323 It may belong to the spring of 1787, when, as we learn from the “Corresp. of Wilberforce,” i, 40, Dundas introduced Adam Smith to Pitt and Wilberforce; but the latter does not record the anecdote.

324 Of the 118 Parliamentary boroughs as many as 87 (including Belfast!) were “close,” that is, were controlled by Government or by a local magnate or the Corporation. See a list in “Castlereagh P.,” iv, 428–30; also Porritt, “Unreformed House of Commons,” ii, pt. vi.

325 Lecky, iv, 429, 440, 450.

326 “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 74, 96, 107, 119; “Rutland P.,” iii, 193.

327 Pitt MSS., 324.

328 “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 17, 19.

329 Ashbourne, 84, 85.

330 Ashbourne, 85–91.

331 Grenville, writing in November 1798, said that he considered the faulty procedure adopted in 1785 largely contributed to the failure. (“Buckingham P.,” ii, 412.)

332 “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 43.

333 “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 55–75.

334 Ibid., 73.

335 Ashbourne, 104 (Letter of Pitt to Orde, 1st February 1785). Irish exports to Great Britain for 1779 were £2,256,659, her imports thence only £1,644,770 (Pitt MSS., 322).

336 “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 311–14. Lecky, vi, 390, 395, and his “Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland,” 114.

337 “Rutland P.” (Hist. MSS. Comm.), iii, 162–68.

338 Pitt MSS., 320.

339 “Rutland P.,” iii, 191; “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 314; Ashbourne, 105, 108.

340 Chevening MSS.

341 “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 311–28.

342 “Dropmore P.,” i, 247, 248

343 Pitt MSS., 321.

344 This is refuted by the official wording of that Resolution as passed at Dublin, in “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 312.

345 Pitt MSS., 321.

346 Fifty-six petitions had been sent in against Lord North’s proposals in 1778. Daniel Pulteney wrote on 22nd March: “The selfishness, ignorance, and credulity of many more commercial towns has been too successfully practised on by Opposition.” He says Nottingham was worked on by “Portland’s emissaries.” The day before he expressed regret at Pitt’s obstinacy over the “cursed” Westminster scrutiny (“Rutland P.,” iii, 192, 193).

347 Ashbourne, 121.

348 “Report of the Lords of the Committee of Council” (1st March 1785). (J. Stockdale,) 4. Pitt stated in his letter of 6th January 1785 to Rutland, that Ireland bought far less from Great Britain than she sold to her.

349 Ibid., 8–30.

350 Ibid., 31–42.

351 Ibid., 43–49.

352 “Report of the Lords of the Committee of Council,” 50–55.

353 Ibid., 68.

354 Ibid., 78, 79.

355 “The Proposed System of Trade with Ireland explained” (1785).

356 Letter of 6th April to Duke of Rutland in “Rutland P.,” iii, 197.

357 T. Moore, “Life of Sheridan,” i, 424.

358 Wraxall, iv, 127–38.

359 Lord Morley (“Burke,” 125) allows that Burke was wrong in following Fox’s factious opposition, and that he “allowed his political integrity to be bewildered.”

360 The actual authors of these amusing poems were Tickell, General Fitzpatrick, Lord John Townsend, Richardson, George Ellis, and Burke’s friend and literary executor, Dr. Lawrence, who contributed the prose parts. (T. Moore, “Sheridan,” i, 421.)

361 “The Rolliad,” 90, 370.

362 “Dropmore P.,” i, 255. See ch. xii of this work for a new letter of Wilberforce to Pitt on the crisis.

363 “Auckland Journals,” i, 79.

364 Chevening MSS. Pitt continued to reside at the house on the north side of Putney Heath, next to Lord Ashburton’s, until October or November 1785, when he removed to Holwood Hill, Kent.

365 “Dropmore P.,” i, 254; “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 125–33.

366 Ashbourne, 146.

367 Wraxall, iii, 217.

368 Wilberforce gave up Lauriston House in 1786. A little later Dundas and Grenville came to reside at Wimbledon, on the east and west sides of the Green. Grenville’s is now called Eagle House. Dundas’s stood on the site of “Canizzaro.”

369 “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 111.

370 “Rutland P.,” iii, 177.

371 Ibid., 178; Wraxall, iv, 72–9, 98.

372 Wraxall, iv, 98.

373 Bruce, “Life of Sir W. Napier,” i, 28; quoted by Lecky, v, 16.

374 “Private Papers of Wilberforce,” 69.

375 Wraxall, ii, 234, 235.

376 “Private Papers of Wilberforce,” 65; “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 78.

377 “Private Papers of Wilberforce,” 66, 67.

378 “Life and Letters of the Earl of Minto,” ii, 5.

379 B.M. Add. MSS., 28061. This postscript to Harris’s letter of 18th July 1786 to Carmarthen is omitted from “The Malmesbury Diaries”; so, too are most personal touches, often of great interest.

380 “Auckland Journals,” i, 117.

