y, should talk of peace with Napoleon and claim Hanover, should
forbid an invasion of Holland and request the British forces to
evacuate North Germany--this was a blow to George III., to our
military prestige, and to the now tottering Ministry. How could he
face the Opposition, already wellnigh triumphant in the sad Melville
business, with a King's Speech in which this was the chief news?
Losing hope, he lost all hold on life: he sank rapidly: in the last
hours his thoughts wandered away to Berlin and Lord Harrowby. "What is
the wind?" he asked. "East; that will do; that will bring him fast,"
he murmured. And, on January 23rd, about half an hour before he
breathed his last, the servant heard him say: "My country: oh my
country."[61]

Thus sank to rest, amidst a horror of great darkness, the statesman
whose noon had been calm and glorious. Only a superficial reading of
his career can represent him as eager for war and a foe to popular
progress. His best friends knew full well his pride in the great
financial achievements of 1784-6, his resolute clinging to peace in
1792, and his longing for a pacification in 1796, 1797, and 1800,
provided it could be gained without detriment to our allies and to the
vital interests of Britain. His defence lies buried amidst the
documents of our Record Office, and has not yet fully seen the light.
For he was a reserved man, the warmth of whose nature blossomed forth
only to a few friends, or on such occasions as his inspired speech on
the emancipation of slaves. To outsiders he had more than the usual
fund of English coldness: he wrote no memoirs, he left few letters, he
had scant means of influencing public opinion; and he viewed with
lofty disdain the French clamour that it was he who made and kept up
the war. "I know it," he said; "the Jacobins cry louder than we can,
and make themselves heard."[62] He was, in fact, a typical champion of
our rather dumb and stolid race, that plods along to the end of the
appointed stage, scarcely heeding the cloud of stinging flies. Both
the people and its champion were ill fitted to cope with Napoleon.
None of our statesmen had the Latin tact and the histrionic gifts
needful to fathom his guile, to arouse the public opinion of Europe
against him, or to expose his double-dealing.

But Pitt was unfortunate above all of them. It was his fate to begin
his career in an age of mediocrities and to finish it in an almost
single combat with the giant. He was