Jennifer Mori. William Pitt and the French Revolution: 1785-1795. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997. xi + 305 pp. $55.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-
Jennifer Mori. William Pitt and the French Revolution: 1785-1795. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997. xi + 305 pp. $55.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-312-17308-1.
Reviewed by William S. Cormack (University of Guelph)
Published on H-France (November, 1998)
In the eyes of the Jacobins the French Republic's most dangerous enemy was British prime minister William Pitt the Younger. Not only was he the guiding spirit behind the First Coalition against France, but they attributed internal divisions and treacheries to the corrupting power of "Pitt's Gold". The claim made by the Committee of Public Safety's naval expert, Andre Jeanbon Saint-Andre, that the treason of Toulon and the mutiny of the Brest fleet in 1793 were the outcome of a vast counter-revolutionary conspiracy involving Pitt, was not unique. While more sceptical about his machinations, French historians have also portrayed Pitt as the Revolution's arch-antagonist. Yet was Britain's war with France in the 1790s an ideological crusade, of which Pitt's repression of British radicals was part and parcel? This is an important question for the broad history of the revolutionary period, and Jennifer Mori's well argued and meticulously documented study shows that the answer is far from simple.
There is considerable ambiguity regarding the Younger Pitt's stance towards the French Revolution. This is reflected in the British historiographical division between the "conservative legend", which portrays Pitt as the steadfast opponent of revolutionary anarchy and thus hero of emerging "Toryism", and the interpretation of "liberal descent", which suggests he was a Whig reformer until the emergency of 1792 set him against the expansionist Revolution. Mori contends that referring to Pitt's speeches alone can be misleading and cannot explain his multiple and contradictory policies as prime minister. Instead, she seeks to clarify the distinction between his carefully constructed public image and his private opinions. Mori explains the rhetoric and actions of the Pitt ministry from 1785 to 1795 in terms of their intended political effects, and not in terms of deeply-held intellectual conviction.
One of the book's principal themes is that complex European diplomatic considerations motivated Pitt's policies before and during the Revolutionary War. Before 1789 Pitt was determined to restore British power while avoiding continental confrontations or entanglements. The crisis of the Old Regime had rendered France diplomatically impotent, as the Prussian invasion of the Dutch Republic in 1787 made clear, and Pitt saw official neutrality toward the Revolution as the best means of keeping peace while maintaining British freedom of action. In 1791 the ministry withdrew into isolation rather than join Austria and Prussia in condemning the French Revolution, which Pitt and his cabinet colleagues did not fear. The Revolution was polarizing British public opinion, however, and in 1792 the ministry sponsored the Royal Proclamation against Seditious Writings and condemned Tom Paine's Rights of Man. Mori argues that Pitt's motivations for thus checking dissidents was the desire to show France and other foreign powers that the British government was secure at home. In November 1792 the ministry was shocked by the new French Republic's intention to open the Scheldt to navigation, in defiance of existing treaties, and by its decree of fraternity and assistance to peoples wishing "to recover their liberty", but Pitt's bellicose rhetoric and encouragement of loyalist organizations were intended to strengthen the government's international image. Similarly, following the outbreak of war in 1793, Pitt sought to reassure the Dutch of British commitment to defend the international status quo with his militia proclamation and the Alien Act. While the ministry attacked revolutionary principles in public statements, for much of 1793 it remained neutral towards political developments in Paris. According to Mori, this contradiction reflected a war strategy based more on traditional British interests than on ideology. Pitt's government aimed to cripple French power, but was reluctant to impose a Bourbon restoration: this was apparent in the British occupation of Toulon from August to December 1793. Yet Toulon marked a shift towards a war of principle. The Revolutionary Governme