BOOKS.

MR. PII`T'S SPEECHES.*

PEOPLE who are not very deep student. of history are apt to be surprised by the passion of gratitude towards Mr. Pitt which is to be found in memoirs and other contemporary records. Canning's " Pilot that Weathered the Storm" shows us what the feeling once was. For the moss of modern English- men the colours in the picture have, however, faded, and they cannot help wondering what moved the emotions of the nation so deeply, not only in Pitt's lifetime, but to the very end of the Great War. As an example of the feeling stirred by Pitt's name nine years after his death, take the 'Song Com- posed for the Anniversary Meeting of the Pitt Club of Scotland in 1814"—one of the most striking poems ever penned by Scott, though for some strange reason one that is comparatively little known :— " 0 dread was the time, and more dreadful the omen, When the brave on Marengo lay slaughtered in vain. And beholding broad Europe bowed down by her icemen, Pitt closed in his anguish the map of her reign! Not the fate of broad Europe could bend his brave spirit To take for his country the safety of shame; 0 then in her triumph remember his merit,

And hallow the goblet that flows to his name.

Round the husbandman's head, while he traces the furrow, The mists of the winter may mingle with rain, Be may plough it with labour, and sow it in sorrow,

And sigh while he fears he has sowed it in vain ; He may die ere his children shall reap in their gladness, But the blithe harvest-home shall remember his claim; And their jnbilee-shout shall be softened with sadness,

While they hallow the goblet that flows to his name. Though anxious and timeless his life was expended

In tails for our country preserved by his care, Though lie died ere one ray o'er the nations ascended To light the long darkness of doubt and despair ; The storms he endured in our Britain's December,

The perils his wisdom foresaw and o'ercame, For her glory's rich harvest shall Britain remember, And hallow the goblet that flows to his name."

The lines may seem to have "a false gallop" if we read them with a careless sing-song of intonation. Read them, how- ever, naturally, gravely, and plainly, and a noble rhythm emerges from the bounding anapaeate.

It is sometimes alleged that one of the causes why William Pitt is not a more sympathetic figure to the ordinary Englishman is the frigid or even pompous character of Isle oratory. Pitt's speeches moved the House of Commons and moved the nation very deeply when they were uttered. Est hitherto—the present writer confesses that he is not an exception—they seemed to have wholly lost their fire. Events have proved, however, that this was largely due to our inability to re.create the atmosphere in which they were spoken. Let any man who used to think the reading of Pitt's speeches "impossible" re-read those collected and well and carefully presented in the book before us. He will soon understand why to our grandfathers nothing was too good for Pitt. Words which used to seem dull or jejune have recaptured the old fire, and we can now realize how it was that the man who employed them was greeted as a saviour by his fellow-countrymen, and why to him in the nation's agony turned "the hopes of the good and the fears of the wise."

The situation in 1794-1795, or again in 1804-1805, presents an analogy so close as to be almost uncanny, save only that the immediate omens are better now. Our resolve not to abandon the struggle over the Low Countries ; our deter- mination to stand up for the public law of Europe ; our refusal to desert our allies or to contemplate even for a moment a separate peace ; and, finally, our absolute determination not to allow the domination of any one Power in Europe were as strung then as they are now. And jest as, in spite of every discouragement and difficulty of our Own making and of the making of fortune, we won through in the end, so we shall win through again. Pitt had to face the coward, the idler, • The War Speeches of Wdlieen Pitt the Youngs.. Selected by B. Conned, MA. OxfOrdt at the Clarendon Pros Pa, ed, net.] the pessimist, and, worst of all, the sophist, who could never see vice in an enemy country or virtue in their own—men who always imagine that our foes have a monopoly of good and this country a monopoly of evil. In spite of this, however, Pitt carried with him to the end the love and the devotion of the better part of his fellow-countrymen. But he did more than make an emotional appeal to them. Behind the sense of chivalry and honour which he felt and inspired there was a wonderful fund of common-sense. The introduction to the work which is the subject of this review tells us that Pitt during the height of the war was asked to put the ease for its continuance in a single sentence. His answer was the one word "Security "—security for Europe from the aggressions of a self-appointed arbiter, security for England from the attacks to which she was exposed. Here are Pitt's actual words contained in his answer to a speech by Tierney delivered in the House of Commons, February 17th, 1800. Tierney declared that he wanted "the right honourable gentleman in one sentence to state, if he could, without his 'ifs' and 'huts' and special pleading ambiguity," what was the object of the war :— " Ile defies me to state, in one sentence, what is the object of the sear. I know not whether I can do it in one sentence ; but in one word I can tell him that it is /security security against a danger. the greatest that ever threatened the world. It is security against a danger which never existed in any past period of .soctety. It is security against a danger which in degree and extent was never equalled ; against a danger which threatened all the nations of the earth ; against a danger which has been resisted by al the nations of Europe, and resisted by none with so much success as by this nation, because by none has it hien resisted so uniformly and with so much energy."

