who readily, and with no troublesome qualms of conscience or of honour, accommodate themselves to changes of political circumstances. He was astute enough to foresee the coming Restoration, and easily secured the confidence and gratitude of Charles by betraying the secrets of those whose agent he was. He rendered a useful service in betraying to Charles's advisers the double-dealing of Sir Richard Willis, the Royalist who stooped to be spy for Cromwell, and compounded with his conscience by taking care that his betrayals should be accompanied by warnings which enabled those whose movements he betrayed, to provide for their own safety. Downing carefully copied the manoeuvres he exposed, and was dexterous enough to arrange that he should continue, by an easy transference of allegiance, to act at the Hague for Charles, in the same capacity as he had acted for Cromwell, He had gained experience which was eminently useful; and he was soon ready to show the same relentless skill in tracing the hiding places of fugitive rebels, as he had lately shown in harassing the exiled Royalists. He was a man of unquestionable ability, of dauntless audacity, and restless activity; but he moved the hatred and contempt alike of Royalist and rebel, for his arrogance, his brazen insolence, and his cynical lack of conscience. Clarendon had now to use him as agent in a series of complicated diplomatic transactions. To his perspicacity, promptness, and determination, the Chancellor might trust. But again and again, in his correspondence, Clarendon has to urge caution, to rebuke Downing's arrogance, and to expostulate with him for an attitude deliberately provocative, and neglectful of the plainest instructions inculcating prudence and reserve. Clarendon was to have his instinctive dislike of the man aggravated by many future provocations in other fields. At this time, he found him the most dangerous of agents in a negotiation of the utmost delicacy—one impatient of control, impetuous in temper, reckless by his greed of self-glorification, and too intent upon achieving a diplomatic triumph, to pay any attention to the risks of premature hostilities. Downing was determined to prevent the concession of any substantial advantages to the Dutch by means of the Portuguese treaty, and did not hesitate to assert that any such concession would be treated by the King of England as a breach of the engagement between Portugal and himself. Clarendon was not prepared to assume such an attitude. An open breach between Portugal and the United Provinces would undoubtedly have involved England in war.
"You must set all your wits on work to prevent this war, which will produce a thousand mischiefs, "wrote Clarendon to Downing; [Footnote: Letter of November 22nd, 1661.] "the Dutch will undergo their full share of them; nor can any good Dutchman desire that Portugal should be so distressed as to fall again into the hands of the Spaniards."
Clarendon, of course, was alive to the disadvantages of a grant by Portugal to the Dutch of privileges of trade equal to those possessed by England. But if Portugal agreed to indemnify England for any loss of exclusive privilege, then, in God's name, let them sign what treaty they pleased. Anything rather than be plunged in a war to which the resources of the nation were not equal, and which would inflict a far more crushing blow upon those commercial interests in defence of which it would be waged, than could be involved in any unduly generous treaty concessions to a rival. The treaty was ratified, and for the moment the breach between the United Provinces and Portugal was avoided.
Other grounds of quarrel soon supervened. Charles had strongly espoused the interests of his sister's child, the young Prince of Orange, whose exclusion, through the instrumentality of De Witt, from the office of Stadtholder, which had been held by his father, was keenly resented by the English King. Downing was instructed to support the Prince's claim, and was ready, with his usual headstrong pugnacity, to make it an essential condition of any treaty that these should be conceded. "The Dutch would not hazard their trade," he wrote, "upon such a point." But he failed to notice that the point involved the influence of De Witt, the most powerful man in Holland. Once again Clarendon had to moderate the impetuosity of his representative: we could make no such stipulation. "Upon what grounds, I pray," wrote Clarendon to Downing, "can the King, in renewing a league with the States-General, demand that they should choose a general of his recommendation?" It would be time enough to intervene when we had established peace. Then, and then only, could we think of fighting against the intrigues of De Witt with any prospect of success.
Clarendon knew well that nothing would suit the plans of Louis XIV. so entirely as an internecine war between England and the Dutch. Nor was this the sole danger to be feared from engaging in hostilities. It was only by a peace with Holland, that the fear of new dissensions at home could be allayed.
"There is nothing," writes Clarendon to Downing, in August, 1661, "the seditious and discontented people here do so much fear as a peace with Holland, from the contrary to which they promise themselves infinite advantages." "If this peace can be handsomely made up, and speedily, great conveniences will arise from it; and we may, after two or three years' settling at home, be in the better position to do what we find fit."