381 Omond, G. W. T., “The Lord Advocates of Scotland,” ch. xiv.

382 Porritt, “Unreformed House of Commons,” ii, 8.

383 Wraxall, ii, 123.

384 “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 179, 233, 350, 351; also iii, 212, for the decline of Dundas’s influence on Pitt. Omond, “Lord Advocates of Scotland,” vol. ii, ch. xiv.

385 Lord Macaulay told this to Earl Stanhope (author of the “Life of Pitt”) at the British Museum in December 1846 (Note of Earl Stanhope in the Chevening MSS.).

386 “Malmesbury Diaries,” iii, 292, 516, 590–2; “Dropmore P.,” iii, 167.

387 “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 78.

388 Pitt MSS., 189.

389 Wraxall, iv, 151.

390 Pellew, “Life of Lord Sidmouth,” i, 4.

391 Pellew, “Life of Lord Sidmouth,” i, 38.

392 Wraxall, iii, ad fin.

393 I distrust the charges of corrupt dealing brought against Rose respecting the next election at Westminster.

394 “Diaries of George Rose,” i, 32–37.

395 “Corresp. of Wilberforce,” i, 9.

396 “Corresp. of Wilberforce,” i, 21–4.

397 The gross income was £4,100: see Mr. E. W. Hamilton’s estimate of Pitt’s income (the total being £10,532) in App. C of Lord Rosebery’s “Pitt.”

398 Pretyman MSS.

399 G. Croly, “Mems. of George IV,” i, 105, 106.

400 Ibid., 107.

401 Chevening MSS.

402 B.M. Add. MSS., 35684. In May 1790, Pitt drafted a letter to the members of the Senate of the University of Cambridge, asking for the support to his intended candidature for the office of High Steward, then vacant owing to the death of Lord Hardwicke. He expressed the hope that the crisis in public affairs would be deemed a sufficient excuse for not making the application in person. He was elected. The draft of the letter is in the Library of Pembroke College, Cambridge.

403 “Private Papers of Wilberforce,” 13, 14.

404 “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 113.

405 Ibid., ii, 10–13.

406 “Antony and Cleopatra,” v, sc. 2.

407 “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 24–26, 49, 55. The character and career of Sir James Harris (the future Earl of Malmesbury) will concern us later. Herr F. K. Wittichen, “Preussen und England in der Europäischen Politik—1785–1788,” ad init., condemns the resentment of Frederick the Great as a mistake, fatal to the interests both of Prussia and England.

408 “Malmesbury Diaries,” i, 374, 402, 532. He thought her hasty, and swayed by passion or caprice; but events proved that she did not lack foresight or firmness.

409 Mahan, “Influence of Sea Power,” i, 11.

410 Martens, iii, 327.

411 “Leeds Memoranda” (edited by Mr. Oscar Browning), 101.

412 B.M. Add. MSS., 27914. This letter and other documents of interest will appear in my volume “Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies.”

413 B.M. Add. MSS., 28060. “Lord C.” may be Lord Clarendon, who had previously given advice to Lord Carmarthen.

414 Ibid.

415 B.M. Add. MSS., 28060. It is endorsed, in Pitt’s hand: “Oct. 12, 1784, Mem^m for Instructions to Mr. Fitzherbert.” Carmarthen’s draft is almost certainly that which is printed by Mr. Oscar Browning in the “Leeds Memoranda,” p. 103 n.; but the evidence here given shows that that draft cannot be Pitt’s, as Mr. Browning at that time (1884) naturally inferred.

416 This is well set forth in the despatches of Lord Dalrymple, British Ambassador at Berlin, to Carmarthen. The latter wrote to Harris on 24th February 1786, that Vorontzoff would try to persuade Catharine II to restore the “good system,” and to induce Joseph II to help in the work; but nothing came of it (B.M. Add. MSS., 28061).

417 “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 104. Memorandum of 2nd February 1785.

418 Even after the disasters of 1813 Napoleon wrote: “Holland is a French country and will remain so for ever” (“Lettres inédites,” 6th November 1813).

419 See Colenbrander, “De Patriottentijd,” i, 415, for the Prince’s difficulty in forming (February 1784) a permanent force of 8,000 sailors subject to the Council of War and not to the provincial Estates; also “A View of the Policy ... of the United Provinces” (Dublin, 1787). As Grenville wrote to Pitt from The Hague on 31st July 1787, that the Dutch understood their Constitution very imperfectly (“Dropmore P.,” iii, 410), I may be pardoned for not seeking to unravel it here.

420 “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 92–4, 222–4.

421 B.M. Add. MSS., 28060, Letter of 23rd August 1785. These “private” letters are often more interesting and important than those printed in the “Malmesbury Diaries,” which form but a small portion of the whole.

422 B.M. Add. MSS., 28060.

423 B.M. Add. MSS., 28060.

424 Ibid.

425 See the conversation of Joseph II with Sir R. M. Keith at Vienna in December 1785, on French designs on Egypt, as given in chap. xxi, ad init.

