BUTE AND BEDFORD 497 Choiseul tried to extract further concessions. On 12 July Bute informed Viry that he would not surrender Dominica, and that England was to retain the western bank of the Mississippi. He added that Choiseul must now write a memorandum, capable of being shown to the Cabinet (and thus concealing the secret negotiation), "by which France will grant all the demands it is definitely determined to grant" at the same time insisting on the cession of St Lucia as an Article and sine quâ non. Bute also hinted strongly that, if Spain did not come to heel, popular pressure might force him to retain Cuba, when captured. Viry reported that Bute seemed un peu fâché, and Choiseul, realising that the limits of his patience had been reached, sent a reply in the desired sense. When Bute laid Choiseul's answer before the Cabinet, on 26 July, he proposed to make a separate peace with France at once, leaving Spain to assent to the fait accompli or to be crushed by England's power. Bute had some justification for this view, for Choiseul had secretly assured him that he could induce Spain to accept the terms; "England will only have to insist" (30 June). But Bute could not say this openly. He was outvoted and attacked in the Cabinet by everyone, and always referred to his humiliation with peculiar bitterness. Lord Granville even suggested that he was the dupe of France, and George Grenville stressed Ferdinand's victory in Germany. Bute was compelled to abandon his claim to disregard Spain, but he managed to get the Cabinet on 28 July to agree to the restoration of St Lucia. He conceded in return that the King should not assent to the French terms, except on condition that France should try to persuade Spain to accept the treaty.1 This attitude placed Choiseul in a difficulty. If he failed to persuade Spain, and the war continued, England's terms would rise and he would lose St Lucia. Viry warned him that delay was dangerous, and that Bute was "bolder and more decided than we thought" and "a perfectly honest man". Choiseul did not keep Bute waiting long, and, by mid-August, had agreed to the British terms, and by the end of the month had also induced Spain to agree to treat. The Duke of Bedford had already been appointed, as British Plenipotentiary, to go to Paris to sign secret Preliminaries of Peace with Choiseul and with a Spanish Plenipotentiary (Grimaldi). He arrived at Paris in September, preceded by four carriage horses and twenty bottles of sack, which Bute had sent as a present to Solar. The Duke was not a wholly fortunate choice, for he was known to be the most pacific, and thought to be the most pliable, of British ministers. He was something of a philosopher and believed that England was becoming too supreme in Europe, and that the treaty should exhibit her moderation and make the extent of British power and her gains 1 The formal answer to France agreeing to restore St Lucia, etc. was given by Egremont on 31 July 1762, it had been preceded by the secret pledge of 27 June. CHBE I 32 in territory acceptable to the world at large. But he was not always easy to negotiate with in detail. Moreover, the revolt in the Cabinet had awakened a justifiable suspicion that Bedford was the instrument of Bute. Accordingly, they decided (19 September) that the Preliminaries must be approved by the King (i.e. by the Cabinet) before being signed. Bedford was annoyed at thus having his hands tied by "instructions one would not give to a clerk”. Choiseul's terms, as finally offered, owed something to Bedford's pressure. In two points they differed from the Preliminaries as eventually signed. There was no guarantee that the French fishing boats would keep at a reasonable distance from the English coasts of Newfoundland, and no compensation was offered for the fall of Havana. The French answer arrived on 28 September and it was known on 29 September that not only had the city itself fallen but nearly a million pounds of treasure and about a quarter of the Spanish fleet were captured. The young King saw the Duke of Cumberland on 1 October and declared that he would demand compensation for Havana, hinting at Florida.1 It is curious that Bute was not wholly in favour of this view.2 Bute found the opposition so formidable in the Cabinet that he adjourned the date of its meeting till 22 October. In the interval he reorganised his Cabinet. He replaced the ablest of his opponents, George Grenville, by Lord Halifax, in the office of Secretary of State. He also deprived Grenville of the leadership of the Commons and gave it to Henry Fox, an old parliamentary hand, accustomed alike to obedience, to debate, and to parliamentary management. To the surprise of everyone Grenville retained his seat in the Cabinet, but he was shorn of his power. If he gave any trouble, Bute could let Halifax conduct the negotiations with France and make Fox defend them in the Commons. Thus assured of making his will prevail in