And the small freight unanxious glide.” (1)

Pitt was in the army for a few months in time of peace. Mr. Thackeray

accordingly insists on our confessing that, if the young cornet had

remained in the service he would have been one of the ablest commanders

that ever lived. But this is not all. Pitt, it seems, was not merely

a great poet _in esse_, and a great general _in posse_, but a finished

example of moral excellence, the just man made perfect. He was in

the right when he attempted to establish an inquisition, and to give

bounties for perjury, in order to get Walpole’s head. He was in the

right when he declared Walpole to have been an excellent minister. He

was in the right when, being in opposition, he maintained that no peace

ought to be made with Spain, till she should formally renounce the right

of search.

(1) The quotation is faithfully made from Mr. Thackeray.

Perhaps Pitt wrote guide in the fourth line.

{196}He was in the right when, being in office, he silently acquiesced

in a treaty by which Spain did not renounce the right of search. When

he left the Duke of Newcastle, when he coalesced with the Duke of

Newcastle, when he thundered against subsidies, when he lavished

subsidies with unexampled profusion, when he execrated the Hanoverian

connection, when he declared that Hanover ought to be as dear to us as

Hampshire, he was still invariably speaking the language of a virtuous

and enlightened statesman.

The truth is that there scarcely ever lived a person who had so little

claim to this sort of praise as Pitt. He was undoubtedly a great man.

But his was not a complete and well-proportioned greatness. The public

life of Hampden or of Somers resembles a regular drama, which can be

criticised as a whole, and every scene of which is to be viewed in

connection with the main action. The public life of Pitt, on the

other hand, is a rude though striking piece, a piece abounding in

incongruities, a piece without any unity of plan, but redeemed by some

noble passages, the effect of which is increased by the tameness or

extravagance of what precedes and of what follows. His opinions were

un-fixed. His conduct at some of the most important conjunctures of his

life was evidently determined by pride and resentment. He had one fault,

which of all human faults is most rarely found in company with true

greatness. He was extremely affected. He was an almost solitary instance

of a man of real genius, and of a brave, lofty, and commanding spirit,

without simplicity of character. He was an actor in the Closet, an actor

at Council, an actor in Parliament; and even in private society he could

not lay aside his theatrical tones and attitudes. We know that one of

the most {197}distinguished of his partisans often complained that he

could never obtain admittance to Lord Chatham’s room till every thing

was ready for the representation, till the dresses and properties were

all correctly disposed, till the light was thrown with Rembrandt-like

effect on the head of the illustrious performer, till the flannels had

been arranged with the air of a Grecian drapery, and the crutch placed

as gracefully as that of Belisarius or Lear.

Yet, with all his faults and affectations, Pitt had, in a very

extraordinary degree, many of the elements of greatness. He had genius,

strong passions, quick sensibility, and vehement enthusiasm for the

grand and the beautiful. There was something about him which ennobled

tergiversation itself. He often went wrong, very wrong. But, to quote

the language of Wordsworth,

“He still retained,

“‘Mid such abasement, what he had received

From nature, an intense and glowing mind.”

In an age of low and dirty prostitution, in the age of Dodington and

Sandys, it was something to have a man who might perhaps, under some

strong excitement, have been tempted to ruin his country, but who never

would have stooped to pilfer from her, a man whose errors arose, not

from a sordid desire of gain, but from a fierce thirst for power, for

glory, and for vengeance. History owes to him this attestation, that, at

a time when any thing short of direct embezzlement of the public

money was considered as quite fair in public men, he showed the most

scrupulous disinterestedness; that, at a time when it seemed to be

generally taken for granted that Government could be upheld only by the

basest and most immoral arts, he appealed to the better {198}and nobler

parts of human nature; that he made a brave and splendid attempt to do,

by means of public opinion, what no other statesman of his day thought

it possible to do, except by means of corruption; that he looked for

support, not, like the Pelhams, to a strong aristocratical connection,

not like Bute, to the personal favour of the sovereign, but to the

middle class of Englishmen; that he inspired that class with a firm

confidence in his integrity and ability; that, backed by them, he forced

an unwilling court and an unwilling oligarchy to admit him to an ample

share of power; and that he used his power in such a manner as clearly

proved him to have sought it, not for the sake of profit or patronage,

but from a wish to establish for himself a great and durable reputation

by means of eminent services rendered to the state.

The family of Pitt was wealthy and respectable. His grandfather was

Governor of Madras, and brought back from India that celebrated diamond,

which the Regent Orleans, by the advice of Saint Simon, purchased for

upwards of two millions of livres, and which is still considered as

the most precious of the crown jewels of France. Governor Pitt bought

estates and rotten boroughs, and sat in the House of Commons for Old

Sarum. His son Robert was at one time member for Old Sarum, and

at another for Oakhampton. Robert had two sons. Thomas, the elder,

inherited the estates and the parliamentary interest of his father. The

second was the celebrated William Pitt.

He was born in November, 1708. About the early part of his life little

more is known than that he was educated at Eton, and that at seventeen

he was entered at Trinity College, Oxford. During the second year of his

residence at the University, George the {199}First died; and the event

was, after the fashion of that generation, celebrated by the Oxonians

in many middling copies of verses. On this occasion Pitt published some

Latin lines, which Mr. Thackeray has preserved. They prove that the

young student had but a very limited knowledge even of the mechanical

part of his art. All true Etonians will hear with concern that their

illustrious schoolfellow is guilty of making the first syllable in

_labenti_ short. (1) The matter of the poem is as worthless as that of

any college exercise that was ever written before or since. There is,

of course, much about Mars, Themis, Neptune, and Cocytus. The muses are

earnestly entreated to weep over the urn of Cæsar; for Cæsar, says the

Poet, loved the Muses; Cæsar, who could not read a line of Pope, and who

loved nothing but punch and fat women.

Pitt had been, from his school-days, cruelly tormented by the gout, and

was advised to travel for his health. He accordingly left Oxford without

taking a degree, and visited France and Italy. He returned, however,

without having received much benefit from his excursion, and

continued, till the close of his life, to suffer most severely from his

constitutional malady.

His father was now dead, and had left very little to the younger

children. It was necessary that William should choose a profession. He

decided for the army, and a cornet’s commission was procured for him in

the Blues.

But, small as his fortune was, his family had both the power and the

inclination to serve him. At the general election of 1784, his elder

brother Thomas was

(1) So Mr. Thackeray has printed the poem. But it may be

charitably hoped that Pitt wrote labenti.

{200}chosen both for Old Sarum and for Oakhampton. When Parliament met

in 1735, Thomas made his election to serve for Oakhampton, and William

was returned for Old Sarum.

Walpole had now been, during fourteen years, at the head of affairs. He

had risen to power under the most favorable circumstances. The whole of

the Whig party, of that party which professed peculiar attachment to

the principles of the Revolution, and which exclusively enjoyed the

confidence of the reigning house, had been united in support of his

administration. Happily for him, he had been out of office when the

South-Sea Act was passed; and though he does not appear to have foreseen

all the consequences of that measure, he had strenuously opposed it,

as he had opposed all the measures, good and bad, of Sunderland’s

administration. When the South-Sea Company were voting dividends of

fifty per cent., when a hundred pounds of their stock were selling for

eleven hundred pounds, when Threadneedle Street was daily crowded with

the coaches of dukes and prelates, when divines and philosophers

turned gamblers, when a thousand kindred bubbles were daily blown into

existence, the periwig-company, and the Spanish-jackass-company, and the

quicksilver-fixation-company, Walpole’s calm good sense preserved him

from the general infatuation. He condemned the prevailing madness in

public, and turned a considerable sum by taking advantage of it in

private. When the crash came, when ten thousand families were reduced

to beggary in a day, when the people, in the frenzy of their rage and

despair, clamoured, not only against the lower agents in the juggle,

but against the Hanoverian favourites, against the English ministers,

against the King himself, when Parliament met, {201}eager for

confiscation and blood, when members of the House of Commons proposed

that the directors should be treated like parricides in ancient Rome,

tied up in sacks, and thrown into the Thames, Walpole was the man on

whom all parties turned their eyes. Four years before he had been driven

from power by the intrigues of Sunderland and Stanhope; and the lead in

the House of Commons had been intrusted to Craggs and Aislabie. Stanhope

was no more. Aislabie was expelled from Parliament on account of his

disgraceful conduct regarding the South-Sea scheme. Craggs was perhaps

saved by a timely death from a similar mark of infamy. A large minority

in the House of Commons voted for a severe censure on Sunderland,

who, finding it impossible to withstand the force of the prevailing

sentiment, retired from office, and outlived his retirement but a

very short time. The schism which had divided the Whig party was now

completely healed. Walpole had no opposition to encounter except that of

the Tories; and the Tories were naturally regarded by the King with the

strongest suspicion and dislike.

For a time business went on with a smoothness and a despatch such as had

not been known since the days of the Tudors. During the session of 1724,

for example, there was hardly a single division except on private bills.

It is not impossible that, by taking the course which Pelham afterwards

took, by admitting into the government all the rising talents and

ambition of the Whig party, and by making room here and there for a Tory

not unfriendly to the House of Brunswick, Walpole might have averted

the tremendous conflict in which he passed the later years of his

administration, and in which he was at length vanquished. The Opposition

which overthrew him was an Opposition {202}created by his own policy, by

his own insatiable love of power.

In the very act of forming his Ministry he turned one of the ablest and

most attached of his supporters into a deadly enemy. Pulteney had strong

public and private claims to a high situation in the new arrangement.

His fortune was immense. His private character was respectable. He was

already a distinguished speaker. He had acquired official experience

in an important post. He had been, through all changes of fortune,

a consistent Whig. When the Whig party was split into two sections,

Pulteney had resigned a valuable place, and had followed the fortunes of

Walpole. Yet, when Walpole returned to power, Pulteney was not invited

to take office. An angry discussion took place between the friends.