426 Salomon, “Pitt,” 309, 310; also Martens, iv, 133–9, for the treaty closing this dispute.

427 B.M. Add. MSS., 28060.

428 “Malmesbury Mems.,” ii, 113–21.

429 “Leeds Mem.” 111–13.

430 Wittichen, op. cit., 8, 25 et seq., and 173, 174; “Malmesbury Mems.,” 131.

431 Ibid., 118.

432 Tomline, ii, 108; “Leeds Mem.,” 116.

433 Colenbrander, iii, 16, quoted by Wittichen, 173.

434 Joseph Ewart had been secretary to Sir John Stepney, then was Secretary of the Berlin Embassy in 1785–7. In 1788–91 he was ambassador. For Anglo-Prussian relations and Ewart’s work, see Dr. Luckwaldt’s excellent monograph, “Die englisch-preussische Allianz von 1788,” 51 et seq. (Leipzig, 1902). By the kindness of General Sir Spencer Ewart, I was able to transcribe several of the letters of his forefather, Joseph Ewart. Some of them are published in an article in the “Edinburgh Review” for July 1909.

435 Luckwaldt, 52, 53.

436 “Cornwallis Corresp.,” i, 202–11.

437 “Malmesbury Diaries,” i, 157.

438 I disagree with Herr Salomon (“Pitt”) on this point. It seems to me that Pitt’s policy was essentially tentative, and remained so up to the year 1788.

439 B.M. Add. MSS., 28060. George III showed more sagacity than his Ministers, witness the phrase in his letter of 7th August to Pitt: “An experience of twenty years has taught me not to expect any return for the great assistance she [Catharine] has received from this country.”

440 As late as 5th February 1786 he wrote to Harris: “We are on more friendly terms with Russia than for a long time” (B.M. Add. MSS., 28061).

441 I have published this Memorandum along with other documents bearing on the years 1785–7 in the “Eng. Hist. Rev.” for 1909.

442 Garden, “Traités,” v, 60–72.

443 “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 175.

444 On 7th March 1786 Harris reported to Carmarthen joint actions of the Dutch and French in the East, and that eight Dutch warships were to sail thither with troops on board. (B.M. Add. MSS., 28061.) The possession of the Cape of Good Hope by the Dutch rendered our communications with India precarious.

445 “Dropmore P.,” i, 258.

446 “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 111.

447 “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 172.

448 The Grand-Duke of Tuscany was a Hapsburg prince.

449 Pitt MSS., 332.

450 Dr. Cunningham, “Eng. Industry and Commerce” (pt. ii, 546).

451 B.M. Add. MSS., 28063. Eden to Carmarthen, 10th January 1788.

452 “F. O.,” France, 18.

453 Ibid.

454 “Wealth of Nations,” bk. iv, ch. iii.

455 “Politique de tous les Cabinets de l’Europe ...,” ii, 402–3. It contains some “Mémoires” of Vergennes.

456 Fitzmaurice, “Shelburne,” iii, 260.

457 “Précis du Traité de Commerce de 1786,” by Count His de Butenval (Paris, 1869), 25.

458 “Wealth of Nations,” bk iv, ch. iii.

459 Butenval, 23.

460 B.M. Add. MSS., 28060.

461 “F. O.,” France, 14, Dorset to Carmarthen, 31st March 1785. See, too, L. Pingaud Choiseul-Gouffier, “La France en Orient sous Louis XVI” (Paris, 1887).

462 Pitt MSS., 337.

463 Ibid., 333. Hailes to Fraser, 26th January 1786.

464 “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 112.

465 “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 157.

466 “F. O.,” France, 16.

467 Ibid. The British Parliament in 1716 abrogated these clauses in favour of earlier and less liberal arrangements. Louis XIV consented to this.

468 “F. O.,” France, 16. Hailes to Carmarthen, 4th August 1785.

469 Ibid., Hailes to Carmarthen, 1st December 1785. The Chambers of Commerce at Paris, Versailles, and Montpellier protested against the arrêts. See Butenval, op. cit., 36.

470 Pitt MSS., 110. Eden to Pitt, 12th October 1785. See, too, “Carlisle Papers,” 644.

471 B.M. Add. MSS., 34420.

472 Butenval, 39

473 Carmarthen to Eden, 9th December 1785 (B.M. Add. MSS., 34420).

474 Pitt MSS., 333.

475 Pitt to Eden, 4th December 1785, in “Auckland Journals,” i, 87.

476 Vergennes to Carmarthen, 14th December 1785, in Pitt MSS., 333.

477 B.M. Add. MSS., 34420. Letter of John Lees, 1st April 1785.

478 “Auckland Journals,” i, 89; Wraxall, iv, 229.

479 J. Flammermont, “Correspondances des Agents diplomatiques étrangers avant la Révolution,” 508.

480 “Auckland Journals,” i, 106.

481 Pitt MSS., 110. I quote fully only from those letters which have not been published.

482 “Auckland Journals,” i, 112.

483 B.M. Add. MSS., 28061. Letter of 19th May 1786.