For the present, the aim of Clarendon's policy was to restore the position to what it had been under Cromwell. If the conditions essential for the free expansion of English trade were secured, the more distant quarrels between the different trading companies in the East Indies and Africa might be matter for subsequent argument, and the dynastic claims of the House of Orange might be postponed to a more convenient season. With these clear aims before him, it was not found impossible by Clarendon to arrange a treaty between England and the United Provinces, which was signed at Westminster, in September, 1662. Each was to aid the other against rebels, and neither was to harbour fugitive rebels from the other Power. The naval supremacy of England was to be acknowledged by the lowering of the flag by Dutch vessels. The island of Polerone in the Malay Archipelago—an old subject of contention—was to be restored by Holland. There was to be full freedom of trade between the two Powers. The quarrels of the independent trading companies of each Power in Africa and the East Indies were not to involve war, but were to form subject of arbitration, and equitable settlement after a due interval. No dispute was to be revived which dated earlier than 1654, and later claims which were still outstanding were to be settled by Commissioners appointed by the two Powers. This last article alone was soon found to involve grounds of dissension far-reaching enough to have broken up the peace, even had no other irritating causes supervened.
But all other causes of hostility were of comparatively small importance compared with the essential and insuperable rivalry in colonial trade. It was in these new and expanding markets that the question of European commercial supremacy must be fought out. The command of them was of absolutely vital importance in the inevitable struggle for existence between the two nations. They were chiefly in the hands of great and independent companies working under the protection of either Power. These companies were careless of international rights; zealous only to secure their own commercial monopoly, and certain of being backed up by all the resources of their own State. In England there were three of these great companies—the Turkey Company, the East India Company, and the Royal African Company. Each could rely upon powerful political support, and their ambitions were supported by the solid mass of England's commercial class. Early in the session, which began in March, 1664, the grievances from which English commerce suffered under the overweening insolence and repeated aggressions of the Dutch, were laid before Parliament. Heavy losses were alleged to have been suffered, and the dangers of the total decay of the trade were forcibly foretold. Parliament was not slow to take the alarm. Both Houses concurred in the resolution—
"That the wrongs, dishonours, and indignities done to his Majesty by the subjects of the United Provinces, by invading of his rights in India, Africa, and elsewhere, and the damages, affronts, and injuries done by them to our merchants, are the greatest obstruction of our foreign trade;"
and they prayed that speedy and effectual means should be taken for obtaining redress, and for preventing such injuries in future. It was clear that the national temper had been thoroughly aroused, and would insist on asserting itself. Clarendon's influence is seen in the moderation of Charles's reply. He approved their zeal and promised inquiry, but went no further than to undertake that his Minister should demand reparation, and take steps for the prevention of such wrongs in future.
The bellicose attitude of Parliament had given much alarm to the Dutch.
"The resolution of the two Houses of Parliament," writes Downing to Clarendon, [Footnote: Letter of April 29th, 1664.] "is altogether beyond their expectation, and puts them to their wits' end." "Believe me," he goes on, "at the bottom of their hearts, they are sensible of the weight of a war with his Majesty."
The moderation of the King's reply served to allay the Dutchmen's fears of the imminence of war; but De Witt found it prudent to promise that he would do his utmost to meet the English demands. He expressed to Downing "with great appearing joy," his satisfaction with the King's reply; and said that "since his Majesty had so tenderly declared himself, he would upon that account condescend so much the more to give him satisfaction." Downing doubtless thought that the demand went unduly far in the direction of moderation. But if he had any fears that pacific motives would prevail, he was soon to be undeceived. For the moment war seemed to be averted. Louis XIV.—however he might wish to see the naval Powers exhaust themselves by mutual injuries—had no wish to see the outbreak of a war in which the Treaty rights of the Dutch warranted them in calling for his assistance, and he offered himself as a mediator. But both the disputants were drifting rapidly to the arbitrament of arms.