his own Cabinet, Bute felt strong enough to demand compensation for Havana. Spain offered Florida, and France made a concession as to the distance of the French ships from the British coast of Newfoundland. The Preliminaries of Peace were signed between France, Spain and England on 3 November at Fontainebleau. These actions of Bute drove the Whig party into opposition Overtures of office made by him to Newcastle were declined and this led to an active campaign against the Whigs. The Duke of Devonshire, the only one of them left in the Cabinet, was forced to resign the office of Lord Chamberlain (28 October), was insulted by the King in the process, and removed from the list of Privy Councillors. The 1 Brit. Mus., Add. MSS, 35839, 1 Oct. 1762, "Some Account of the Terms of the Peace given by the K. to H.R.H. the D. of C. at St. James's". 2 Shelburne MSS, vol. CLXVIII (renumbered ccn), Letters from Calcraft to Grenville of 3 Oct. 1762. Both writers desired compensation. Bute had made tentative suggestions to Newcastle in July 1762. RESIGNATION OF BUTE, APRIL 1763 499 few minor Whigs who remained in the administration then resigned to mark their disapproval. On 25 November the King's Speech at last contained that allusion to the "bloody and expensive war" which Pitt's insistence had removed from the royal declaration of two years before. Parliament was informed that Preliminaries of Peace had been concluded and advised of the actual terms in December. Pitt violently attacked the Preliminaries in the Commons but could muster only 65 votes against 329. Bute admitted that £25,000 was paid out of the Secret Service money in December 1762.1 Of this sum £10,000 had always been drawn from the Secret Service Fund at this time of the year. The extra £15,000 was probably spent in pensions given to adherents on the waiting list for pensions. This was, of course, a usual procedure on the entry of a new ministry into office, and the sum does not seem a very large one. The amount does not enable us to suggest that the size of the Government majority in the Commons was due to bribery alone. In the Lords, Newcastle, Hardwicke and Grafton opposed the peace but found a "great majority" against them. Fox, who seems to have already acted with great success in influencing waverers, showed neither scruple nor mercy in a campaign against the Whig placemen. He removed the Whig magnates from their lordlieutenancies, and hunted their dependents from places and from pensions, "in order to be revenged on me", said Newcastle. No such severity in proscription had ever been known, and it is the more remarkable because the parliamentary consent to peace had already, in fact, been secured by triumphant majorities. Fresh surprises were in store for the Opposition. On 10 February 1763 peace was finally signed. On 11 March, Bute spoke to Fox of resigning office, on the 18th the terms of peace were placed before Parliament, and Bute laid down his office early in April. There seems to be no reason to doubt that his resignation was due to a simple cause. He had taken office with but one object, to assist his young master in carrying the peace to a successful conclusion. This he had now done. He was ready to resign, and perhaps hoped still to pull wires behind the scenes. He was disinclined for the "bullfight" of politics and fully aware that his own great unpopularity might easily be transferred to his master. That he loved the young King with a deep affection his private letters show. That he was without personal ambition, and only desirous of being useful to his master, his whole conduct seems to prove. The amazement of his contemporaries at his conduct is indeed the best proof of his personal disinterestedness. His conduct of the peace negotiations is naturally open to criticism, 1 See Bute to the King of 4 Nov. 1769. Fortescue, Correspondence of George III, II, no. 735, pp. 109-10. 2 No debate on them is recorded. though we can understand his motives and the practical possibilities better than his contemporaries did. The plan was simple. Bute, like his master, ardently desired peace, and he told Choiseul so frankly enough. "Instead of going the ordinary way of forming pretensions much stronger than one would wish to conclude, I have traced the plan of an equitable peace such as France could accept with honour."1 He added that he had not hesitated to make great sacrifices for this result, wishing to make a permanent alliance instead of a plâtrée peace. Viry certainly thought, and Choiseul sometimes admitted, that Bute had acted up to his professions. The aim was in itself a high and noble one and worthy of a great statesman, but the prospect of a permanent alliance was certainly premature, and almost absurd. There was no prospect even of more than a truce. In fact, Choiseul began reorganising the French fleet and increasing his armaments so soon as peace was concluded and remained decidedly aggressive until his fall