The Ministry offered a peerage. It was impossible for Pulteney not to

discern the motive of such an offer. He indignantly refused to accept

it. For some time he continued to brood over his wrongs, and to watch

for an opportunity of revenge. As soon as a favourable conjuncture

arrived he joined the minority, and became the greatest leader of

Opposition that the House of Commons had ever seen.

Of all the members of the Cabinet, Carteret was the most eloquent and

accomplished. His talents for debate were of the first order; his

knowledge of foreign affairs was superior to that of any living

statesman; his attachment to the Protestant succession was undoubted.

But there was not room in one Government for him and Walpole. Carteret

retired, and was, from that time forward, one of the most persevering

and formidable enemies of his old colleague.

If there was any man with whom Walpole could {203}have consented to make

a partition of power, that man was Lord Townshend. They were distant

kinsmen by birth, near kinsmen by marriage. They had been friends

from childhood. They had been schoolfellows at Eton. They were country

neighbors in Norfolk. They had been in office together under Godolphin.

They had gone into opposition together when Harley rose to power. They

had been persecuted by the same House of Commons. They had, after the

death of Anne, been recalled together to office. They had again been

driven out together by Sunderland, and had again come back together

when the influence of Sunderland had declined. Their opinions on public

affairs almost always coincided. They were both men of frank, generous,

and compassionate natures. Their intercourse had been for many years

affectionate and cordial. But the ties of blood, of marriage, and of

friendship, the memory of mutual services, the memory of common triumphs

and common disasters, were insufficient to restrain that ambition which

domineered over all the virtues and vices of Walpole. He was resolved,

to use his own metaphor, that the firm of the house should be, not

Townshend and Walpole, but Walpole and Townshend. At length the rivals

proceeded to personal abuse before a large company, seized each other by

the collar, and grasped their swords. The women squalled. The men parted

the combatants. By friendly intervention the scandal of a duel

between cousins, brothers-in-law, old friends, and old colleagues, was

prevented. But the disputants could not long continue to act together.

Townshend retired, and, with rare moderation and public spirit, refused

to take any part in politics. He could not, he said, trust his temper.

He feared that the recollection of his private wrongs might impel him

{204}to follow the example of Pulteney, and to oppose measures which he

thought generally beneficial to the country. He therefore never visited

London after his resignation, but passed the closing years of his life

in dignity and repose among his trees and pictures at Rainham.

Next went Chesterfield. He too was a Whig; and a friend of the

Protestant succession. He was an orator, a courtier, a wit, and a man of

letters. He was at the head of ton in days when, in order to be at the

head of ton, it was not sufficient to be dull and supercilious. It was

evident that he submitted impatiently to the ascendency of Walpole. He

murmured against the Excise Bill. His brothers voted against it in the

House of Commons. The Minister acted with characteristic caution and

characteristic energy; caution in the conduct of public affairs; energy

where his own supremacy was concerned. He withdrew his Bill, and turned

out all his hostile or wavering colleagues. Chesterfield was stopped on

the great staircase of St. James’s and summoned to deliver up the staff

which he bore as Lord Steward of the Household. A crowd of noble

and powerful functionaries, the Dukes of Montrose and Bolton, Lord

Burlington, Lord Stair, Lord Cobham, Lord Marchmont, Lord Clinton, were

at the same time dismissed from the service of the Crown.

Not long after these events the Opposition was reinforced by the Duke of

Argyle, a man vainglorious indeed and fickle, but brave, eloquent, and

popular. It was in a great measure owing to his exertions that the

Act of Settlement had been peaceably carried into effect in England

immediately after the death of Anne, and that the Jacobite rebellion

which, during the following year, broke out in Scotland, had been

suppressed. He too carried over to the minority the aid of his great

{205}name, his talents, and his paramount influence in his native

country.

In each of these cases taken separately, a skilful defender of Walpole

might perhaps make out a case for him. But when we see that during a

long course of years all the footsteps are turned the same way, that

all the most eminent of those public men who agreed with the Minister in

their general views of policy left him, one after another, with sore

and irritated minds, we find it impossible not to believe that the real

explanation of the phænomenon is to be found in the words of his son,

“Sir Robert Walpole loved power so much that he would not endure a

rival.” Hume has described this famous minister with great felicity in

one short sentence,--“moderate in exercising power, not equitable in

engrossing it.” Kind-hearted, jovial, and placable as Walpole was, he

was yet a man with whom no person of high pretensions and high spirit

could long continue to act. He had, therefore, to stand against an

Opposition containing all the most accomplished statesmen of the age,

with no better support than that which he received from persons like

his brother Horace or Henry Pelham, whose industrious mediocrity gave

no cause for jealousy, or from clever adventurers, whose situation and

character diminished the dread which their talents might have inspired.

To this last class belonged Fox, who was too poor to live without

office; Sir William Yonge, of whom Walpole himself said, that nothing

but such parts could buoy up such a character, and that nothing but such

a character could drag down such parts; and Winnington, whose private

morals lay, justly or unjustly, under imputations of the worst kind.

The discontented Whigs were, not perhaps in number, {206}but certainly

in ability, experience, and weight, by far the most important part of

the Opposition. The Tories furnished little more than rows of ponderous

fox hunters, fat with Staffordshire or Devonshire ale, men who drank

to the King over the water, and believed that all the fundholders were

Jews, men whose religion consisted in hating the Dissenters, and whose

political researches had led them to fear, like Squire Western, that

their land might be sent over to Hanover to be put in the sinking-fund.

The eloquence of these zealous squires, the remnant of the once

formidable October Club, seldom went beyond a hearty Aye or No. Very few

members of this party had distinguished themselves much in Parliament,

or could, under any circumstances, have been called to fill any high

office; and those few had generally, like Sir William Wyndham, learned

in the company of their new associates the doctrines of toleration and

political liberty, and might indeed with strict propriety be called

Whigs.

It was to the Whigs in Opposition, the Patriots, as they were called,

that the most distinguished of the English youth who at this season

entered into public life attached themselves. These inexperienced

politicians felt all the enthusiasm which the name of liberty naturally

excites in young and ardent minds. They conceived that the theory of

the Tory Opposition and the practice of Walpole’s Government were alike

inconsistent with the principles of liberty. They accordingly repaired

to the standard which Pulteney had set up. While opposing the Whig

minister, they professed a firm adherence to the purest doctrines of

Whiggism. He was the schismatic; they were the true Catholics, the

peculiar people, the depositaries {207}of the orthodox faith of Hampden

and Russell, the one sect which, amidst the corruptions generated by

time and by the long possession of power, had preserved inviolate the

principles of the Revolution. Of the young men who attached themselves

to this portion of the Opposition the most distinguished were Lyttelton

and Pitt.

When Pitt entered Parliament, the whole political world was attentively

watching the progress of an event which soon added great strength to the

Opposition, and particularly to that section of the Opposition in which

the young statesman enrolled himself. The Prince of Wales was gradually

becoming more and more estranged from his father and his father’s

ministers, and more and more friendly to the Patriots.

Nothing is more natural than that, in a monarchy where a constitutional

Opposition exists, the heir-apparent of the throne should put himself

at the head of that Opposition. He is impelled to such a course by every

feeling of ambition and of vanity. He cannot be more than second in the

estimation of the party which is in. He is sure to be the first member

of the party which is out. The highest favour which the existing

administration can expect from him is that he will not discard them.

But, if he joins the Opposition, all his associates expect that he will

promote them; and the feelings which men entertain towards one from whom

they hope to obtain great advantages which they have not are far warmer

than the feelings with which they regard one who, at the very utmost,

can only leave them in possession of what they already have. An

heir-apparent, therefore, who wishes to enjoy, in the highest

perfection, all the pleasure that can be derived from eloquent flattery

and profound respect, will always join those {208}who are struggling to

force themselves into power. This is, we believe, the true explanation

of a fact which Lord Granville attributed to some natural peculiarity in

the illustrious House of Brunswick. “This family,” said he at Council,

we suppose after his daily halt-gallon of Burgundy, “always has

quarrelled, and always will quarrel, from generation to generation.” He

should have known something of the matter; for he had been a favourite

with three successive generations of the royal house. We cannot quite

admit his explanation; but the fact is indisputable. Since the accession

of George the First, there have been four Princes of Wales, and they

have all been almost constantly in Opposition.

Whatever might have been the motives which induced Prince Frederic to

join the party opposed to the government, his support infused into

many members of that party a courage and an energy of which they stood

greatly in need. Hitherto it had been impossible for the discontented

Whig! not to feel some misgivings when they found themselves dividing,

night after night, with uncompromising Jacobites who were known to be

in constant communication with the exiled family, or with Tories who had

impeached Somers, who had murmured against Harley and St. John as too

remiss in the cause of the Church and the landed interest, and who, if

they were not inclined to attack the reigning family, yet considered

the introduction of that family as, at best, only the less of two great

evils, as a necessary but painful and humiliating preservative against

Popery. The Minister might plausibly say that Pulteney and Carteret, in

the hope of gratifying their own appetite for office and for revenge,

did not scruple to serve the purposes of a faction hostile to the

Protestant {209}succession. The appearance of Frederic at the head of

the patriots silenced this reproach. The leaders of the Opposition

might now boast that their course was sanctioned by a person as deeply

interested as the King himself in maintaining the Act of Settlement,

and that, instead of serving the purposes of the Tory party, they had

brought that party over to the side of Whiggism. It must indeed be

admitted that, though both the King and the Prince behaved in a manner

little to their honour, though the father acted harshly, the son

disrespectfully, and both ‘childishly, the royal family was rather

strengthened than weakened by the disagreement of its two most

distinguished members. A large class of politicians, who had considered

themselves as placed under sentence of perpetual exclusion from

office, and who, in their despair, had been almost ready to join in a

counter-revolution as the only mode of removing the proscription under

which they lay, now saw with pleasure an easier and safer road to power

opening before them, and thought it far better to wait till, in the

natural course of things, the Crown should descend to the heir of the

House of Brunswick, than to risk their lands and their necks in a rising

for the House of Stuart. The situation of the royal family resembled the

situation of those Scotch families in which father and son took opposite

sides during the rebellion, in order that, come what might, the estate

might not be forfeited.