Downing had a powerful ally for his own warlike inclinations in the Duke of York. James was restless when deprived of opportunity of adding to his influence, and satisfying his chief ambition, by engaging in some warlike operation. He had already acquired some reputation, not without warrant, as a capable naval commander, and as a man of personal courage. He had little opportunity of political action in England, and a war with the Dutch not only promised vengeance for old grudges against the nation, but offered a good chance of winning new renown. He had other less creditable motives. He had taken an active part in the management of some of the great trading companies, and was deeply interested in various colonial enterprises. In March, 1664, James obtained a grant of Long Island on the American coast—a territory nominally belonging to the English, but now, in default of their colonizing it, occupied by the Dutch, who had built a town called New Amsterdam. With the help of two ships of war, lent him by the Crown, the Duke organized an expedition to seize the island. The scanty Dutch colony could offer no effective resistance. Their town was ceded to the emissaries of the Duke, who changed its name to one destined to hold a large space in the history of the world. New Amsterdam became New York, as the result of a buccaneering raid, carried out by some three hundred men, hired by the Duke of York to prosecute a private proprietorial claim.
The Duke was also Governor of the African Trading Company, and this again brought him into even more serious conflict with the Dutch. That company had established its operations upon the Guinea coast before the Civil War, and had carried on a successful trade, which had been grievously interrupted by the troubles at home. The Dutch had, meanwhile, established a rival factory, and prosecuted their trade with such success as seriously to cripple that of England. After the Restoration, the company was re- organized, and the Duke being persuaded to become Governor, a Royal Charter was easily obtained. Those who knew the region were convinced of its promise; and high profits were confidently expected by bartering English goods against the gold and the slaves, of which the supply was so rich. The gold was brought in sufficient quantities to give the name of "Guineas" to a new designation in the English coinage; and the slaves were easily disposed of at a high price to other plantations in various parts of the globe. The only inconvenience arose from the hindrance which the Dutch could offer to English trade, by means of their own superior trade organization, and the more suitable situation of their factory.
Once more the difficulty in the way of the Duke and his Company was settled by an armed raid. Exactly as in the case of New York, he "borrowed" two ships of war from the King, and sent an expedition under the command of Sir Robert Holmes, which, by a flagrant violation of every international right, seized the Dutch fort. The balance of wrong was thus roughly reversed. By an act of unwarrantable violence the Duke of York had fixed upon his own nation the burden of maintaining what amounted to piratical aggression; and he had done it—as Clarendon is obliged to allow—"without any authority, and without a shadow of justice," [Footnote: Letter to Downing, October 28th, 1664.]—solely in satisfaction of his own private rights as a company promoter. Clarendon's diplomacy was, of a truth, conducted under untoward circumstances! Between the filibustering of his royal son-in-law, and the deliberate exasperation of his accredited representative at the Hague, peace had become well-nigh hopeless. Under such conditions negotiations became tangled beyond the possibility of repair. De Witt recognized that no reparation for the wrong done at Cape Verde would be secured except by armed force. But in carrying out this purpose he still endeavoured to avoid any declaration of war. De Ruyter and the English Admiral Lawson were now cruising in the Mediterranean, on a joint expedition, for suppression of piracy, and for releasing the captives of Tunis and Algiers. De Ruyter secretly separated himself from his English ally, sailed for Cape Verde, and there took vengeance for the English aggression on the trading operations of the Dutch. It was an open breach of the stipulation of the Treaty, which required that reparation for colonial wrongs should be sought by peaceable arbitration. Clarendon had recognized fully that such reparation was due, and had instructed Downing to offer it. The elusive tactics of De Witt, and the armed intervention of De Ruyter, frustrated Clarendon's efforts for a peaceful settlement.
Already Clarendon's pronounced inclination for peace had earned for him the ill-will which the Duke of York's habitual sulkiness of temper was so apt to indulge. The King had given their due weight to the arguments of the Chancellor, and felt the danger which war would involve at once to his own authority at home, and to the position of England in Europe. This he had impressed upon his brother; and James rightly ascribed the King's backwardness to Clarendon, and found a convenient medium of remonstrance in his wife, whom he instructed to explain to her father the Duke's annoyance at finding him his chief opponent "in an affair upon which he knew his heart was so much set." [Footnote: Life, ii. 240.] It was characteristic of James that he should deal with a matter of vital interest to the kingdom, as if it was the fitting subject of petty personal pique. Anne undertook the duty, and begged her father no longer to oppose the Duke. Clarendon told her that she "did not enough understand the importance of that affair;" but he would speak to the Duke about it. At their interview, James renewed his tone of personal annoyance, urged the expediency of the war, and above all complained that, as "he was engaged to pursue it," Clarendon should allow the world to see "how little credit he had with him."
