three parties, his own, that of North, and that of Shelburne; that none
of those three parties was large enough to stand alone; that,
therefore, unless two of them united, there must be a miserably feeble
administration, or more probably, a rapid succession of miserably
feeble administrations, and this at a time when a strong government was
essential to the prosperity and respectability of the nation. It was
then necessary and right that there should be a coalition. To every
possible coalition there were objections. But, of all possible
coalitions, that to which there were the fewest objections was
undoubtedly a coalition between Shelburne and Fox. It would have been
generally applauded by the followers of both. It might have been
made without any sacrifice of public principle on the part of either.
Unhappily, recent bickerings had left in the mind of Fox a profound
dislike and distrust of Shelburne. Pitt attempted to mediate, and was
authorised to invite Fox to return to the service of the Crown. "Is Lord
Shelburne," said Fox, "to remain prime minister?" Pitt answered in the
affirmative. "It is impossible that I can act under him," said Fox.
"Then negotiation is at an end," said Pitt; "for I cannot betray him."
Thus the two statesmen parted. They were never again in a private room
together.
As Fox and his friends would not treat with Shelburne, nothing
remained to them but to treat with North. That fatal coalition which is
emphatically called "The Coalition" was formed. Not three quarters of
a year had elapsed since Fox and Burke had threatened North with
impeachment, and had described him, night after night, as the most
arbitrary, the most corrupt, the most incapable of ministers. They now
allied themselves with him for the purpose of driving from office a
statesman with whom they cannot be said to have differed as to any
important question. Nor had they even the prudence and the patience to
wait for some occasion on which they might, without inconsistency, have
combined with their old enemies in opposition to the government. That
nothing might be wanting to the scandal, the great orators, who had,
during seven years, thundered against the war, determined to join with
the authors of that war in passing a vote of censure on the peace.
The Parliament met before Christmas 1782. But it was not till January
1783 that the preliminary treaties were signed. On the 17th of February
they were taken into consideration by the House of Commons. There
had been, during some days, floating rumours that Fox and North had
coalesced; and the debate indicated but too clearly that those rumours
were not unfounded. Pit was suffering from indisposition: he did not
rise till his own strength and that of his hearers were exhausted; and
he was consequently less successful than on any former occasion. His
admirers owned that his speech was feeble and petulant. He so far forgot
himself as to advise Sheridan to confine himself to amusing theatrical
audiences. This ignoble sarcasm gave Sheridan an opportunity of
retorting with great felicity. "After what I have seen and heard
to-night," he said, "I really feel strongly tempted to venture on a
competition with so great an artist as Ben Jonson, and to bring on the
stage a second Angry Boy." On a division, the address proposed by the
supporters of the government was rejected by a majority of sixteen.
But Pitt was not a man to be disheartened by a single failure, or to
be put down by the most lively repartee. When a few days later, the
opposition proposed a resolution directly censuring the treaties, he
spoke with an eloquence, energy, and dignity which raised his fame
and popularity higher than ever. To the coalition of Fox and North
he alluded in language which drew forth tumultuous applause from his
followers. "If," he said, "this ill-omened and unnatural marriage be
not yet consummated, I know of a just and lawful impediment; and, in the
name of the public weal, I forbid the banns."
The ministers were again left in a minority; and Shelburne consequently
tendered his resignation. It was accepted; but the King struggled long
and hard before he submitted to the terms dictated by Fox, whose faults
he detested, and whose high spirit and powerful intellect he detested
still more. The first place at the board of Treasury was repeatedly
offered to Pitt; but the offer, though tempting, was steadfastly
declined. The young man, whose judgment was as precocious as his
eloquence, saw that his time was coming, but was not come, and was deaf
to royal importunities and reproaches. His Majesty, bitterly complaining
of Pitt's faintheartedness, tried to break the coalition. Every art of
seduction was practised on North, but in vain. During several weeks the
country remained without a government. It was not till all devices had
failed, and till the aspect of the House of Commons became threatening,
that the King gave way. The Duke of Portland was declared First Lord of
the Treasury. Thurlow was dismissed. Fox and North became Secretaries of
State, with power ostensibly equal. But Fox was the real prime minister.
