Charles Whitworth, 1st Earl Whitworth
Charles Whitworth, 1st Earl Whitworth, known as Lord Whitworth between 1800 and 1813 and as Viscount Whitworth between 1813 and 1815, was a British diplomat and politician.
Early years
Whitworth, the eldest of the three sons and heir of Sir Charles Whitworth, was born at Leybourne Grange, Kent, on 19 May 1752 and baptised there on 29 May 1752. He was educated at Tonbridge School, his preceptors there including James Cawthorn and "Mr. Towers".He entered the Grenadier Guards in April 1772 as ensign, became captain in May 1781, and was eventually on 8 April 1783 appointed lieutenant-colonel of the 104th Regiment of Foot. His transference from military life to diplomacy is not easy to explain, but in the account given by Nathaniel William Wraxall, disfigured though it is by malicious or purely fanciful embroidery, there is perhaps a nucleus of truth. Whitworth was
The good offices of the Queen and Dorset, according to this authority, procured for Whitworth in June 1785 his appointment as envoy-extraordinary and minister-plenipotentiary to Poland, of which country the unfortunate Stanisław Poniatowski was still the nominal monarch. He was at Warsaw during the troubled period immediately preceding the second partition. Recalled early in 1788, he was in the following August nominated envoy-extraordinary and minister-plenipotentiary at St. Petersburg, a post which he held for nearly twelve years.
Envoy-Extraordinary and Minister-Plenipotentiary at St. Petersburg
Whitworth was well received by Catherine the Great, who was then at war with the Ottoman Empire, but the harmony between the two countries was disturbed during the winter of 1790–91 by William Pitt's subscription to the view of the Prussian government that the three allies could not with impunity allow the balance of power in Eastern Europe to be disturbed. Pitt hoped by a menace of sending a British fleet to the Baltic to constrain Russia to make restitution of its chief conquest, Oczakow and the adjoining territory as far as the Dniester, and thus to realise his idea of confining the ambition of Russia in the south-east as well as that of France in the north-west portion of Europe. The Russian government replied by an uncompromising refusal to listen to the proposal of restitution.War began to be talked of, and Whitworth sent in a memorandum in which he dwelt upon the strength of the Empress's determination and the great display of vigour that would be necessary to overcome it. In the spring of 1791 he wrote of a French adventurer, named St. Ginier, who had appeared at St. Petersburg with a plan for invading Bengal by way of Kashmir, and in July he communicated to George Grenville a circumstantial account of a plot to burn the British fleet at Portsmouth by means of Irish and other incendiaries in Russian pay. In the meantime Pitt had become alarmed at the opposition to his Russian policy in parliament, Edmund Burke and Charles James Fox both uttering powerful speeches against the restoration of Oczakow to the Porte, and early in April 1791 a messenger was hastily dispatched to St. Petersburg to keep back the ultimatum which Whitworth had on 27 March been ordered to present to the Empress. His relations with the Russian court were now for a short period considerably strained. Catherine, elated by recent victories of Alexander Suvorov, said to him with an ironical smile: "Sir, since the king your master is determined to drive me out of Petersburg, I hope he will permit me to retire to Constantinople". Gradually, however, through the influence of Madame Gerepzof, the sister of the favourite, the celebrated Platon Zubov, and in consequence of the alarm excited in the mind of Catherine by the course things were taking in France, Whitworth more than recovered his position.
Great Britain's influence upon the peace finally concluded at the Treaty of Jassy on 9 January 1792 was, it is true, little more than nominal, but Whitworth obtained some credit for the achievement, together with the cross of the Order of the Bath. Wraxall's statement that the relations between Whitworth and Madame Gerepzof were similar to those between John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, and the Barbara Palmer, 1st Duchess of Cleveland, is utterly incredible.
The gradual rapprochement between the views of Russia and Britain was brought about mainly by the common dread of any revolutionary infection from the quarter of France, and in February 1795 Catherine was induced to sign a preliminary treaty, by the terms of which she was to furnish the coalition with at least sixty-five thousand men in return for a large monthly subsidy from the British government. This treaty was justly regarded as a triumph for Whitworth's diplomacy, though, unfortunately, just before the date fixed for its final ratification by both countries, the Empress was struck down by mortal illness. Paul I, in his desire to adopt an original policy, refused to affix his signature, and it was not until June 1798 that the outrage committed by the French upon the Knights Hospitaller at Malta, who had chosen him for their protector, disposed him to listen to the solicitations of Whitworth. The latter obtained his adhesion to an alliance with Great Britain offensive and defensive, with the object of putting a stop to the further encroachments of France, in December 1798, and the treaty paved the way for the operations of Suvorov and Alexander Korsakov in Northern Italy and the Alps.
Whitworth was now at the zenith of his popularity in St. Petersburg, and Paul pressed the British government to raise him to the peerage. The request was readily complied with, and on 21 March 1800 the ambassador was made Baron Whitworth, of Newport Pratt in the County of Mayo, in the Peerage of Ireland; but before the patent could reach him the Tsar had been reconciled to Napoleon. Irritated, moreover, by the British seizure and retention of Malta, Paul abruptly dismissed Whitworth, and thereupon commenced that angry correspondence which developed into the combination of northern powers against Great Britain.