In April, 1786, Frederic was married to the Princess of Saxe Gotha, with

whom he afterwards lived on terms very similar to those on which his

father had lived with Queen Caroline. The Prince adored his wife, and

thought her in mind and person the most attractive of her sex. But he

thought that conjugal fidelity {210}was an unprincely virtue; and, in

order to be like Henry the Fourth, and the Regent Orleans, he affected

a libertinism for which he had no taste, and frequently quitted the only

woman whom he loved for ugly and disagreeable mistresses.

The address which the House of Commons presented to the King on the

occasion of the Prince’s marriage was moved, not by the Minister, but by

Pulteney, the leader of the Whigs in Opposition. It was on this motion

that Pitt, who had not broken silence during the session in which he

took his seat, addressed the House for the first time. “A contemporary

historian,” says Mr. Thackeray, “describes Mr. Pitt’s first speech as

superior even to the models of ancient eloquence. According to Tindal,

it was more ornamented than the speeches of Demosthenes, and less

diffuse than those of Cicero.” This unmeaning phrase has been a hundred

times quoted. That it should ever have been quoted, except to be laughed

at, is strange. The vogue which it has obtained may serve to show in how

slovenly a way most people are content to think. Did Tindal, who first

used it, or Archdeacon Coxe and Mr. Thackeray, who have borrowed it,

ever in their lives hear any speaking which did not deserve the same

compliment? Did they ever hear speaking less ornamented than that of

Demosthenes, or more diffuse than that of Cicero? We know no living

orator, from Lord Brougham down to Mr. Hunt, who is not entitled to the

same eulogy. It would be no very flattering compliment to a man’s figure

to say, that he was taller than the Polish Count, and shorter than

Giant O’Brien, fatter than the _Anatomie Vivante_, and more slender than

Daniel Lambert. {211}Pitt’s speech, as it is reported in the Gentleman’s

Magazine, certainly deserves Tindal’s compliment, and deserves no other.

It is just as empty and wordy as a maiden speech on such an occasion

might be expected to be. But the fluency and the personal advantages of

the young orator instantly caught the ear and eye of his audience. He

was, from the day of his first appearance, always heard with attention;

and exercise soon developed the great powers which he possessed.

In our time, the audience of a member of Parliament is the nation.

The three or four hundred persons who may be present while a speech is

delivered may be pleased or disgusted by the voice and action of the

orator; but, in the reports which are read the next day by hundreds of

thousands, the difference between the noblest and the meanest figure,

between the richest and the shrillest tones, between the most graceful

and the most uncouth gesture, altogether vanishes. A hundred years ago,

scarcely any report of what passed within the walls of the House of

Commons was suffered to get abroad. In those times, therefore, the

impression which a speaker might make on the persons who actually heard

him was every thing. His fame out of doors depended entirely on the

report of those who were within the doors. In the Parliaments of that

time, therefore, as in the ancient commonwealths, those qualifications

which enhance the immediate effect of a speech, were far more important

ingredients in the composition of an orator than at present. All those

qualifications Pitt possessed in the highest degree. On the stage, he

would have been the finest Brutus or Coriolanus ever seen. Those who

saw him in his decay, when his health was broken, when his {212}mind was

untuned, when he had been removed from that stormy assembly of which

he thoroughly knew the temper, and over which he possessed unbounded

influence, to a small, a torpid, and an unfriendly audience, say that

his speaking was then, for the most part, a low, monotonous muttering,

audible only to those who sat close to him, that when violently excited,

he sometimes raised his voice for a few minutes, but that it soon sank

again into an unintelligible murmur. Such was the Earl of Chatham;

but such was not William Pitt. His figure, when he first appeared in

Parliament, was strikingly graceful and commanding, his features high

and noble, his eye full of fire. His voice, even when it sank to a

whisper, was heard to the remotest benches; and when he strained it to

its full extent, the sound rose like the swell of the organ of a great

cathedral, shook the house with its peal, and was heard through lobbies

and down staircases, to the Court of Requests and the precincts of

Westminster Hall. He cultivated all these eminent advantages with

the most assiduous care. His action is described by a very malignant

observer as equal to that of Garrick. His play of countenance was

wonderful: he frequently disconcerted a hostile orator by a single

glance of indignation or scorn. Every tone, from the impassioned cry

to the thrilling aside, was perfectly at his command. It is by no means

improbable that the pains which he took to improve his great personal

advantages had, in some respects, a prejudicial operation, and tended

to nourish in him that passion for theatrical effect which, as we have

already remarked, was one of the most conspicuous blemishes in his

character.

But it was not solely or principally to outward accomplishments that

Pitt owed the vast influence {213}which, during nearly thirty years, he

exercised over the House of Commons. He was undoubtedly a great

orator; and, from the descriptions given by his contemporaines, and the

fragments of his speeches which still remain, it is not difficult to

discover the nature and extent of his oratorical powers.

He was no speaker of set speeches. His few prepared discourses were

complete failures. The elaborate panegyric which he pronounced on

General Wolfe was considered as the very worst of all his performances.

“No man,” says a critic who had often heard him, “ever knew so little

what he was going to say.” Indeed his facility amounted to a vice.

He was not the master, but the slave of his own speech. So little

selfcommand had he when once he felt the impulse, that he did not like

to take part in a debate when his mind was full of an important secret

of state. “I must sit still,” he once said to Lord Shelburne on such an

occasion; “for, when once I am up, every thing that is in my mind comes

out.”

Yet he was not a great debater. That he should not have been so when

first he entered the House of Commons is not strange. Scarcely any

person has ever become so without long practice and many failures. It

was by slow degrees, as Burke said, that Charles Fox became the most

brilliant and powerful debater that ever lived. Charles Fox himself

attributed his own success to the resolution which he formed when very

young, of speaking, well or ill, at least once every night. “During five

whole sessions,” he used to say, “I spoke every night but one; and I

regret only that I did not speak on that night too.” Indeed, with

the exception of Mr. Stanley, whose knowledge of the science of

parliamentary defence resembles an {214}instinct, it would be difficult

to name any eminent debater who had not made himself a master of his art

at the expense of his audience.

But, as this art is one which even the ablest men have seldom acquired

without long practice, so it is one which men of respectable abilities,

with assiduous and intrepid practice, seldom fail to acquire. It is

singular that, in such an art, Pitt, a man of great parts, of great

fluency, of great boldness, a man whose whole life was passed in

parlimentary conflict, a man who, during several years was the leading

minister of the Crown in the House of Commons, should never have

attained to high excellence. He spoke without premeditation; but his

speech followed the course of his own thoughts, and not the course of

the previous discussion. He could, indeed, treasure up in his memory

some detached expression of an opponent, and make it the text for lively

ridicule or solemn reprehension. Some of the most celebrated bursts

of his eloquence were called forth by an unguarded word, a laugh, or a

cheer. But this was the only sort of reply in which he appears to have

excelled. He was perhaps the only great English orator who did not

think it any advantage to have the last word, and who generally spoke

by choice before his most formidable antagonists. His merit was almost

entirely rhetorical. He did not succeed either in exposition or in

refutation; but his speeches abounded in lively illustrations, striking

apophthegms, well told anecdotes, happy allusions, passionate appeals.

His invective and sarcasm were terrific. Perhaps no English orator was

ever so much feared.

But that which gave most effect to his declamation was the air of

sincerity, of vehement feeling, of moral {215}elevation, which belonged

to all that he said. His style was not always in the purest taste.

Several contemporary judges pronounced it too florid. Walpole, in the

midst of the rapturous eulogy which he pronounces on one of Pitt’s

greatest orations, owns that some of the metaphors were too forced. Some

of Pitt’s quotations and classical stories are too trite for a clever

schoolboy. But these were niceties for which the audience eared little.

The enthusiasm of the orator infected all who heard him; his ardour

and his noble bearing put fire into the most frigid conceit, and gave

dignity to the most puerile allusion.

His powers soon began to give annoyance to the Government; and Walpole

determined to make an example of the patriotic cornet. Pitt was

accordingly dismissed from the service. Mr. Thackeray says that the

Minister took this step, because he plainly saw that it would have

been vain to think of buying over so honourable and disinterested an

opponent. We do not dispute Pitt’s integrity; but we do not know what

proof he had given of it when he was turned out of the army; and we are

sure that Walpole was not likely to give credit for inflexible honesty

to a young adventurer, who had never had an opportunity of refusing

any thing. The truth is, that it was not Walpole’s practice to buy off

enemies. Mr. Burke truly says, in the Appeal to the Old Whigs, that

Walpole gained very few over from the Opposition. Indeed that great

minister knew his business far too well. He knew that, for one mouth

which is stopped with a place, fifty other mouths will be instantly

opened. He knew that it would have been very bad policy in him to

give the world to understand that more was to be got by thwarting his

measures than by supporting them. {216}Those maxims are as old as the

origin of parliamentary corruption in England. Pepys learned them, as he

tells us, from the counsellors of Charles the Second.

Pitt was no loser. He was made Groom of the Bedchamber to the Prince

of W ales, and continued to declaim against the ministers with unabated

violence and with increasing ability. The question of maritime right,

then agitated between Spain and England, called forth all his powers.