Clarendon's reply was as dignified as it was candid. "He had no apprehension that any sober man in England, or his highness himself, should believe that he could fail in his duty to him, or that he would omit any opportunity to make it manifest, which he could never do without being a fool or a madman." But on the other hand he would never give advice, nor consent to anything, which his judgment and his conscience told him would be mischievous to the Crown and to the Kingdom, "though his royal highness, or the King himself, were inclined to it." From the first, the King, he told the Duke, had been "averse from any thought of this war;" but he did not deny that he had done all in his power to confirm the King in that opinion. A few too complacent friends, he told the Duke, might for the moment concur in his view; reflection would soon change their minds. "A few merchants, nor all the merchants in London, were not the city of London, which had had war enough, and could only become rich by peace." The hopes of a liberal grant from Parliament were delusions. He was old enough to remember what had been the fate of James I., who had been tempted "to enter into a war with Spain, upon promise of ample supplies; and yet when he was engaged in it, they gave him no more supply, so that at last the Crown was compelled to accept of a peace not very honourable;" and, Clarendon might have added, to begin that long struggle over supply which had led to the Rebellion.
Clarendon's plain speaking did not end here. The Duke plumed himself upon his military prowess, and was eager for the war because of the laurels which he believed it had in store for him. With a better appreciation of his son-in-law's abilities, Clarendon begged him to reflect "upon the want of able men to conduct the counsels upon which such a war must be carried on." For a time it had seemed as if the Duke were ready to listen to reason, and there had been less talk of war; but the recent aggressions on both sides had dispelled such hopes. De Ruyter had inflicted heavy injury on the English merchants on the African Coast. This was answered by an attack by Prince Rupert's fleet upon the Dutch merchantmen in the Channel. War had virtually begun, in spite of all the Chancellor's counsels of prudence, and all his warnings of the imminent danger. Specious proposals for a settlement were now too late.
"Though I am very glad," wrote Clarendon to Downing, [Footnote: Letter of October 28th, 1664.] "to find any temperate and sober considerations, which dispose that people to peace, I wish they had entertained it sooner, for I scarce see time left for such a disquisition as is necessary. They have too insolently provoked the King to such an expense, that fighting is thought the better husbandry."
It was now needful to apply to Parliament, which met on November 24th. Clarendon was again prostrated by a severe attack of gout, and could not himself appear in Parliament; but a narrative in writing, which was to be the basis for asking for a liberal grant, was laid before the House. The treachery of the Dutch and their open aggressions were exposed; and as the King was thus "forced to put himself in the posture he is now in for the defence of his subjects at so vast an expense," he trusted that Parliament "would cheerfully enable him to prosecute the war with the same vigour he hath prepared for it, by giving him supplies proportionate to the charge thereof."
Those very men, such as Bennet and Coventry, who had chiefly urged the war, were now backward in risking their popularity by asking for an adequate grant. It was left to Clarendon and Southampton to urge that the amount to be asked for should be commensurate with the vastness of the undertaking, and that the resolution of the King and his subjects, to carry out the great task to which they had applied themselves, should be proved to the world by an abundant supply. This they could not reckon at less than two millions and a half. It was an unprecedented charge, and must necessarily strain the relations between the Crown and the Parliament, and stimulate that very discontent which Clarendon knew to be slumbering and ready to break out.
When Parliament came to consider the matter, there was no apparent lack of zeal, but there was, amongst the crowd of private members, no one ready to name a sum. The Chancellor and the Treasurer had prepared for this, by consultations with two or three members of established reputation and of weight in the House and the country; and after an ominous pause, Sir Robert Paston, one of these members, proposed that "the present supply ought to be such as might as well terrify the enemy as assist the King, and that it should therefore be two millions and a half." "The silence of the House," Clarendon proceeds in his narrative, "was not broken." Some one, "who was believed to wish well to the King"—with that sort of well- wishing which characterized the time-serving of Bennet and his confederates—moved that the grant should be much smaller. But those who had been prepared by Clarendon manfully backed the suggestion of Sir Robert Paston; and it was carried by a majority of 172 to 102 in the grudging silence of those who dreaded lest such a grant might secure Clarendon against the odium of repeated applications to the generosity of Parliament. The very men who had secretly opposed it, were not ashamed now, in view of this lavish grant, to stimulate the King to a new warlike zeal, and to confirm the hostile inclinations of the nation at large.