The year was far advanced before the new arrangements were completed;
and nothing very important was done during the remainder of the session.
Pitt, now seated on the opposition bench, brought the question of
parliamentary reform a second time under the consideration of the
Commons. He proposed to add to the House at once a hundred county
members and several members for metropolitan districts, and to enact
that every borough of which an election committee should report that the
majority of voters appeared to be corrupt should lose the franchise. The
motion was rejected by 293 votes to 149.
After the prorogation, Pitt visited the Continent for the first and last
time. His travelling companion was one of his most intimate friends,
a young man of his own age, who had already distinguished himself in
Parliament by an engaging natural eloquence, set off by the sweetest
and most exquisitely modulated of human voices, and whose affectionate
heart, caressing manners, and brilliant wit, made him the most
delightful of companions, William Wilberforce. That was the time of
Anglomania in France; and at Paris the son of the great Chatham was
absolutely hunted by men of letters and women of fashion, and forced,
much against his will, into political disputation. One remarkable saying
which dropped from him during this tour has been preserved. A French
gentleman expressed some surprise at the immense influence which Fox, a
man of pleasure, ruined by the dice-box and the turf, exercised over the
English nation. "You have not," said Pitt, "been under the wand of the
magician."
In November 1783 the Parliament met again. The government had
irresistible strength in the House of Commons, and seemed to be scarcely
less strong in the House of Lords, but was, in truth, surrounded on
every side by dangers. The King was impatiently waiting for the moment
at which he could emancipate himself from a yoke which galled him so
severely that he had more than once seriously thought of retiring to
Hanover; and the King was scarcely more eager for a change than the
nation. Fox and North had committed a fatal error. They ought to have
known that coalitions between parties which have long been hostile can
succeed only when the wish for coalition pervades the lower ranks of
both. If the leaders unite before there is any disposition to union
among the followers, the probability is that there will be a mutiny in
both camps, and that the two revolted armies will make a truce with each
other, in order to be revenged on those by whom they think that they
have been betrayed. Thus it was in 1783. At the beginning of that
eventful year, North had been the recognised head of the old Tory party,
which, though for a moment prostrated by the disastrous issue of the
American war, was still a great power in the state. To him the clergy,
the universities, and that large body of country gentlemen whose
rallying cry was "Church and King," had long looked up with respect and
confidence. Fox had, on the other hand, been the idol of the Whigs,
and of the whole body of Protestant dissenters. The coalition at once
alienated the most zealous Tories from North, and the most zealous Whigs
from Fox. The University of Oxford, which had marked its approbation of
North's orthodoxy by electing him chancellor, the city of London, which
had been during two and twenty years at war with the Court, were equally
disgusted. Squires and rectors, who had inherited the principles of the
cavaliers of the preceding century, could not forgive their old leader
for combining with disloyal subjects in order to put a force on the
sovereign. The members of the Bill of Rights Society and of the Reform
Associations were enraged by learning that their favourite orator now
called the great champion of tyranny and corruption his noble friend.
Two great multitudes were at once left without any head, and both at
once turned their eyes on Pitt. One party saw in him the only man who
could rescue the King; the other saw in him the only man who could
purify the Parliament. He was supported on one side by Archbishop
Markham, the preacher of divine right, and by Jenkinson, the captain of
the Praetorian band of the King's friends; on the other side by Jebb and
Priestley, Sawbridge and Cartwright, Jack Wilkes and Horne Tooke. On the
benches of the House of Commons, however, the ranks of the ministerial
majority were unbroken; and that any statesman would venture to brave
such a majority was thought impossible. No prince of the Hanoverian
line had ever, under any provocation, ventured to appeal from the
representative body to the constituent body. The ministers, therefore,
notwithstanding the sullen looks and muttered words of displeasure with
which their suggestions were received in the closet, notwithstanding the
roar of obloquy which was rising louder and louder every day from every
corner of the island, thought themselves secure.