Interlude in Denmark
In July 1800 the seizure by and a British squadron of the Danish frigate Freya and her convoy for opposing the British right of search led to strained relations with Denmark. In order to anticipate any hostile move from Danes, the British government dispatched Whitworth in August on a special mission to Copenhagen. To give greater weight to his representations, a squadron of nine ships of the line, with five frigates and four bomb vessels, was ordered to the Sound under Admiral Archibald Dickson. The Danish shore batteries were as yet very incomplete, and Whitworth's arguments for the time being proved effectual. He returned to England on 27 September, and on 5 November was made a privy councillor.Marriage
His former friend, John Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset, had died in July 1799, and on 7 April 1801 he married the widow Duchess Arabella Diana Cope. She was a capable woman of thirty-two, with a taste for power and pleasure, says Wraxall, kept "always subordinate to her economy". By the death of the Duke she came into possession of £13,000 a year, besides the borough of East Grinstead, while Dorset House and Knole Park subsequently passed into her hands.Ambassador at Paris
The Treaty of Amiens was concluded on 27 March 1802, and Whitworth, whose means were now fully adequate to the situation, was chosen to fill the important post of ambassador at Paris. His instructions were dated 10 September 1802, and two months later he set out with a large train, being received at Calais with enthusiasm; a considerable period had elapsed since a British ambassador had been seen in France. He was presented to Napoleon and Joséphine de Beauharnais on 7 December, and six days later his wife was received at St. Cloud. The Duchess, whose hauteur was very pronounced, had considerable scruples about calling upon the wife of Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord. As early as 23 December Whitworth mentions in a despatch the rumour that the first consul was meditating a divorce from his wife and the assumption of the imperial title, but during his first two months' sojourn in Paris there seemed a tacit agreement to avoid disagreeable subjects. Napoleon ignored the attacks of the English press, the retention of Malta, and the protracted evacuation of Ottoman Egypt, while Britain kept silence as to the recent French aggressions in Holland, Piedmont, Elba, Parma, and Switzerland.The British government was, however, obstinate in its refusal to quit Malta until a guarantee had been signed by the various powers ensuring the possession of the island to the knights of St. John. This difficulty, which constituted the darkest cloud on the diplomatic horizon, was first raised by Talleyrand on 27 January 1803. Three days later was published a report filling eight pages of Le Moniteur Universel from Colonel Horace François Bastien, baron Sébastiani, who had been sent by Napoleon upon a special mission of inquiry to Egypt. In this report military information was freely interspersed with remarks disparaging to Britain, in which country the document was plausibly interpreted as a preface to a second invasion of Egypt by the French. The Addington ministry consequently instructed Whitworth, through the foreign minister Lord Hawkesbury, to stiffen his back against any demand for the prompt evacuation of Malta. On 18 Feb Napoleon summoned the ambassador, and, after a stormy outburst of rhetoric, concluded with the memorable appeal, "Unissons-nous plutôt que de nous combattre, et nous réglerons ensemble les destinées du monde." Any significance that this offer might have had was more than neutralised by the first consul's observation, "Ce sont des bagatelles", when, in answer to reproaches about Malta, Whitworth hinted at the augmentation of French power in Piedmont, Switzerland, and elsewhere.
Image:Maniac-Ravings-Gillray.jpeg|thumb|left|In Maniac-Ravings—or—Little Boney in a strong Fit, James Gillray caricatured Napoleon's tirade to Whitworth at the Tuileries Palace on 13 March 1803.
The crisis, of extreme importance in the career of Napoleon as well as in the history of Britain, was arrived at on 13 March 1803, the date of the famous scene between Napoleon and the British ambassador at the Tuileries. At the close of a violent tirade before a full court, interrupted by asides to foreign diplomatists expressive of the bad faith of the British, Napoleon exclaimed loudly to Whitworth, "Malheur à ceux qui ne respectent pas les traités. Ils en seront responsables à toute l'Europe." ''"He was too agitated," says the ambassador, "to prolong the conversation; I therefore made no answer, and he retired to his apartment repeating the last phrase." Two hundred people heard this conversation, "and I am persuaded," adds Whitworth, "that there was not a single person who did not feel the extreme impropriety of his conduct and the total want of dignity as well as of decency on the occasion." The interview was not, however, a final one. Whitworth was received by the first consul once again on 4 April, when the corps diplomatique were kept waiting for an audience for four hours while Napoleon inspected knapsacks. "When that ceremony was performed he received us, and I had every reason to be satisfied with his manner towards me". Napoleon wished to temporise until his preparations were a little more advanced, but any actions henceforth had little real significance. On 1 May an indisposition prevented the ambassador from attending the reception at the Tuileries, on 12 May he demanded his passports, and on 18 May Britain declared war against France. Whitworth reached London on 20 May, having encountered the French ambassador, Antoine-François Andréossy, three days earlier at Dover. Throughout the trying scenes with the first consul, his demeanour was generally admitted to have been marked by a dignity and an impassive gravity worthy of the best traditions of aristocratic diplomacy.
Irritated by his failure to stun him by a display of violence, Napoleon did not hesitate to suggest in one of his journals that Whitworth had been privy to the murder of Paul I in Russia. At St. Helena in July 1817 he alluded to him with calmness as "habile" and "adroit", but he always maintained that the accepted version of the celebrated interview of 13 March was "plein des faussetés"''.