"There appeared," says Clarendon, "great joy and exaltation of spirit upon this vote, and not more in the Court than upon the exchange, the merchants being unskilfully inclined to that war, above what their true interest could invite them to, as in a short time afterwards they had cause to confess." [Footnote: Life, ii. 311.]
Clarendon's prophetic fears were not diminished as time went on. He knew well how quickly such warlike zeal as now prevailed would spend itself, when the burdens of war were felt, and when the interference with commerce made those burdens all the harder. He had good reason to know the corruption that prevailed in the dockyards, and how soon money would melt away in the hands of those who took care that all warlike preparations should yield an abundant harvest of illegal gain to those engaged in them. But the die was now cast, and on February 22nd, 1665, war was declared. Never was hazard run with more reckless thoughtlessness, and with less of a spirit of stern resolution, and of that mood that could brace the nation to such work. The Chancellor knew well that he had lost the confidence of the King, and he was under no delusion as to what loss of confidence involved with one so selfish and so unprincipled as Charles. Never had the Court stood so low in the estimation of all that was soundest in the nation. Clarendon's own words bear the impress of his misgivings.
"All serious and prudent men took it as an ill presage, that whilst all warlike preparations were made in abundance suitable to the occasion, there should be so little preparation of spirit for a war against an enemy, who might possibly be without some of our virtues, but assuredly was without any of our vices." [Footnote: Life, ii. 352.]
It is hard to estimate the burden of bitter disappointment that is compressed into these words.
At the Admiralty, and in the dockyards, there was activity enough. There was one, the candid pages of whose secret diary have given us a faithful picture of the business, and who was no insignificant part of the administrative machine. Month by month Pepys was earning more of his own genial self-approbation by acquiring new consideration, and by his growing mastery of Admiralty business. Month by month he found his little store waxing larger, by gains more or less legitimate, and his official importance enhanced by devices which were not always very high-principled. But the English fleet would have been far better equipped than it was, had those in higher places shown half the energy of Samuel Pepys, had their peculations been kept within his limits, had their stratagems been controlled even by his occasional respect for principle, and had their characters been tainted by no more than his fantastic vanity, and his schoolboy debauchery. Day by day, with all his uncontrolled propensity for carouses, with all his lively taste for gossip, with all his gallantries and all his petty selfishness, Pepys shows us how manfully he struggled to make his work efficient, how often he strove successfully against profusion, and peculation, and hopeless mismanagement, and how he managed to steer his way safely amidst the jealousies, and corruptions, and gross jobberies of those under whom he served. There is something dramatic in comparing the record of his struggle with details that Pepys has left us, with the picture of hopeless corruption which revealed itself to Clarendon, standing at the other end of the official ladder. Under the patronage of the Duke, there was a little knot of men, who regarded the Admiralty chiefly as a field where they could reap a rich harvest of illegal gains. Coventry had now established for himself a control over all appointments. His agent was Sir William Penn, who had failed to rise to Cromwell's standard of efficiency, and had found himself discarded, and a prisoner in the Tower, after his defeat at St. Domingo, but who had managed to creep back into employment by cultivating the new powers. These two carried on a shameless, although well-recognized, sale of offices, and disarmed all criticism that might be dangerous by sharing their ill-gotten booty amongst a wide circle of confederates, of whom that model of chivalry, Sir Charles Berkeley, was one of the chief.
"This was the best husbandry he (Coventry) could have used; for by this means all men's mouths were stopped, and all clamour secured; whilst the lesser sums for a multitude of officers of all kinds were reserved to himself, which, in the estimation of those who were at no great distance, amounted to a very great sum, and more than any officer under the King could possibly get by all the perquisites of his office in many years." [Footnote: Life, ii. 330.]
Thefts and embezzlements became almost acknowledged practices, and as each ship returned, its equipments were shamelessly sold by the Admiralty representatives, and the proceeds divided amongst the officers.