Such was their confidence in their strength that, as soon as the
Parliament had met, they brought forward a singularly bold and original
plan for the government of the British territories in India. What was
proposed was that the whole authority, which till that time had been
exercised over those territories by the East India Company, should be
transferred to seven Commissioners who were to be named by Parliament,
and were not to be removable at the pleasure of the Crown. Earl
Fitzwilliam, the most intimate personal friend of Fox, was to be
chairman of this board; and the eldest son of North was to be one of the
members.
As soon as the outlines of the scheme were known, all the hatred which
the coalition had excited burst forth with an astounding explosion. The
question which ought undoubtedly to have been considered as paramount to
every other was, whether the proposed change was likely to be beneficial
or injurious to the thirty millions of people who were subject to the
Company. But that question cannot be said to have been even seriously
discussed. Burke, who, whether right or wrong in the conclusions to
which he came, had at least the merit of looking at the subject in
the right point of view, vainly reminded his hearers of that mighty
population whose daily rice might depend on a vote of the British
Parliament. He spoke, with even more than his wonted power of thought
and language, about the desolation of Rohilcund, about the spoliation
of Benares, about the evil policy which had suffered the tanks of the
Carnatic to go to ruin; but he could scarcely obtain a hearing. The
contending parties, to their shame it must be said, would listen to none
but English topics. Out of doors the cry against the ministry was almost
universal. Town and country were united. Corporations exclaimed against
the violation of the charter of the greatest corporation in the realm.
Tories and democrats joined in pronouncing the proposed board an
unconstitutional body. It was to consist of Fox's nominees. The effect
of his bill was to give, not to the Crown, but to him personally,
whether in office or in opposition, an enormous power, a patronage
sufficient to counterbalance the patronage of the Treasury and of the
Admiralty, and to decide the elections for fifty boroughs. He knew,
it was said, that he was hateful alike to King and people; and he had
devised a plan which would make him independent of both. Some nicknamed
him Cromwell, and some Carlo Khan. Wilberforce, with his usual felicity
of expression, and with very unusual bitterness of feeling, described
the scheme as the genuine offspring of the coalition, as marked by the
features of both its parents, the corruption of one and the violence of
the other. In spite of all opposition, however, the bill was supported
in every stage by great majorities, was rapidly passed and was sent up
to the Lords. To the general astonishment, when the second reading was
moved in the Upper House, the opposition proposed an adjournment, and
carried it by eighty-seven votes to seventy-nine. The cause of this
strange turn of fortune was soon known. Pitt's cousin, Earl Temple, had
been in the royal closet, and had there been authorised to let it be
known that His Majesty would consider all who voted for the bill as his
enemies. The ignominious commission was performed; and instantly a troop
of Lords of the Bedchamber, of Bishops who wished to be translated, and
of Scotch peers who wished to be re-elected, made haste to change
sides. On a later day, the Lords rejected the bill. Fox and North were
immediately directed to send their seals to the palace by their Under
Secretaries; and Pitt was appointed First Lord of the Treasury and
Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The general opinion was, that there would be an immediate dissolution.
But Pitt wisely determined to give the public feeling time to gather
strength. On this point he differed from his kinsman Temple. The
consequence was, that Temple, who had been appointed one of the
Secretaries of State, resigned his office forty-eight hours after he had
accepted it, and thus relieved the new government from a great load of
unpopularity; for all men of sense and honour, however strong might be
their dislike of the India Bill, disapproved of the manner in which that
bill had been thrown out. Temple carried away with him the scandal which
the best friends of the new government could not but lament. The fame of
the young prime minister preserved its whiteness. He could declare with
perfect truth that, if unconstitutional machinations had been employed,
he had been no party to them.
He was, however, surrounded by difficulties and dangers. In the House of
Lords, indeed, he had a majority; nor could any orator of the opposition
in that assembly be considered as a match for Thurlow, who was now again
Chancellor, or for Camden, who cordially supported the son of his old
friend Chatham. But in the other House there was not a single eminent
speaker among the official men who sate round Pitt. His most useful
assistant was Dundas, who, though he had not eloquence, had sense,
knowledge, readiness, and boldness. On the opposite benches was a
powerful majority, led by Fox, who was supported by Burke, North, and
Sheridan. The heart of the young minister, stout as it was, almost died
within him. He could not once close his eyes on the night which followed
Temple's resignation. But, whatever his internal emotions might be, his
language and deportment indicated nothing but unconquerable firmness and
haughty confidence in his own powers. His contest against the House of
Commons lasted from the 17th of December 1783, to the 8th of March 1784.