He clamoured for war with a vehemence which it is not easy to reconcile

with reason or humanity, but which appears to Mr. Thackeray worthy of

the highest admiration. We will not stop to argue a point on which we

had long thought that all well-informed people were agreed. We could

easily show, we think, that if any respect be due to international law,

if right, where societies of men are concerned, be any thing but another

name for might, if we do not adopt the doctrine of the Buccaniers,

which seems to be also the doctrine of Mr. Thackeray, that treaties

mean nothing within thirty degrees of the line, the war with Spain was

altogether unjustifiable. But the truth is, that the promoters of that

war have saved the historian the trouble of trying them. They have

pleaded guilty. “I have seen,” says Burke, “and with some care examined,

the original documents concerning certain important transactions of

those times. They perfectly satisfied me of the extreme injustice of

that war, and of the falsehood of the colours which Walpole, to his

ruin, and guided by a mistaken policy, suffered to be daubed over that

measure. Some years after, it was my fortune to converse with many

of the principal actors against that minister, and with those who

principally excited that clamour. None of them, no not one, did in the

least defend the measure, or {217}attempt to justify their conduct. They

condemned it as freely as they would have done in commenting upon any

proceeding in history in which they were totally unconcerned.” Pitt,

on subsequent occasions, gave ample proof that he was one of these

penitents. But his conduct, even where it appeared most criminal to

himself, appears admirable to his biographer.

The elections of 1741 were unfavourable to Walpole; and after a long

and obstinate struggle he found it necessary to resign. The Duke of

Newcastle and Lord Hardwicke opened a negotiation with the leading

patriots, in the hope of forming an administration on a Whig basis. At

this conjuncture, Pitt and those persons who were most nearly connected

with him acted in a manner very little to their honour. They attempted

to come to an understanding with Walpole, and offered, if he would

use his influence with the King in their favour, to screen him from

prosecution. They even went so far as to engage for the concurrence of

the Prince of Wales. But Walpole knew that the assistance of the Boys,

as he called the young Patriots, would avail him nothing if Pulteney and

Carteret should prove intractable, and would be superfluous if the great

leaders of the Opposition could be gained. He, therefore, declined the

proposal. It is remarkable that Mr. Thackeray, who has thought it worth

while to preserve Pitt’s bad college verses, has not even alluded to

this story, a story which is supported by strong testimony, and which

may be found in so common a book as Coxe’s Life of Walpole.

The new arrangements disappointed almost every member of the Opposition,

and none more than Pitt. He was not invited to become a placeman; and

he {218}therefore stuck firmly to his old trade of patriot. Fortunate it

was for him that he did so. Had he taken office at this time, he would

in all probability have shared largely in the unpopularity of Pulteney,

Sandys, and Carteret. He was now the fiercest and most implacable of

those who called for vengeance on Walpole. He spoke with great energy

and ability in favour of the most unjust and violent propositions which

the enemies of the fallen minister could invent. He urged the House of

Commons to appoint a secret tribunal for the purpose of investigating

the conduct of the late First Lord of the Treasury. This was done.

The great majority of the inquisitors were notoriously hostile to the

accused statesman. Yet they were compelled to own that they could find

no fault in him. They therefore called for new powers, for a bill of

indemnity to witnesses, or, in plain words, for a bill to reward all

who might give evidence, true or false, against the Earl of Orford.

This bill Pitt supported, Pitt, who had himself offered to be a screen

between Lord Orford and public justice. These are melancholy facts. Mr.

Thackeray omits them, or hurries over them as fast as he can; and, as

eulogy is his business, he is in the right to do so. But, though

there are many parts of the life of Pitt which it is more agreeable

to contemplate, we know none more instructive. What must have been the

general state of political morality, when a young man, considered, and

justly considered, as the most public-spirited and spotless statesman

of his time, could attempt to force his way into office by means so

disgraceful!

The Bill of Indemnity was rejected by the Lords. Walpole withdrew

himself quietly from the public eye: and the ample space which he had

left vacant was soon {210}occupied by Carteret. Against Carteret Pitt

began to thunder with as much zeal as he had ever manifested against

Sir Robert. To Carteret he transferred most of the hard names which

were familiar to his eloquence, sole minister, wicked minister, odious

minister, execrable minister. The chief topic of Pitt’s invective was

the favour shown to the German dominions of the House of Brunswick. He

attacked with great violence, and with an ability which raised him to

the very first rank among the parliamentary speakers, the practice of

paying Hanoverian troops with English money. The House of Commons

had lately lost some of its most distinguished ornaments. Walpole and

Pulteney had accepted peerages; Sir William Wyndham was dead; and among

the rising men none could be considered as, on the whole, a match for

Pitt.

During the recess of 1744, the old Duchess of Marlborough died. She

carried to her grave the reputation of being decidedly the best hater

of her time. Yet her love had been infinitely more destructive than her

hatred. More than thirty years before, her temper had ruined the party

to which she belonged and the husband whom she adored. Time had made her

neither wiser nor kinder. Whoever was at any moment great and prosperous

was the object of her fiercest detestation. She had hated Walpole; she

now hated Carteret. Pope, long before her death, predicted the fate of

her vast property.

“To heirs unknown descends the unguarded store,

Or wanders, heaven-directed, to the poor.”

Pitt was then one of the poor; and to him Heaven directed a portion of

the wealth of the haughty Dowager. She left him a legacy of ten thousand

pounds, in consideration of “the noble defence he had made {220}for the

support of the laws of England, and to prevent the ruin of his country.”

The will was made in August. The Duchess died in October. In November

Pitt was a courtier. The Pelhams had forced the King, much against his

will, to part with Lord Carteret, who had now become Earl Granville.

They proceeded, after this victory, to form the Government on that

basis, called by the cant name of “the broad bottom.” Lyttelton had a

seat at the Treasury, and several other friends of Pitt were provided

for. But Pitt himself was, for the present, forced to be content with

promises. The King resented most highly some expression which the ardent

orator had used in the debate on the Hanoverian troops. But Newcastle

and Pelham expressed the strongest confidence that time and their

exertions would soften the royal displeasure.

Pitt, on his part, omitted nothing that might facilitate his admission

to office. He resigned his place in the household of Prince Frederic,

and, when Parliament met, exerted his eloquence in support of the

Government. The Pelhams were really sincere in their endeavours to

remove the strong prejudices which had taken root in the King’s mind.

They knew that Pitt was not a man to be deceived with ease or offended

with impunity. They were afraid that they should not be long able to

put him off with promises. Nor was it their interest so to put him off.

There was a strong tie between him and them. He was the enemy of their

enemy. The brothers hated and dreaded the eloquent, aspiring, and

imperious Granville. They had traced his intrigues in many quarters.

They knew his influence over the royal mind. They knew that, as soon as

a favourable opportunity should, arrive, {221}he would be recalled to

the head of affairs. They resolved to bring things to a crisis; and the

question on which they took issue with their master was, whether Pitt

should or should not be admitted to office. They chose their time with

more skill than generosity. It was when rebellion was actually raging in

Britain, when the Pretender was master of the northern extremity of the

island, that they tendered their resignations. The King found himself

deserted, in one day, by the whole strength of that party which

had placed his family on the throne. Lord Granville tried to form a

government; but it soon appeared that the parliamentary interest of the

Pelhams was irresistible, and that the King’s favourite statesman could

count only on about thirty Lords and eighty members of the House of

Commons. The scheme was given up. Granville went away laughing. The

ministers came back stronger than ever; and the King was now no longer

able to refuse any thing that they might be pleased to demand. He could

only mutter that it was very hard that Newcastle, who was not fit to ha

chamberlain to the most insignificant prince in Germany, should dictate

to the King of England.

One concession the ministers graciously made. They agreed that Pitt

should not be placed in a situation in which it would be necessary for

him to have frequent interviews with the King. Instead, therefore,

of making their new ally Secretary-at-War as they had intended, they

appointed him Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, and in a few months promoted

him to the office of Paymaster of the Forces.

This was, at that time, one of the most lucrative offices in the

Government. The salary was but a small part of the emolument which the

Paymaster derived {222}from his place. He was allowed to keep a large

sum, which, even in time of peace, was seldom less than one hundred

thousand pounds, constantly in his hands; and the interest on this sum

he might appropriate to his own use. This practice was not secret,

nor was it considered as disreputable. It was the practice of men of

undoubted honour, both before and after the time of Pitt. He, however,

refused to accept one farthing beyond the salary which the law had

annexed to his office. It had been usual for foreign princes who

received the pay of England to give to the Paymaster of the Forces

a small percentage on the subsidies. These ignominious vails Pitt

resolutely declined.

Disinterestedness of this kind was, in his days, very rare. His conduct

surprised and amused politicians. It excited the warmest admiration

throughout the body of the people. In spite of the inconsistencies of

which Pitt had been guilty, in spite of the strange contrast between his

violence in Opposition and his tameness in office, he still possessed

a large share of the public confidence. The motives which may lead a

politician to change his connections or his general line of conduct are

often obscure; but disinterestedness in pecuniary matters everybody can

understand. Pitt was thenceforth considered as a man who was proof to

all sordid temptations. If he acted ill, it might be from an error in

judgment; it might be from resentment; it might be from ambition.

But poor as he was, he had vindicated himself from all suspicion of

covetousness.

Eight quiet years followed, eight years during which the minority, which

had been feeble ever since Lord Granville had been overthrown, continued

to dwindle till it became almost invisible. Peace was made with France

and Spain in 1748. Prince Frederic died in 1751; {223}and with him died

the very semblance of opposition. All the most distinguished survivors

of the party which had supported Walpole and of the party which had

opposed him were united under his successor. The fiery and vehement

spirit of Pitt had for a time been laid to rest. He silently acquiesced

in that very system of continental measures which he had lately

condemned. He ceased to talk disrespectfully about Hanover. He did not

object to the treaty with Spain, though that treaty left us exactly

where we had been when he uttered his spirit-stirring harangues against

the pacific policy of Walpole. Now and then glimpses of his former self

appeared; but they were few and transient. Pelham knew with whom he

had to deal, and felt that an ally, so little used to control, and so

capable of inflicting injury, might well be indulged in an occasional

fit of waywardness.

