t
because he changed more than his neighbours; for in fact he changed less
than most of them; but because his position was far more conspicuous
than theirs, because he was, till Bonaparte appeared, the individual
who filled the greatest space in the eyes of the inhabitants of the
civilised world. During a short time the nation, and Pitt, as one of the
nation, looked with interest and approbation on the French Revolution.
But soon vast confiscations, the violent sweeping away of ancient
institutions, the domination of clubs, the barbarities of mobs maddened
by famine and hatred, produced a reaction here. The court, the nobility,
the gentry, the clergy, the manufacturers, the merchants, in short,
nineteen-twentieths of those who had good roofs over their heads and
good coats on their backs, became eager and intolerant Antijacobins.
This feeling was at least as strong among the minister's adversaries as
among his supporters. Fox in vain attempted to restrain his followers.
All his genius, all his vast personal influence, could not prevent them
from rising up against him in general mutiny. Burke set the example
of revolt; and Burke was in no long time joined by Portland, Spencer,
Fitzwilliam, Loughborough, Carlisle, Malmesbury, Windham, Elliot. In the
House of Commons, the followers of the great Whig statesman and orator
diminished from about a hundred and sixty to fifty. In the House of
Lords he had but ten or twelve adherents left. There can be no doubt
that there would have been a similar mutiny on the ministerial benches
if Pitt had obstinately resisted the general wish. Pressed at once by
his master and by his colleagues, by old friends and by old opponents,
he abandoned, slowly and reluctantly, the policy which was dear to his
heart. He laboured hard to avert the European war. When the European war
broke out, he still flattered himself that it would not be necessary for
this country to take either side. In the spring of 1792 he congratulated
the Parliament on the prospect of long and profound peace, and proved
his sincerity by proposing large remissions of taxation. Down to the end
of that year he continued to cherish the hope that England might be able
to preserve neutrality. But the passions which raged on both sides of
the Channel were not to be restrained. The republicans who ruled France
were inflamed by a fanaticism resembling that of the Mussulmans who,
with the Koran in one hand and the sword in the other, went