"When this was discovered (as many times it was) and the criminal person apprehended, it was alleged by him as excuse 'that he had paid so dear for his place, that he could not maintain himself and his family, without practising such shifts;' and none of these fellows were ever brought to exemplary justice, and most of them were restored to their employments." [Footnote: Life, ii. 329.]
We have the picture painted from below and from above; and as we look on it, the wonder is, not that the pressure of the war was great, and its successes meagre, but rather that disasters did not crowd upon us more thickly. The conduct of the war does not, of course, belong to the life of Clarendon. [Footnote: "They who contrived the war had the entire conducting of it, and were the sole causes of all the ill effects of it" (Life, ii. 325).] We have hitherto seen only his efforts to stay its outbreak, and the despairing thoughts, which the prospect of the danger, and the recklessness with which it was met, provoked in him. It was part of his business to try to organize some sort of alliances abroad, which might counteract the influence of De Witt. Denmark and Sweden had every reason to oppose the growing commercial power of the Dutch, and to help in any scheme for checking it. But they were divided by mutual jealousies, and their alliance could hardly be gained jointly for the English Crown. Henry Coventry, whose talents and character Clarendon esteemed very differently from those of his brother Sir William, was envoy to Sweden, and managed to secure at least temporary neutrality from that Power, as did Sir Gilbert Talbot from Denmark. But time soon showed that any hope of effective alliance was vain. The warlike Bishop of Munster did, indeed, find it convenient to avenge his own wrongs by attacking the United Provinces, and by acting in conjunction with England. But such an ally was not a source of much strength, and it might well be doubted whether his co-operation was worth the very considerable subsidy which he demanded, of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. In truth, it soon became evident enough that England must rely upon herself alone, and that a still greater danger lurked in the background, in the doubtful neutrality, and very probable hostility, of France. Amidst this gathering cloud of unfriendliness, a new source of enmity was started by the extensive resort to privateering on the part of England, the danger of which Clarendon fully perceived. He had no words too strong to condemn this practice.
"They (the privateers) are a people, how countenanced so ever or thought necessary, that do bring an unavoidable scandal, and it is to be feared a curse, upon the justest war that was ever made at sea. A sail! A sail! is the word with them: friend or foe is the same; they possess all they can master, and run with it to any obscure place where they can sell it (which retreats are never wanting) and never attend the ceremony of an adjudication." [Footnote: Life, ii. 335. We must not forget that Clarendon had himself suffered from these licensed robbers, and bore them a grudge.]
The resort to privateering drew upon England the hatred of every trading company in Europe; but what was still worse, the career it opened was a far more lucrative one than that offered by the royal navy, and recruiting was fatally injured so long as the prospect of uncounted booty lay open to those who sailed as privateers. More fatal still, any opposition to it was interpreted by the little knot of the Duke's protégés as a personal disloyalty. "Whoever spake against those lewd people, upon any case whatsoever, was thought to have no regard for the Duke's profit, nor to desire to weaken the enemy." [Footnote: Life, ii. 336.]
There was another innovation, adopted in the interests of this nest of shameless pilferers, who throve under the Duke's protection. It was in vain that Clarendon remonstrated, and appealed either to constitutional precedent, or to the prudence and the self-interest of the King. Heavy as had been the burden of taxation caused by the war, hopes had been raised that the prices realized by the sale of captured vessels and goods would, soon after the beginning of the war, yield revenue enough to go far to meet the cost. "After one good fleet should be set out to beat the Dutch, the prizes, which would every day after be taken, would plentifully do all the rest"—such was the confident prediction. It would, under no circumstances, have been realized. But in previous wars a strict account had been kept. Commissioners were appointed for the sale of prizes, and they were bound to account for every penny received. Such a course no longer met the views of Charles and of those who now had his confidence.
The new design for dealing with these prizes of war was sprung without warning upon the Chancellor, and with circumstances that might have stirred a temper less quick than his. One evening a servant of Lord Ashley brought to the Chancellor a warrant, the object of which was to constitute Lord Ashley Treasurer of all the monies raised upon prizes of war, to assign to him the patronage of all offices necessary for the service, to make him accountable to none but the King, and to direct him to pay out all such monies as the King should order. To this warrant the Chancellor was requested to affix the seal that evening. Clarendon replied that he would speak with the King before he sealed the grant.