Two men, little, if at all, inferior to Pitt in powers of mind, held,

like him, subordinate offices in the Government. One of these,

Murray, was successively Solicitor-General and Attorney-General. This

distinguished person far surpassed Pitt in correctness of taste, in

power of reasoning, in depth and variety of knowledge. His parliamentary

eloquence never blazed into sudden flashes of dazzling brilliancy;

but its clear, placid, and mellow splendour was never for an instant

overclouded. Intellectually he was, we believe, fully equal to Pitt; but

he was deficient in the moral qualities to which Pitt owed most of his

success. Murray wanted the energy, the courage, the all-grasping and

all-risking ambition, which make men great in stirring times. His heart

was a little cold, his temper cautious even to timidity, his manners

decorous even to formality. He never exposed his fortunes or his fame

to any {224}risk which he could avoid. At one time he might, in all

probability, have been Prime Minister. But the object of his wishes

was the judicial bench. The situation of Chief Justice might not be so

splendid as that of First Lord of the Treasury; but it was dignified; it

was quiet; it was secure; and therefore it was the favourite situation

of Murray.

Fox, the father of the great man whose mighty efforts in the cause

of peace, of truth, and of liberty, have made that name immortal, was

Secretary-at-War. He was a favourite with the King, with the Duke of

Cumberland, and with some of the most powerful members of the great Whig

connection. His parliamentary talents were of the highest order. As a

speaker he was in almost all respects the very opposite to Pitt.

His figure was ungraceful; his face, as Reynolds and Nollekens have

preserved it to us, indicated a strong understanding; but the features

were coarse, and the general aspect dark and lowering. His manner was

awkward; his delivery was hesitating; he was often at a stand for want

of a word; but as a debater, as a master of that keen, weighty, manly

logic, which is suited to the discussion of political questions, he

has perhaps never been surpassed except by his son. In reply he was as

decidedly superior to Pitt as in declamation he was Pitt’s inferior.

Intellectually the balance was nearly even between the rivals. But here,

again, the moral qualities of Pitt turned the scale. Fox had undoubtedly

many virtues. In natural disposition as well as in talents, he bore a

great resemblance to his more celebrated son. He had the same sweetness

of ‘temper, the same strong passions, the same openness, boldness, and

impetuosity, the same cordiality towards friends, the same placability

towards enemies. No man {225}was more warmly or justly beloved by his

family or by his associates. But unhappily he had been trained in a

bad political school, in a school, the doctrines of which were, that

political virtue is the mere coquetry of political prostitution, that

every patriot has his price, that Government can be carried on only by

means of corruption, and that the state is given as a prey to statesmen.

These maxims were too much in vogue throughout the lower ranks of

Walpole’s party, and were too much encouraged by Walpole himself, who,

from contempt of what is in our day vulgarly called humbug, often ran

extravagantly and offensively into the opposite extreme. The loose

political morality of Fox presented a remarkable contrast to the

ostentatious purity of Pitt. The nation distrusted the former, and

placed implicit confidence in the latter. But almost all the statesmen

of the age had still to learn that the confidence of the nation

was worth having. While things went on quietly, while there was no

opposition, while every thing was given by the favour of a small ruling

junto, Fox had a decided advantage over Pitt; but when dangerous times

came, when Europe was convulsed with war, when Parliament was broken up

into factions, when the public mind was violently excited, the

favourite of the people rose to supreme power, while his rival sank into

insignificance.

Early in the year 1754 Henry Pelham died unexpectedly. “Now I shall have

no more peace,” exclaimed the old King, when he heard the news. He was

in the right. Pelham had succeeded in bringing together and keeping

together all the talents of the kingdom. By his death, the highest post

to which an English subject can aspire was left vacant; and at the same

moment, the influence which had yoked together and {226}reigned in so

many turbulent and ambitious spirits was withdrawn.

Within a week after Pelham’s death, it was determined that the Duke

of Newcastle should be placed at the head of the treasury; but the

arrangement was still far from complete. Who was to be the leading

Minister of the Crown in the House of Commons? Was the office to be

intrusted to a man of eminent talents? And would not such a man in such

a place demand and obtain a larger share of power and patronage

than Newcastle would be disposed to concede? Was a mere drudge to be

employed? And what probability was there that a mere drudge would be

able to manage a large and stormy assembly, abounding with able and

experienced men?

Pope has said of that wretched miser Sir John Cutler,

“Cutler saw tenants break and houses fall

For very want: he could not build a wall.”

Newcastle’s love of power resembled Cutler’s love of money. It was an

avarice which thwarted itself, a penny-wise and pound-foolish cupidity.

An immediate outlay was so painful to him that he would not venture to

make the most desirable improvement. If he could have found it in his

heart to cede at once a portion of his authority, he might probably have

ensured the continuance of what remained. But he thought it better to

construct a weak and rotten government, which tottered at the smallest

breath, and lull in the first storm, than to pay the necessary price for

sound and durable materials. He wished to find some person who would be

willing to accept the lead of the House of Commons on terms similar

to those on which Secretary Craggs had acted under Sunderland,

{227}five-and-thirty years before. Craggs could hardly be called a

minister. He was a mere agent for the Minister. He was not trusted with

the higher secrets of state, but obeyed implicitly the directions of

his superior, and was, to use Doddington’s expression, merely Lord

Sunderland’s man. But times were changed. Since the days of Sunderland,

the importance of the House of Commons had been constantly on the

increase. During many years, the person who conducted the business of

the Government in that house had almost always been Prime Minister.

In these circumstances, it was not to be supposed that any person who

possessed the talents necessary for the situation would stoop to accept

it on such terms as Newcastle was disposed to offer.

Pitt was ill at Bath; and, had he been well and in London, neither the

King nor Newcastle would have been disposed to make any overtures to

him. The cool and wary Murray had set his heart on professional objects.

Negotiations were opened with Fox. Newcastle behaved like himself, that

is to say, childishly and basely. The proposition which he made was that

Fox should be Secretary of State, with the lead of the House of Commons;

that the disposal of the secret-service money, or, in plain words, the

business of buying members of Parliament, should be left to the First

Lord of the Treasury; but that Fox should be exactly informed of the way

in which this fund was employed.

To these conditions Fox assented. But the next day every thing was in

confusion. Newcastle had changed his mind. The conversation which took

place between Fox and the Duke is one of the most curious in English

history. “My brother,” said Newcastle, “when he was at the Treasury,

never told anybody {228}what he did with the secret-service money. No

more will I.” The answer was obvious. Pelham had been, not only First

Lord of the Treasury, but also manager of the House of Commons; and it

was therefore unnecessary for him to confide to any other person his

dealings with the members of that House. “But how,”’ said Fox, “can I

lead in the Commons without information on this head? How can I talk to

gentlemen when I do not know which of them have received gratifications

and which have not? And who,” he continued, “is to have the disposal of

places?”--“I myself,” said the Duke.--“How then am I to manage the House

of Commons?”--“Oh, let the members of the House of Commons come to me.”

Fox then mentioned the general election which was approaching, and

asked how the ministerial boroughs were to be filled up. “Do not trouble

yourself,” said Newcastle; “that is all settled.” This was too much for

human nature to bear. Fox refused to accept the Secretaryship of State

on such terms; and the Duke confided the management of the House of

Commons to a dull, harmless man, whose name is almost forgotten in our

time, Sir Thomas Robinson.

When Pitt returned from Bath he affected great moderation, though his

haughty soul was boiling with resentment. He did not complain of the

manner in which he had been passed by, but said openly that, in his

opinion, Fox was the fittest man to lead the House of Commons. The

rivals, reconciled by their common interest and their common enmities,

concerted a plan of operations for the next session. “Sir Thomas

Robinson lead us!” said Pitt to Fox. “The Duke might as well send his

jack-boot to lead us.”

The elections of 1754 were favourable to the administration. {229}But

the aspect of foreign affairs was threatening. In India the English and

the French had been employed, ever since the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle,

in cutting each other’s throats. They had lately taken to the same

practice in America. It might have been foreseen that stirring times

were at hand, times which would call for abilities very different from

those of Newcastle and Robinson.

In November the Parliament met; and before the end of that month the new

Secretary of State had been so unmercifully baited by the Paymaster of

the Forces and the Secretary at War that he was thoroughly sick of his

situation. Fox attacked him with great force and acrimony. Pitt affected

a kind of contemptuous tenderness for Sir Thomas, and directed his

attacks principally against Newcastle. On one occasion he asked in tones

of thunder whether Parliament sat only to register the edicts of one too

powerful subject? The Duke was scared out of his wits. He was afraid

to dismiss the mutineers; he was afraid to promote them; but it was

absolutely necessary to do something. Fox, as the less proud and

intractable of the refractory pair, was preferred. A seat in the Cabinet

was offered to him on condition that he would give efficient support

to the ministry in Parliament. In an evil hour for his fame and his

fortunes he accepted the offer, and abandoned his connection with Pitt,

who never forgave this desertion.

Sir Thomas, assisted by Fox, contrived to get through the business

of the year without much trouble. Pitt was waiting his time. The

negotiations pending between France and England took every day a more

unfavourable aspect. Towards the close of the session the King sent

a message to inform the House of Commons {230}that he had found it

necessary to make preparations for war. The House returned an address

of thanks, and passed a vote of credit. During the recess, the old

animosity of both nations was inflamed by a series of disastrous events.