If we were asked to state in one sentence the object of the present war, the answer could not be better given than in the words of Pitt. While we are dealing with this subject we may quote another passage, not perhaps immediately apropos, but one which may at any time become so. In it Pitt rebukes those who raised an agitation for a premature peace :— " If any man thinks he sees the means of bringing the contest to an earlier termination than by vigorous effort and military operations, he is justified in opposing the measures which aro necessary to carry it on with energy. Those who consider the war to be expedient cannot, with consistency, refuse their aaaent to measures calculated to bring it to a succesaful issue. Even those who may disapprove of the contest, which they cannot prevent by their votes, cannot honestly pursue that conduct which could tend only to render its termination favourable to the enemy. God forbid I should question the freedom of thought or the liberty of speech! But I cannot see how gentlemen can justify a language and a conduct which can have no tendency but to disarm our exertions and to defeat our hopes lathe prosecution of the contest. They ought to limit themselves to those argu- ments which could influence the House against the war altogether, not dwell upon topics which can tend only to weaken our efforts and betray our cause. Above all, nothing can be more unfair in reasoning than to ally the present scarcity with the war, or to insinuate that its prosecution will interfere with those supplies which we may require. I am the more induced to testify thus publicly the disapprobation which such language exacts in my mind, when I observe the insidious use that is made of it in promoting certain measures out of doors ; a language, indeed, contrary to all honest principle, and repugnant to every sentiment of public duty."

Another example of the way in which Pitt dealt with those who placed their own selfish convenience or their commercial interests above the interests of the nation is also curiously apposite. In the summer of 1804 a resident of Banffshire named James Morison refused to allow his servant (Jarrow, who was a private in the Banffehire Volunteers, to attend an inspection of the corps on the plea that he was thatching his barn. Garrow finished the work during the night, and applied for leave again the next morning. He was again refused, however, but like a good man and true he attended the in- spection, and was at once dismissed without payment of the wages due to him. No action would lie against Morison, but the Lord Advocate in a letter to the Sheriff Substitute described Morison's conduct as atrocious, and expressed the hope that he would be made to feel his guilt by the public opinion of the county. On June 22nd, 1804, the question whether the Lord Advocate Lad exceeded his powers was debated in the House of Commons. This is how Pitt dealt with the matter :— " It is contended, that the conduct of the learned lord was not only unnecessarily severe, but that he stepped out of his province in this particular exercise of it. Sir, if we are to draw any analogy between this and other acts, I think occasions may occur, where it may be as necessary to prevent the thinning of those ranks that were to oppose the enemy as it was to prohibit the departure of men who intended to swell the ranks of the enemy. As to Morison's conduct, I see not upon what grounds of justice it can be defended.' It is acknowledged, that he discharged this man, although he had done the work he was ordered to perform, and that at a time of the year when he must have remained six months out of employment ; and in aggravation of this inhumanity he has the dishonesty to refuse Lim the payment of his wages. As to the argument that his attending that muster was of no con- sequence, that I must peremptorily deny. What, when it was to be inspected by the commanding officer of the district, and that at a time when, from every information that had been received, an attempt at landing might have been hourly expected from the enemy ! Placed in the arduous and responsible situation that the learned lord was, was it not natural that he should employ all the reasonable In ea n s in his power todiscountenance the possibility of auch practices in others ? Here was no sentence, no trial. Suppose that the signal was actually flying that the enemy were lauding, was this Mr. Morison to say to his servant, 'No; you shan't march to oppose the enemy, you shall stay and thatch my barn'? Why, Sir, if such were the conduct of one of those agricultural philosophers, I should consider such apathy, at such a moment, as something bordering on disaffection, I had almost said treason. If the learned lord had shown such apathy in pro- viding for the defence and security of the country, he would ill deserve the high situation he holds, and which I trust he will long continue to hold, if not disabled by a vote of this House."

