Pitt missed a great opportunity, perhaps the greatest of his
career. What it means is clear to us, who know that the cause of Reform
passed under a cloud for the space of thirty-eight years. It is of
course unfair to censure him and his friends for lacking a prophetic
vision of the long woes that were to come. Most of the blame lavished
upon him arises from forgetfulness of the fact that he was not a seer
mounted on some political Pisgah, but a pioneer struggling through an
unexplored jungle. Nevertheless, as the duty of a pioneer is not merely
to hew a path, but also to note the lie of the land and the signs of the
weather, we must admit that Pitt did not possess the highest instincts
of his craft. He cannot be ranked with Julius Caesar, Charlemagne,
Alfred the Great, Edward I, or Burleigh, still less with those giants of
his own age, Napoleon and Stein; for these men boldly grappled with the
elements of unrest or disloyalty, and by wise legislation wrought them
into the fabric of the State. Probably the lack of response to his
reforming efforts in the year 1785 ingrained in him the conviction that
Britons would always be loyal if their burdens were lessened and their
comforts increased; and now in 1792 he looked on the remissions of
taxation (described in the following chapter) as a panacea against
discontent. Under normal conditions that would have been the case. It
was not so now, because new ideas were in the air, and these forbade a
bovine acceptance of abundant fodder. In truth, Pitt had not that gift
without which the highest abilities and the most strenuous endeavours
will at novel crises be at fault--a sympathetic insight into the needs
and aspirations of the people. His analytical powers enabled him to
detect the follies of the royalist crusaders; but he lacked those higher
powers of synthesis which alone could discern the nascent strength of
Democracy.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] I am perfectly aware that the term "Radical" (in its first form,
"Radical Reformer") does not appear until a few years later; but I use
it here and in the following chapters because there is no other word
which expresses the same meaning.

[2] See Vivenot, i, 176-81; Beer, "Leopold II, Franz II, und Catharina,"
140 _et seq._; Clapham, "Causes of the War of 1792," ch. iv.

[3] B.M. Add. MSS., 34438; Vivenot, i, 185, 186. "He [the Emperor] was
extremely agitated when he gave me the letter for the King" (Elgin to
Grenville, 7th July, in "Drop