An English force was cut off in America; and several French merchantmen

were taken in the West Indian seas. It was plain that an appeal to arms

was at hand.

The first object of the King was to secure Hanover; and Newcastle was

disposed to gratify his master. Treaties were concluded, after the

fashion of those times, with several petty German princes, who bound

themselves to find soldiers if England would find money; and, as it was

suspected that Frederic the Second had set his heart on the electoral

dominions of his uncle, Russia was hired to keep Prussia in awe.

When the stipulations of these treaties were made known, there arose

throughout the kingdom a murmur from which a judicious observer might

easily prognosticate the approach of a tempest. Newcastle encountered

strong opposition, even from those whom he had always considered as

his tools. Legge, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, refused to sign the

Treasury warrants which were necessary to give effect to the treaties.

Those persons who were supposed to possess the confidence of the young

Prince of Wales and of his mother held very menacing language. In this

perplexity Newcastle sent for Pitt, hugged him, patted him, smirked at

him, wept over him, and lisped out the highest compliments and the most

splendid promises. The King, who had hitherto been as sulky as possible,

would be civil to him at the levee; he should be brought into the

Cabinet; he should be consulted about every thing; if he would only be

as good as to support {231}the Hessian subsidy in the House of Commons.

Pitt coldly declined the proffered seat in the Cabinet, expressed the

highest love and reverence for the King, and said that, if his Majesty

felt a strong personal interest in the Hessian treaty he would so far

deviate from the line which he had traced out for himself as to

give that treaty his support. “Well, and the Russian subsidy,” said

Newcastle. “No,” said Pitt, “not a system of subsidies.” The Duke

summoned Lord Hardwicke to his aid; but Pitt was inflexible. Murray

would do nothing. Robinson could do nothing. It was necessary to have

recourse to Fox. He became Secretary of State, with the full authority

of a leader in the House of Commons; and Sir Thomas was pensioned off on

the Irish establishment.

In November, 1755, the Houses met. Public expectation was wound up

to the height. After ten quiet years there was to be an Opposition

countenanced by the heir apparent of the throne, and headed by the

most brilliant orator of the age. The debate on the address was long

remembered as one of the greatest parliamentary conflicts of that

generation. It began at three in the afternoon, and lasted till five the

next morning. It was on this night that Gerard Hamilton delivered that

single speech from which his nickname was derived. His eloquence threw

into the shade every orator except Pitt, who declaimed against the

subsidies for an hour and a half with extraordinary energy and effect.

Those powers which had formerly spread terror through the majorities

of Walpole and Carteret were now displayed in their highest perfection

before an audience long unaccustomed to such exhibitions. One fragment

of this celebrated oration remains in a state of tolerable preservation.

It is {232}the comparison between the coalition of Fox and Newcastle,

and the junction of the Rhone and the Saone. “At Lyons,”’ said Pitt, “I

was taken to see the place where the two rivers meet, the one gentle,

feeble, languid, and, though languid, yet of no depth, the other a

boisterous and impetuous torrent: but different as they are, they meet

at last.” The amendment moved by the Opposition was rejected by a great

majority; and Pitt and Legge were immediately dismissed from their

offices.

During several months the contest in the House of Commons was extremely

sharp. Warm debates took place on the estimates, debates still warmer on

the subsidiary treaties. The Government succeeded in every division;

but the fame of Pitt’s eloquence, and the influence of his lofty and

determined character, continued to increase through the Session; and the

events which followed the prorogation made it utterly impossible for any

other person to manage the Parliament or the country.

The war began in every part of the world with events disastrous

to England, and even more shameful than disastrous. But the most

humiliating of these events was the loss of Minorca. The Duke of

Richelieu, an old fop who had passed his life from sixteen to sixty in

seducing women for whom he cared not one straw, landed on that island,

and succeeded in reducing it. Admiral Byng was sent from Gibraltar to

throw succours into Port-Mahon; but he did not think fit to engage the

French squadron, and sailed back without having effected his purpose.

The people were inflamed to madness. A storm broke forth, which appalled

even those who remembered the days of Excise and of South-Sea. The shops

were filled {233}with libels and caricatures. The walls were covered

with placards. The city of London called for vengeance, and the cry was

echoed from every corner of the kingdom. Dorsetshire, Huntingdonshire,

Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Somersetshire, Lancashire, Suffolk,

Shropshire, Surry, sent up strong addresses to the throne, and

instructed their representatives to vote for a strict inquiry into the

causes of the late disasters. In the great towns the feeling was as

strong as in the counties. In some of the instructions it was even

recommended that the supplies should be stopped.

The nation was in a state of angry and sullen despondency, almost

unparalleled in history. People have, in all ages, been in the habit of

talking about the good old times of their ancestors, and the degeneracy

of their contemporaries. This is in general merely a cant. But in 1756

it was something more. At this time appeared Brown’s Estimate, a book

now remembered only by the allusions in Cowper’s Table Talk and in

Burke’s Letters on a Regicide Peace. It was universally read, admired,

and believed. The author fully convinced his readers that they were a

race of cowards and scoundrels; that nothing could save them; that they

were on the point of being enslaved by their enemies, and that they

richly deserved their fate. Such were the speculations to which ready

credence was given at the outset of the most glorious war in which

England had ever been engaged.

Newcastle now began to tremble for his place, and for the only thing

which was dearer to him than his place, his neck. The people were not in

a mood to be trifled with. Their cry was for blood. For this once

they might be contented with the sacrifice of Byng. But what if fresh

disasters should take place? What {234}if an unfriendly sovereign should

ascend the throne? What if a hostile House of Commons should be chosen?

At length, in October, the decisive crisis came, the new Secretary of

State had been long sick of the perfidy and levity of the First Lord

of the Treasury, and began to fear that he might be made a scapegoat

to save the old intriguer who, imbecile as he seemed, never wanted

dexterity where danger was to be avoided. Fox threw up his office.

Newcastle had recourse to Murray; but Murray had now within his reach

the favourite object of his ambition. The situation of Chief-Justice of

the King’s Bench was vacant; and the Attorney-General was fully resolved

to obtain it, or to go into Opposition. Newcastle offered him any terms,

the Duchy of Lancaster for life, a tellership of the Exchequer, any

amount of pension, two thousand a year, six thousand a year. When the

Ministers found that Murray’s mind was made up, they pressed for delay,

the delay of a session, a month, a week, a day. Would he only make his

appearance once more in the House of Commons? Would he only speak in

favour of the address? He was inexorable, and peremptorily said that

they might give or withhold the Chief-Justiceship, but that he would be

Attorney-General no longer.

Newcastle now contrived to overcome the prejudices of the King, and

overtures were made to Pitt, through Lord Hardwicke. Pitt knew his

power, and showed that he knew it. He demanded as an indispensable

condition that Newcastle should be altogether excluded from the new

arrangement.

The Duke was in a state of ludicrous distress. He ran about chattering

and crying, asking advice and listening to none. In the mean time, the

Session drew near. The public excitement was unabated. Nobody {235}could

be found to face Pitt and Fox in the House of Commons. Newcastle’s heart

failed him, and he tendered his resignation.

The King; sent for Fox, and directed him to form the plan of an

administration in concert with Pitt. But Pitt had not forgotten old

injuries, and positively refused to act with Fox.

The King now applied to the Duke of Devonshire, and this mediator

succeeded in making an arrangement. He consented to take the Treasury.

Pitt became Secretary of State, with the lead of the House of Commons.

The Great Seal was put into commission. Legge returned to the Exchequer;

and Lord Temple, whose sister Pitt had lately married, was placed at the

head of the Admiralty.

It was clear from the first that this administration would last but a

very short time. It lasted not quite five months; and, during those five

months, Pitt and Lord Temple were treated with rudeness by the King,

and found but feeble support in the House of Commons. It is a remarkable

fact, that the Opposition prevented the re-election of some of the

new Ministers. Pitt, who sat for one of the boroughs which were in the

Pelham interest, found some difficulty in obtaining a seat after his

acceptance of the seals. So destitute was the new Government of that

sort of influence without which no Government could then be durable. One

of the arguments most frequently urged against the Reform Bill was that,

under a system of popular representation, men whose presence in the

House of Commons was necessary to the conducting of public business

might often find it impossible to find seats. Should this inconvenience

ever be felt, there cannot be the slightest difficulty in devising and

applying a remedy. But those {236}who threatened us with this evil ought

to have remembered that, under the old system, a great man called to

power at a great crisis by the voice of the whole nation was in danger

of being excluded, by an aristocratical cabal, from that House of which

he was the most distinguished ornament.

The most important event of this short administration was the trial

of Byng. On that subject public opinion is still divided. We think

the punishment of the Admiral altogether unjust and absurd. Treachery,

cowardice, ignorance amounting to what lawyers have called _crassa

ignorantia_, are fit objects of severe penal inflictions. But Byng was

not found guilty of treachery, of cowardice, or of gross ignorance of

his profession He died for doing what the most loyal subject, the most

intrepid warrior, the most experienced seaman, might have done. He died

for an error in judgment, an error such as the greatest commanders,

Frederic, Napoleon, Wellington, have often committed, and have often

acknowledged. Such errors are not proper objects of punishment, for this

reason, that the punishing of such errors tends not to prevent them,

but to produce them. The dread of an ignominious death may stimulate

sluggishness to exertion, may keep a traitor to his standard, may

prevent a coward from running away, but it has no tendency to bring out

those qualities which enable men to form prompt and judicious decisions

in great emergencies. The best marksman may be expected to fail when

the apple which is to be his mark is set on his child’s head. We

cannot conceive any thing more likely to deprive an officer of his

self-possession at the time when he most needs it than the knowledge

that, if the judgment of his superiors should not agree with his, he

will be executed with {237}every circumstance of shame. Queens, it has

often been said, run far greater risk in childbed than private women,

merely because their medical attendants are more anxious. The surgeon

who attended Marie Louise was altogether unnerved by his emotions.