Considering bow near invasion was at that moment, one is surprised that Morison was not dealt with more severely. We are bound to say that in similar circumstances to-day no one would expect the Lord Advocate or any British law officer to apologize for words much stronger than those employed in 1804.

The volume before us la a perfect mine of striking analogies between our days and throw of Pitt, but they are analogies which for the most part we must leave our readers to discover for themselves. We may make an exception, however, in favour of one or two passages from certain of Pitt's later speeches—those made in July, 1803, in regard to the Act for raising the "Army of Reserve." These speeches deal with such subjects as compulsion, the proper training of men, the need of trained officers, and the protection of London. Take the following passage on the magnitude of the danger Englishmen must look to this as a species of contest from which, by the extraordinary favour of Divine Providence, we have been for a long series of years exempted. If we ars now at length called upon to take our share in it, we must meet it with just gratitude for the exemptions we have hitherto enjoyed, and with a firm determination to support it with courage and resolution. We must show ourselves worthy, by our conduct on this occasion, of the happiness which we have hitherto enjoyed and which, by the blessing of God, I hope we shall continue to enjoy. We ought to have a due sense of the magnitude of the danger with which we are threatened; see ought to meet it in that temper of mind which produces just confidence, which neither despises nor ' dreads the enemy; and while on the one hand we accurately 'estimate the danger with which we are threatened at this awful crisis, we must recollect on the other hand what it is we have at stake, what it is we have to contend for. It is for our property, it is for our liberty, it is for our inde- pendence, nay, for our existence as a nation ; it is for our character, it is for our very name as Englishmen, it is for everything dear and valuable to man on this side of the grave. Parliament has now provided ample means for our defence ; it remains for the executive Government to employ them to the best advantage. The regular army must be augmented to that point to which the means are now given to raise it ; the militia must be kept high in numbers and unbroken in spirit; the auxiliary force must bees promptly raised and disciplined as the nature of things will admit; nothing must be omitted that military skill can suggest to render the contest certain as to its success and short in its duration. If Government show the same .determination to apply all those means that Parliament has ;shown in providing them ; if the people follow up the example which the legislature has set them, we are safe. Then I may say, without .being too sanguine, that the result of this great contest will ensure the permanent security, the eternal glory of this country ; that it will terminate in the confusion, the dismay, and the shame of our vaunting enemy ; that it will afford the means of animating the spirits, of rousing the courage, of breaking the lethargy of the surrounding nations of Europe ; and I trust that, if a fugitive French army should reach its own shores after being driven from our coasts, it will find the people of Europe reviving in spiritaand anxious to retaliate upon France all the wrongs, all the oppressions, they have suffered from her ; and that we shall at length see that winked fabric destroyed which was raised upon the prostitution of ..liberty, and which has caused more miseries, more horrors to Prance and to the surrounding nations, than are to be paralleled in any part of the annals of mankind."

Another passage ythich is well worth quoting describes "the new era" exactly as it might be now described :— "In proposing to the House the permanent establishment of the army of reserve, though certainly on a very modified system, I am sensible that objections may be readily started against the proposition. But, Sir, let it be remembered that the times in which we live are not ordinary times. When we are called to encounter extraordinary and unprecedented dangers, we must lay our account to submitting to extraordinary and unprecedented difficulties. If we are called on to undergo great sacrifices, we must bear in mind the interesting objects which those sacrifices may enable us to defend and to secure. I need not remind the House that we are cane to a new era in the history of nations; that we are called to struggle for the destiny, not of this country alone, but of the civilized world. We must remember that it is not for ourselves alone that we submit to unexampled privations. We have for ourselves the great duty of self-preservation to perform ; but the duty of the people of England now is of &nobler and higher order. We are in the first place to provide for our security against an enemy whose malignity to this country knows no bounds ; but this is not to close the views or the efforts of our exertion in so sacred a cause. Amid the wreck and the misery of nations, it is our just exultation that we have continued superior to all that ambition or that despotism could effect ; and our still higher exultation ought tube, that we provide not only for our own safety, but hold out a prospect to nations now bending under the iron yoke of tyranny of what the exertions of a free people can effect, and that, at least in this corner of the world, the name of liberty is still revered, cherished, and ;sanctified."

Pitt', last speech, that made at the Guildhall Banquet on November 9th, 1805, when the Lord Mayor proposed Pitt's health as "the saviour of Europe," can never be quoted too often :—

" I return you many thanks for the honour you have done me; but Europe is not to be saved by any single man. England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example."