The Addington Ministry and the Interaction of Foreign Policy and Domestic Politics, 1800-1804. by Charles John Fedorak London School of Economics and Political Science Submitted in requirement for the degree of PhD, University of London, 1990. UMI Number: U048269 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U048269 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 TH"£Sc S F 776y 2 Abstract Historians have generally dismissed the ministry of Henry Addington as an absurd interlude in the political career of William Pitt, the Younger, and the few attempts to rehabilitate Addington have been unable to overcome the weight of this negative historiography. The focus of contemporary and historical criticism has centred on the foreign and war policies of the ministry, but this has failed to take into account the serious and interrelated diplomatic, military, social, and political problems faced by the government. Social unrest caused largely by high prices of grain, political pressure from interests that had been hurt by the closure of European markets to British trade, and a poor diplomatic and strategic position meant that peace was highly desirable but that concessions were necessary to obtain it. While the end of the war helped to resolve the social pressures upon the government and enabled it to implement some useful reforms, continued French aggression created new diplomatic problems and led to the resumption of war. The disadvantageous terms of the peace treaty and the difficulties that the ministry faced preparing for a French invasion when the war resumed fostered political opposition to the government within Parliament. These opponents of the ministry had unrealistic expectations of what the British government could accomplish because they did not understand the complexity of the problems that it faced. Lacking sufficient debating and parliamentary management skills, however, the ministry was unable to restrain a political assault led by the most talented and influential men in Parliament. Thus despite pursuing policies that were largely sensible considering the various political pressures and several of which were continued or reintroduced by future ministries, Addington chose to resign to avoid defeat in the House of Commons. 3 Acknowledgements I wish to acknowledge the helpful advice and support so generously granted by my thesis supervisor, Professor Kenneth Bourne, and my former honours supervisor, Professor Edward Ingram. In addition, I am indebted to Anthony Howe, Janet Hartley, David Stevenson, Piers Mackesy, John Ehrman, Michael Duffy, John Breihan, Karl Roider, and Gordon Martel for advice on sources and other aspects of the historian's craft. Manuela Myers-Fedorak helped to translate German monographs and French documents. The Earl of Elgin, Lord Vernon, Francis Sitwell, Giles Adams, and Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Scott were kind enough to allow me into their homes and offices to consult archives in their personal possession. I also wish to thank Christiana Thomas, F. Pacquin, Mary McCormick, Pat Christopher, Celine Silve, Terence Ollerhead, the Earl of Harewood, the anonymous owner of the Liverpool Manuscripts loaned to the British Library, Service International de Microfims, Mikrofilm Dr Ing. Schmidl, and the staff at the following: Public Record Office, London, British Library, Guildhall Library, National Registry of Archives, London, Scottish Record Office, National Library of Scotland, Devon Record Office, Buckinghamshire Record Office, Hampshire Record Office, Dorset Record Office, Gloucester Record Office, Suffolk Record Office, West Suffolk Record Office, Kent Archives Office, Sheffield Central Library, West Yorkshire Archives Service, Derbyshire Record Office, John Rylands Library University of Manchester, Houghton Library, San Marino, California, Bodleian Library, Cambridge University Library, British Library of Political and Economic Science, University of London Library, School of Slavonic and East European Studies Library, Institute of Historical Research, House of Lords Record Office, Department of Paleography and Diplomatic, Durham University, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Archives du Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Paris, Haus- , Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Vienna, Simon Fraser University Library, and University of British Columbia Library. None of my research would have been possible, however, without the generous financial assistance of the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire, National