ty is one of the chief causes
of the war of 1803. The first Consul, like the Czar Alexander I,
despised the Addington Cabinet. He could not believe that men who were
laughed at by their own supporters would dare to face him in arms. Twice
he made the mistake of judging a nation by its Ministers--England by
Addington in 1803, Spain by Godoy in 1808. Both blunders were natural,
and both were irreparable; but those peoples had to pour forth their
life blood to recover the position from which weakness and folly allowed
them to slide. Politics, like meteorology, teaches that any sharp
difference of pressure, whether mental or atmospheric, draws in a strong
current to redress the balance. Never were the conditions more cyclonic
than in 1803. A decade of strife scarcely made good the inequality
between the organized might of France and the administrative chaos of
her neighbours; between the Titanic Corsican and the mediocrities or
knaves who held the reins at London, Vienna, Berlin, and Madrid.

War having been declared on 18th May 1803, Pitt sought the first
opportunity of inspiriting Parliament and the nation. On the 23rd a
great concourse crowded the House in the hope of hearing him speak; and
cries of "Pitt, Pitt" arose as he strode to his seat on the third row
behind Ministers, beside one of the pillars. The position gave point to
a remark of Canning to Lord Malmesbury, that Pitt would fire over the
heads of Ministers, neither praising nor blaming them, but merely
supporting the policy of the war. Such was the case. Replying to a few
criticisms of Erskine, he defended the Cabinet and powerfully described
the unbearable aggressions of the First Consul.

The speech aroused a patriotic fervour which cannot be fully realized
from the meagre and dreary summary of it which survives. Romilly
pronounced it among the finest, if not the very finest, which he had
ever made;[655] and Sheridan, in a vinous effusion to Lady Bessborough,
called it "one of the most magnificent pieces of declamation that ever
fell from that rascal Pitt's lips. Detesting the dog, as I do, I cannot
withhold this just tribute to the scoundrel's talents." There follows a
lament over Pitt's want of honesty, which betokens the maudlin mood
preceding complete intoxication.[656] On the morrow Fox vehemently
blamed the Cabinet in a speech which, for width of survey, acuteness of
dialectic, wealth of illustration and abhorrence of war, stands
unrivalled. Addington