The purport of such an order was only too clear. The prize money was not to be spent in mitigating the heavy burden of taxation, but was to be administered according to the caprices of the King, in the ignoble expenses of his Court, and through the hands of an unscrupulous clique, whose peculations would thus be completely concealed. It is an indication of the inveterate prejudice which has infected the Whig historians of the period, that this scandalous iniquity has been glozed over, or, at the most, timidly criticized. Ashley was a Whig, and the friend of Whig philosophers. His falsehoods, his treacheries, his flagrant acts of peculation, are therefore to be veiled under a discreet silence, or visited with condemnation that is lightened by profuse apology. It is surely time that this pharisaicism of party prejudice should be shaken off. [Footnote: It is a perpetual amusement to contrast the timid condemnation with which such a Whig as Lister visits the turpitudes of such as Ashley, with the solemn lectures poured out over any deviation in the case of Clarendon from the accepted standard of Whig orthodoxy.] Ashley was primarily responsible for a scandalous fraud and an indecent robbery of the public purse, for which not a shadow of defence can be offered. He became the head of a gang of ignoble tricksters, who stooped to be pandars to their royal master's pleasures, at the price of sharing the fruits of public plunder, and with the aim of undermining the influence of the Minister whose rectitude shamed them. The fact that Ashley was a friend of John Locke does not lessen his turpitude by one jot.
Clarendon's remonstrance with the King was as plain spoken as usual. He "doubted that his Majesty had been surprised; it was not only unprecedented, but in many particulars destructive to his services and to the rights of other men." It was an insult to the Lord Treasurer, whose prerogatives it invaded; and lastly, it was fraught with great danger to Ashley himself. The King was brought to consent to the suspension of the warrant; for the rest, he was obstinate. "It would bring prejudice only to himself, which he had sufficiently provided against." Clarendon did not give up the fight. He remonstrated with Ashley, who of all men might have avoided being the medium of a slight upon Southampton, whose niece he had married, and to whose good offices he owed his first advancement; but was met only by sulky obstinacy. He endeavoured to arouse Southampton; but the Treasurer was old and apathetic, and unwilling to engage in new struggles. It was a sign of Clarendon's decaying influence, that all his efforts were in vain. He received a positive order from the King that the Commission should be signed, and he felt it no longer possible to refuse. It is easy for us, judging when the spirit of the constitution has been changed, to condemn Clarendon for not throwing up his office, in the face of such rejection of his advice. It is enough to say that such action would have been deemed by Clarendon himself to be a dereliction of his duty. By all the memories of the past, by his affectionate reverence for his former master, by long association in the days of exile and misfortune—nay, also by his profound veneration for the Crown—Clarendon felt that it was his duty to remain in the service of Charles II. to the end, and to defend the King his master, even against his most deadly enemies, his own selfishness and lack of principle. The easy and convenient method of resignation, sanctioned now by long constitutional usage, was—or seemed to himself to be—impossible to Clarendon. Had it been otherwise, how welcome would such release have been to the weary, disgusted, and despairing statesman!
We have thus seen how Clarendon was driven along, against all his better judgment, in spite of all his remonstrances, by an insane current of warlike frenzy, amidst which his warnings were unheard, and where a small clique exploited the prevalent commercial jealousies, as a means of bringing satisfaction to their own selfish schemes of greed and ambition. We have seen how he strove vainly to moderate international hatred, to compose topics of quarrel, and to bring about a pacific settlement. We have noted his efforts to obtain alliances with, or at least neutrality on the part of, neighbouring Powers, and how cautiously he watched each movement of France, whose adhesion to England's foes might be so full of danger. We have learned his estimate of the cost, and how fully he realized that for the Crown to enter on war without ample supplies, was the certain precursor of a new Parliamentary struggle more keen and more fatal than the last; and we have seen how he managed, in spite of opposition at Court, to secure an unprecedented grant. We have seen how convinced he was of the corruption and mismanagement of the navy, and with what thoughtless lack of preparation we were entering upon a fierce struggle with a foe that fought for very life. We have seen how, even at the entry upon the war, Clarendon found that no remonstrances of his could prevent a huge asset, in the prizes of war, being handed over to a corrupt clique, to be dissipated in grants that were at once illegal in method, and degrading in effect. The incidents of the war do not belong to Clarendon's life, except as they presented new problems for statesmanship, or gave opportunities for attempting accommodation.