Chapter of Canada, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Trustees of the Overseas Research Scholarship, and the Central Research Fund, University of London. Finally, I wish to thank London House for Overseas Graduates for providing my wife and me with a place to stay while in London. Table of Contents Page Abbreviations 6 Introduction 8 Political and Diplomatic Background, September 1800 to March 1801 13 A) The Course of the War 13 B) The Social Context 17 The Formation of the Ministry, January to March 18 01 30 A) The Accession of Addington 30 B) Forming the Ministry 38 C) Prospects for the Ministry 54 The Pacification of Europe: Foreign Policy, February to October 1801 61 A) The League of Armed Neutrality 63 B) France and the Preliminaries of London 79 Parliament and the Congress of Amiens, October 1801 to March 1802 101 A) The Reception of the Preliminaries 101 B) The Congress of Amiens 118 Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform, April to October 1802 134 A) The Finances 135 B) Social Policy 148 C) The Election of 1802 159 D) The Reform of the Navy 163 The Renewal of War, October 1802 to May 1803 173 The Diplomacy of War, May 1803 to April 1804 214 A) Origins of the Third Coalition 215 B) Defensive Diplomacy 229 Military and Naval Policy, May 1803 to April 1804 245 A) Home Defence 246 B) Grand Strategy 267 C) War Finance 280 The Fall of the Ministry, January to May 1804 287 A) The Revival of Opposition 287 B) Addington and Political Management 299 Conclusion: The Legacy of the Addington Ministry 320 Bibliography 330 6 Abbreviations Add. MSS British Library, Additional Manuscripts. Adm. Admiralty Office Archives, Public Record Office. AE Correspondence Politique, Archives du Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Paris. AKV Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova, ed. P. I. Bartenev (40 vols, Moscow, 1870-97). Aspinall The Later Correspondence of George III, ed. Arthur Aspinall (5 vols, Cambridge, 1961-70) . BT Board of Trade Archives, Public Record Office Colchester Diary The Diary and Correspondence of Charles Abbot. Lord Colchester. Speaker of the House of Commons 18 02-1817, ed. Charles, Lord Colchester (3 vols, London, 1861). Dropmore Papers Historical Manuscripts Commission; Report on the Manuscripts of J. B. Fortescue, esq. Preserved at Dropmore (10 vols, London, 1892-1927) . FO Foreign Office Archives, Public Record Office. Glenbervie Diaries The Diaries of Sylvester Douglas. Lord Glenbervie, ed. Francis Bickley (2 vols, London, 1928). HHSA Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Vienna. HO Home Office Archives, Public Record Office Malmesbury Diaries The Diaries and Correspondence of James Harris, First Earl of Malmesbury, ed. Third Earl of Malmesbury (4 vols, London, 1844) . MS Loan British Library, Manuscripts Loan. 7 Parliamentary Debates Hansard's Parliamentary Debates from the Year 1803 to the Present Time, Published under the Superintendence of T. C. Hansard. First Series (41 vols, London, 1803-1820). Parliamentary History Parliamentary History of England: From the Earliest Period to the Year 1803 (3 6 vols, London, 1806-2 0) . Pellew George Pellew, The Life and Correspondence of the Right Honourable Henry Addington, First Viscount Sidmouth (3 vols, London, 1847). SIRIO Sbornik_____Imperatorskogo____ Russkogo istoricheskogo obshchestva (140 vols, St Petersburg, 1867-1916). Stanhope Earl Stanhope, Life of Pitt (3rd edition, 3 vols, London, 1879). VPR Vneshniaia politika Rossii XIX i nachala XX veka:____ Dokumentv____rossiiskogo ministerstva inostrannvkh del, ed. A. L. Narochnitskii et aJL, first series, (15 vols, Moscow, I960-) . Ziegler Philip Ziegler, Addington: The Life of Henry Addington, First Viscount Sidmouth. 1757-1844 (London, 1965). 8 Introduction Henry Addington became Prime Minister of Great Britain in March 1801 owing to a peculiar combination of events, and he governed in very difficult circumstances before resigning in 1804. Consequently, his ministry received a reputation as one of the most incompetent and ill-suited for office in British history. But that judgement is unjust. For most modern historians have been unable to escape the influence of contemporaries, nineteenth- century biographers, and early twentieth century historians who expressed contempt for the ministry. The earliest literature consisted of biographies, collections of letters, and memoirs of William Pitt the Younger and those associated with the political opposition, specifically the cliques centred at Holland House and Stowe.1 These presentations