“Compose yourself,” said Bonaparte; “imagine that you are assisting a

poor girl in the Faubourg Saint Antoine.” This was surely a far

wiser course than that of the Eastern king in the Arabian Knights’

Entertainments, who proclaimed that the physicians who failed to cure

his daughter should have their heads chopped off. Bonaparte knew mankind

well; and, as he acted towards this surgeon, he acted towards his

officers. No sovereign was ever so indulgent to mere errors of judgment;

and it is certain that no sovereign ever had in his service so many

military men fit for the highest commands.

Pitt acted a brave and honest part on this occasion. He ventured to

put both his power and his popularity to hazard, and spoke manfully for

Byng, both in Parliament and in the royal presence. But the King was

inexorable. “The House of Commons, Sir,” said Pitt, “seems inclined to

mercy.”

“Sir,” answered the King, “you have taught me to look for the sense of

my people in other places than the House of Commons.” The saying has

more point than most of those which are recorded of George the Second,

and, though sarcastically meant, contains a high and just compliment to

Pitt.

The King disliked Pitt, but absolutely hated Temple. The new Secretary

of State, his Majesty said, had never read Vatel, and was tedious and

pompous, but respectful. The First Lord of the Admiralty was grossly

impertinent. Walpole tells one story, which, {238}we fear, is much too

good to be true. He assures us that Temple entertained his royal master

with an elaborate parallel between Byng’s behaviour at Minorca, and his

Majesty’s behaviour at Oudenarde, in which the advantage was all on the

side of the Admiral.

This state of things could not last. Early in April, Pitt and all his

friends were turned out, and Newcastle was summoned to St. James’s. But

the public discontent was not extinguished. It had subsided when Pitt

was called to power. But it still glowed under the embers; and it now

burst at once into a flame. The stocks fell. The Common Council met. The

freedom of the city was voted to Pitt. All the greatest corporate towns

followed the example. “For some weeks,” says Walpole, “it rained gold

boxes.”

This was the turning point of Pitt’s life. It might have been expected

that a man of so haughty and vehement a nature, treated so ungraciously

by the Court, and supported so enthusiastically by the people, would

have eagerly taken the first opportunity of showing his power and

gratifying his resentment; and an opportunity was not wanting. The

members for many counties and large towns had been instructed to vote

for an inquiry into the circumstances which had produced the miscarriage

of the preceding year. A motion for inquiry had been carried in the

House of Commons, without opposition; and, a few days after Pitt’s

dismissal, the investigation commenced. Newcastle and his colleagues

obtained a vote of acquittal; but the minority were so strong that they

could not venture to ask for a vote of approbation, as they had at first

intended; and it was thought by some shrewd observers that, if Pitt had

exerted himself {239}to the utmost of his power, the inquiry might have

ended in a censure, if not in an impeachment.

Pitt showed on this occasion a moderation and self-government which was

not habitual to him. He had found by experience, that he could not stand

alone. His eloquence and his popularity had done much, very much for

him. Without rank, without fortune, without borough interest, hated

by the King, hated by the aristocracy, he was a person of the first

importance in the state. He had been suffered to form a ministry, and to

pronounce sentence of exclusion on all his rivals, on the most powerful

nobleman of the Whig party, on the ablest debater in the House of

Commons. And he now found that he had gone too far. The English

Constitution was not, indeed, without a popular element. But other

elements generally predominated. The confidence and admiration of the

nation might make a statesman formidable at the head of an Opposition,

might load him with framed and glazed parchments and gold boxes, might

possibly, under very peculiar circumstances, such as those of the

preceding year, raise him for a time to power. But, constituted as

Parliament then was, the favourite of the people could not depend on

a majority in the people’s own House. The Duke of Newcastle, however

contemptible in morals, manners, and understanding, was a dangerous

enemy. His rank, his wealth, his unrivalled parliamentary interest,

would alone have made him important. But this was not all. The Whig

aristocracy regarded him as their leader. His long possession of power

had given him a kind of prescriptive right to possess it still. The

House of Commons had been elected when he was at the head of affairs.

The members for the ministerial boroughs had all been {240}nominated by

him. The public offices swarmed with his creatures.

Pitt desired power; and he desired it, we really believe, from high and

generous motives. He was, in the strict sense of the word, a patriot. He

had none of that philanthropy which the great French writers of his time

preached to all the nations of Europe. He loved England as an Athenian

loved the City of the Violet Crown, as a Roman loved the City of the

Seven Hills. He saw his country insulted and defeated. He saw the

national spirit sinking. Yet he knew what the resources of the empire,

vigorously employed, could effect; and he felt that he was the man to

employ them vigorously. “My Lord,” he said to the Duke of Devonshire,

“I am sure that I can save this country, and that nobody else can.”

Desiring, then, to be in power, and feeling that his abilities and the

public confidence were not alone sufficient to keep him in power against

the wishes of the Court and of the aristocracy, he began to think of a

coalition with Newcastle.

Newcastle was equally disposed to a reconciliation. He, too, had

profited by his recent experience. He had found that the Court and

the aristocracy, though powerful, were not every thing in the state.

A strong oligarchical connection, a great borough interest, ample

patronage, and secret-service money, might, in quiet times, be all that

a Minister needed; but it was unsafe to trust wholly to such support

in time of war, of discontent, and of agitation. The composition of the

House of Commons was not wholly aristocratical; and, whatever be the

composition of large deliberative assemblies, their spirit is always in

some degree popular. Where there are free debates, eloquence must have

{241}admirers, and reason must make converts. Where there is a free

press, the governors must live in constant awe of the opinions of the

governed.

Thus these two men, so unlike in character, so lately mortal enemies,

were necessary to each other. Newcastle had fallen in November, for

want of that public confidence which Pitt possessed, and of that

parliamentary support which Pitt was better qualified than any man of

his time to give. Pitt had fallen in April, for want of that species

of influence which Newcastle had passed his whole life in acquiring and

hoarding. Neither of them had power enough to support himself. Each

of them had power enough to overturn the other. Their union would be

irresistible. Neither the King nor any party in the state would be able

to stand against them.

Under these circumstances, Pitt was not disposed to proceed to

extremities against his predecessors in office. Something, however, was

due to consistency; and something was necessary for the preservation of

his popularity. He did little; but that little he did in such a manner

as to produce great effect. He came down to the House in all the pomp of

gout, his legs swathed in flannels, his arm dangling in a sling. He kept

his seat through several fatiguing days, in spite of pain and languor.

He uttered a few sharp and vehement sentences; but during the greater

part of the discussion, his language was unusually gentle.

When the inquiry had terminated without a vote either of approbation

or of censure, the great obstacle to a coalition was removed. Many

obstacles, however, remained. The King was still rejoicing in his

deliverance from the proud and aspiring Minister who had been forced on

him by the cry of the nation. His {242}Majesty’s indignation was excited

to the highest point when it appeared that Newcastle, who had, during

thirty years, been loaded with marks of royal favour, and who had

bound himself, by a solemn promise, never to coalesce with Pitt, was

meditating a new perfidy. Of all the statesmen of that age, Fox had the

largest share of royal favour. A coalition between Fox and Newcastle was

the arrangement which the King wished to bring about. But the Duke was

too cunning to fall into such a snare. As a speaker in Parliament, Fox

might perhaps be, on the whole, as useful to an administration as his

great rival; but he was one of the most unpopular men in England. Then,

again, Newcastle felt all that jealousy of Fox, which, according to the

proverb, generally exists between two of a trade. Fox would certainly

intermeddle with that department which the Duke was most desirous to

reserve entire to himself, the jobbing department. Pitt, on the other

hand, was quite willing to leave the drudgery of corruption to any who

might be inclined to undertake it.

During eleven weeks England remained without a ministry; and in the mean

time Parliament was sitting, and a war was raging. The prejudices of the

King, the haughtiness of Pitt, the jealousy, levity, and treachery of

Newcastle, delayed the settlement. Pitt knew the Duke too well to trust

him without security. The Duke loved power too much to be inclined to

give security. While they were haggling, the King was in vain attempting

to produce a final rupture between them, or to form a Government without

them. At one time he applied to Lord Waldgrave, an honest and sensible

man, but unpractised in affairs. Lord Waldgrave had the courage to

accept the Treasury, {243}but soon found that no administration formed

by him had the smallest chance of standing a single week.

At length the King’s pertinacity yielded to the necessity of the case.

After exclaiming with great bitterness, and with some justice, against

the Whigs, who ought, he said, to be ashamed to talk about liberty while

they submitted to the footmen of the Duke of Newcastle, his Majesty

submitted. The influence of Leicester House prevailed on Pitt to abate

a little, and but a little, of his high demands; and all at once, out

of the chaos in which parties had for some time been rising, falling,

meeting, separating, arose a government as strong at home as that of

Pelham, as successful abroad as that of Godolphin.

Newcastle took the Treasury. Pitt was Secretary of State, with the lead

in the House of Commons, and with the supreme direction of the war

and of foreign affairs. Fox, the only man who could have given much

annoyance to the new Government, was silenced with the office of

Paymaster, which, during the continuance of that war, was probably

the most lucrative place in the whole Government. He was poor, and the

situation was tempting; yet it cannot but seem extraordinary that a man

who had played a first part in politics, and whose abilities had been

found not unequal to that part, who had sat in the Cabinet, who had led

the House of Commons, who had been twice intrusted by the King with the

office of forming a ministry, who was regarded as the rival of Pitt,

and who at one time seemed likely to be a successful rival, should have

consented, for the sake of emolument, to take a subordinate place,

and to give silent votes for all the measures of a government to the

deliberations of which he was not summoned. {244}The first acts of the

new administration were characterized rather by vigour than by judgment.