seven years later. Bute failed equally in his lesser aim of securing good terms by avoiding the diplomacy of the auction-room and offering le dernier prix. The secrecy of the negotiation gave Choiseul endless opportunities of playing Bute off against his own colleagues and against Spain, which he was not slow to use. Bute's worst error would appear to have been his over-zeal for peace, and his disregard of the fact that the military events were likely to tell in England's favour. His conduct towards Frederick cannot be entirely defended either as moral or as expedient. The operations in Germany, in fact, gave Bute a valuable lever in negotiation which he rashly threw away at the outset. On the other hand, the Newcastle-Hardwicke section of the Cabinet, while wishing to retain St Lucia and to get compensation for Havana, contributed largely to Bute's blunders over the Spanish question. Under the influence of Ligonier and Anson they seemed to have been obsessed with the idea that Spain and France would be too strong for England and that any concession was justified to avert that result. It may be doubted whether any concession could have done so, and, as it turned out, England proved stronger than France and Spain combined. But it is only fair to say that Legge, the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer (and by no means friendly to Newcastle), expressed in a paper, written on II February 1762,2 the view that immediate peace was necessary, to avoid bankruptcy. So the Whigs had technical advice from naval, military and financial quarters, all in favour of a speedy peace. On the other hand, the Duke of Cumberland, their honourable and impartial adviser, was strongly against giving way over the Newfoundland fisheries or discontinuing the war in Germany, and deeply suspicious of any 1 Shelburne MSS, vol. xi, Viry to Solar, 26 June 1762, reporting Bute. 2 Brit. Mus.,Add. MSS, 35839, ff. 262-3. (An endorsed “abstract of Mr Legge's paper".) THE VALUE OF THE PEACE 501 concessions to Spain.1 And, when it came to the point, the Newcastle party had refused to give up St Lucia. If the Newcastle policy represents the nadir, that of Pitt represents the zenith, of possible diplomatic achievement. Choiseul lost no opportunity of declaring Pitt's policy to have been undiplomatic in the highest degree, and he has been followed by the most distinguished French historian of this period. Even Stanley, an excellent judge, thought Pitt's diplomatic methods too harsh, and declared he could have made peace had the concessions of 17 August been made earlier. But Stanley did not know what we now know. Such criticism assumes either that the Franco-Spanish union could have been averted, or that it did not mean war. Both propositions seem doubtful. Spain would hardly have approved of Choiseul's private Memorial of July 1761 if she was not prepared to risk war. And Charles III seems to have been prepared to run that risk in order to reduce the increasing predominance of England in America. He had told England this in so many words nearly two years before. If the balance of power was thus really disturbed, soft words from Pitt would not have prevented Spain from joining France. Assuming war to be inevitable after the signature of the Pacte de Famille, Pitt's policy of cowing or attacking Spain was right. Bold counsels were necessary and the first blow would have been struck by England. The conduct of the war was much weakened by his departure, for no other minister could awaken the moral enthusiasm or appeal to the commercial needs of the country. He had not only united England behind him; he had made "trade flourish by means of war". To take two instances: shipping went up from 451,000 tons in 1755 to 561,000 in 1763; the slave trade had almost doubled in amount between 1758 and 1762.2 A continuance of the war under such leadership would not have led to bankruptcy and would certainly have led to greater victories, or at any rate, to a greater price being exacted for victories. Was it possible for Bute to have exacted a greater price? There is a beautiful tale of how old Lord Granville signed the treaty papers as he lay dying, quoted Homer over them, and pronounced the peace "very glorious" to his country. It was the last utterance of an able and disinterested statesman who had himself censured Bute for faintheartedness during the negotiation. Weight too must be attached to the utterance of Choiseul himself: "There is no modern example in which a peace has been made when the conquerors kept the whole of their conquests". True as this dictum was, the contrast between what England retained at the peace in the New World, and what she restored, was astonishing. 1 Lord Granby favoured the peace, as it stood. His technical military opinion is some offset to that of the Duke of Cumberland, but he seems to have been influenced by political motives. 3 Memo. of 25 May 1762. Slave trade figures in C.O. 325/2. |