Expeditions were sent against different parts of the French coast with

little success. The small island of Aix was taken, Rochefort threatened,

a few ships burned in the harbour of St. Maloes, and a few guns and

mortars brought home as trophies from the fortifications of Cherbourg.

But soon conquest of a very different kind filled the kingdom with pride

and rejoicing. A succession of victories undoubtedly brilliant, and, as

it was thought, not barren, raised to the highest point the fame of the

minister to whom the conduct of the war had been intrusted. In July,

1758, Louisburg fell. The whole island of Cape Breton was reduced.

The fleet to which the Court of Versailles had confided the defence

of French America was destroyed. The captured standards were borne in

triumph from Kensington Palace to the city, and were suspended in St.

Paul’s Church, amidst the roar of guns and kettle-drums, and the shouts

of an immense multitude. Addresses of congratulation came in from all

the great towns of England. Parliament met only to decree thanks and

monuments, and to bestow, without one murmur, supplies more than double

of those which had been given during the war of the Grand Alliance.

The year 1759 opened with the conquest of Gorec. Next fell Guadaloupe;

then Ticonderoga; then Niagara. The Toulon squadron was completely

defeated by Boscawen off Cape Inigos. But the greatest exploit of the

year was the achievement of Wolfe on the heights of Abraham. The news of

his glorious death and of the fall of Quebec reached London in the very

week in which the Houses met. All was joy and triumph. Envy and faction

were forced to join in the {245}general applause. Whigs and Tories

vied with each other in extolling the genius and energy of Pitt. His

colleagues were never talked of or thought of. The House of Commons, the

nation, the colonies, our allies, our enemies, had their eyes fixed on

him alone.

Scarcely had Parliament voted a monument to Wolfe when another great

event called for fresh rejoicings. The Brest fleet, under the command

of Conflans, had put out to sea. It was overtaken by an English squadron

under Hawke. Conflans attempted to take shelter close under the French

coast. The shore was rocky: the night was black: the wind was furious:

the waves of the Bay of Biscay ran high. But Pitt had infused into every

branch of the service a spirit which had long been unknown. No British

seaman was disposed to err on the same side with Byng. The pilot told

Hawke that the attack could not be made without the greatest danger.

“You have done your duty in remonstrating,” answered Hawke; “I will

answer for every thing. I command you to lay me alongside the French

admiral.” Two French ships of the line struck. Four were destroyed. The

rest hid themselves in the rivers of Britanny.

The year 1760 came; and still triumph followed triumph. Montreal was

taken; the whole province of Canada was subjugated; the French fleets

underwent a succession of disasters in the seas of Europe and America.

In the meantime conquests equalling in rapidity, and far surpassing in

magnitude, those of Cortes and Pizarro, had been achieved in the East.

In the space of three years the English had founded a mighty empire.

The French had been defeated in every part of India. Chandernagore had

surrendered to Clive, {246}Pondicherry to Coote. Throughout Bengal,

Bahar. Orissa and the Carnatic, the authority of the East India Company

was more absolute than that of Acbar or Aurungzebe had ever been.

On the continent of Europe the odds were against England. We had but one

important ally, the King of Prussia; and he was attacked, not only by

France, but also by Russia and Austria. Yet even on the Continent, the

energy of Pitt triumphed over all difficulties. Vehemently as he had

condemned the practice of subsidising foreign princes, he now carried

that practice farther than Carteret himself would have ventured to

do. The active and able Sovereign of Prussia received such pecuniary

assistance as enabled him to maintain the conflict on equal terms

against his powerful enemies. On no subject had Pitt ever spoken with

so much eloquence and ardour as on the mischiefs of the Hanoverian

connection. He now declared, not without much show of reason, that

it would be unworthy of the English people to suffer their King to be

deprived of his electoral dominions in an English quarrel. He assured

his countrymen that they should be no losers, and that he would conquer

America for them in Germany. By taking this line he conciliated the

King, and lost no part of his influence with the nation. In Parliament,

such was the ascendency which his eloquence, his success, his high

situation, his pride, and his intrepidity had obtained for him, that he

took liberties with the House of which there had been no example, and

which have never since been imitated. No orator could there venture to

reproach him with inconsistency. One unfortunate man made the attempt,

and was so much disconcerted by the scornful demeanour of the Minister

that he stammered, stopped, and {247}sat down. Even the old Tory country

gentlemen, to whom the very name of Hanover had been odious, gave their

hearty Ayes to subsidy after subsidy. In a lively contemporary satire,

much more lively indeed than delicate, this remarkable conversion is not

unhappily described.

“No more they make a fiddle-faddle

About a Hessian horse or saddle.

No more of continental measures;

No more of wasting British treasures.

Ten millions, and a vote of credit,

’Tis right. He can’t be wrong who did it.”

The success of Pitt’s continental measures was such as might have been

expected from their vigour. When he came into power, Hanover was in

imminent danger; and before he had been in office three months, the

whole electorate was in the hands of France. But the face of affairs was

speedily changed. The invaders were driven out. An army, partly English,

partly Hanoverian, partly composed of soldiers furnished by the petty

princes of Germany, was placed under the command of Prince Ferdinand

of Brunswick. The French were beaten in 1758 at Crevelt. In 1759 they

received a still more complete and humiliating defeat at Minden.

In the meantime, the nation exhibited all the signs of wealth and

prosperity. The merchants of London had never been more thriving. The

importance of several great commercial and manufacturing towns, of

Glasgow in particular, dates from this period. The fine inscription on

the monument of Lord Chatham in Guildhall records the general opinion of

the citizens of London, that under his administration commerce had been

“united with and made to flourish by war.” {248}It must be owned that

these signs of prosperity were in some degree delusive. It must be owned

that some of our conquests were rather splendid than useful. It must

be owned that the expense of the war never entered into Pitt’s

consideration. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that the cost of

his victories increased the pleasure with which he contemplated them.

Unlike other men in his situation, he loved to exaggerate the sums

which the nation was laying out under his direction. He was proud of the

sacrifices and efforts which his eloquence and his success had induced

his countrymen to make. The price at which he purchased faithful service

and complete victory, though far smaller than that which his son, the

most profuse and incapable of war ministers, paid for treachery, defeat,

and shame, was long and severely felt by the nation.

Even as a war minister, Pitt is scarcely entitled to all the praise

which his contemporaries lavished on him. We, perhaps from ignorance,

cannot discern in his arrangements any appearance of profound or

dexterous combination. Several of his expeditions, particularly those

which were sent to the coast of France, were at once costly and absurd.

Our Indian conquests, though they add to the splendour of the period

during which he was at the head of affairs, were not planned by him. He

had undoubtedly great energy, great determination, great means at his

command. His temper was enterprising; and, situated as he was, he had

only to follow his temper. The wealth of a rich nation, the valour of a

brave nation, were ready to support him in every attempt.

In one respect, however, he deserved all the praise that he has ever

received. The success of our arms was perhaps owing less to the skill

of his dispositions {240}than to the national resources and the national

spirit. But that the national spirit rose to the emergency, that the

national resources were contributed with unexampled cheerfulness, this

was undoubtedly his work. The ardour of his soul had set the whole

kingdom on fire. It inflamed every soldier who dragged the cannon up the

heights of Quebec, and every sailor who boarded the French ships among

the rocks of Britanny. The Minister, before he had been long in office,

had imparted to the commanders whom he employed his own impetuous,

adventurous, and defying character. They, like him, were disposed to

risk every thing, to play double or quits to the last, to think nothing

done while any thing remained undone, to fail rather than not to

attempt. For the errors of rashness there might be indulgence. For

over-caution, for faults like those of Lord George Sackville, there

was no mercy. In other times, and against other enemies, this mode of

warfare might have failed. But the state of the French government and of

the French nation gave every advantage to Pitt. The fops and intriguers

of Versailles were appalled and bewildered by his vigour. A panic

spread through all ranks of society. Our enemies soon considered it as

a settled thing that they were always to be beaten. Thus victory begot

victory; till, at last, wherever the forces of the two nations met, they

met with disdainful confidence on one side, and with a craven fear on

the other.

The situation which Pitt occupied at the close of the reign of George

the Second was the most enviable ever occupied by any public man in

English history. He had conciliated the King; he domineered over the

House of Commons; he was adored by the people; he was admired by all

Europe. He was the first Englishman {250}of his time: and he had made

England the first country in the world. The Great Commoner, the name by

which he was often designated, might look down with scorn on coronets

and garters. The nation was drunk with joy and pride. The Parliament was

as quiet as it had been under Pelham. The old party distinctions were

almost effaced; nor was their place yet supplied by distinctions of

a still more important kind. A new generation of country squires

and rectors had arisen who knew not the Stuarts. The Dissenters were

tolerated; the Catholics not cruelly persecuted. The Church was drowsy

and indulgent. The great civil and religious conflict which began at

the Reformation seemed to have terminated in universal repose. Whigs

and Tories, Churchmen and Puritans, spoke with equal reverence of the

constitution, and with equal enthusiasm of the talents, virtues, and

services of the Minister.

A few years sufficed to change the whole aspect of affairs. A nation

convulsed by faction, a throne assailed by the fiercest invective, a

House of Commons hated and despised by the nation, England set against

Scotland, Britain set against America, a rival legislature sitting

beyond the Atlantic, English blood shed by English bayonets, our armies

capitulating, our conquests wrested from us, our enemies hastening to

take vengeance for past humiliation, our flag scarcely able to maintain

itself in our own seas, such was the spectacle which Pitt lived to see.

But the history of this great revolution requires far more space than we

can at present bestow. We leave the Great Commoner in the zenith of his

glory. It is not impossible that we may take some other opportunity of

tracing his life to its melancholly, yet not inglorious close.