In sixteen divisions the opposition triumphed. Again and again the King
was requested to dismiss his ministers. But he was determined to go to
Germany rather than yield. Pitt's resolution never wavered. The cry of
the nation in his favour became vehement and almost furious. Addresses
assuring him of public support came up daily from every part of the
kingdom. The freedom of the city of London was presented to him in a
gold box. He went in state to receive this mark of distinction. He was
sumptuously feasted in Grocers' Hall; and the shopkeepers of the Strand
and Fleet Street illuminated their houses in his honour. These things
could not but produce an effect within the walls of Parliament. The
ranks of the majority began to waver; a few passed over to the enemy;
some skulked away; many were for capitulating while it was still
possible to capitulate with the honours of war. Negotiations were opened
with the view of forming an administration on a wide basis; but they had
scarcely been opened when they were closed. The opposition demanded,
as a preliminary article of the treaty, that Pitt should resign the
Treasury; and with this demand Pit steadfastly refused to comply. While
the contest was raging, the Clerkship of the Pells, a sinecure place for
life, worth three thousand a year, and tenable with a seat in the House
of Commons, became vacant. The appointment was with the Chancellor of
the Exchequer: nobody doubted that he would appoint himself; and nobody
could have blamed him if he had done so: for such sinecure offices
had always been defended on the ground that they enabled a few men of
eminent abilities and small incomes to live without any profession, and
to devote themselves to the service of the state. Pitt, in spite of
the remonstrances of his friends, gave the Pells to his father's old
adherent, Colonel Barre, a man distinguished by talent and eloquence,
but poor and afflicted with blindness. By this arrangement a pension
which the Rockingham administration had granted to Barre was saved to
the public. Never was there a happier stroke of policy. About treaties,
wars, expeditions, tariffs, budgets, there will always be room for
dispute. The policy which is applauded by half the nation may be
condemned by the other half. But pecuniary disinterestedness everybody
comprehends. It is a great thing for a man who has only three hundred a
year to be able to show that he considers three thousand a year as mere
dirt beneath his feet, when compared with the public interest and
the public esteem. Pitt had his reward. No minister was ever more
rancorously libelled; but, even when he was known to be overwhelmed with
debt, when millions were passing through his hands, when the wealthiest
magnates of the realm were soliciting him for marquisates and garters,
his bitterest enemies did not dare to accuse him of touching unlawful
gain.
At length the hard fought fight ended. A final remonstrance, drawn up by
Burke with admirable skill, was carried on the 8th of March by a single
vote in a full House. Had the experiment been repeated, the supporters
of the coalition would probably have been in a minority. But the
supplies had been voted; the Mutiny Bill had been passed; and the
Parliament was dissolved.
The popular constituent bodies all over the country were in general
enthusiastic on the side of the new government. A hundred and sixty of
the supporters of the coalition lost their seats. The First Lord of the
Treasury himself came in at the head of the poll for the University
of Cambridge. His young friend, Wilberforce, was elected knight of
the great shire of York, in opposition to the whole influence of the
Fitzwilliams, Cavendishes, Dundases, and Saviles. In the midst of such
triumphs Pitt completed his twenty-fifth year. He was now the greatest
subject that England had seen during many generations. He domineered
absolutely over the cabinet, and was the favourite at once of the
Sovereign, of the Parliament, and of the nation. His father had never
been so powerful, nor Walpole, nor Marlborough.
This narrative has now reached a point, beyond which a full history of
the life of Pitt would be a history of England, or rather of the whole
civilised world; and for such a history this is not the proper place.
Here a very slight sketch must suffice; and in that sketch prominence
will be given to such points as may enable a reader who is already
acquainted with the general course of events to form a just notion of
the character of the man on whom so much depended.
If we wish to arrive at a correct judgment of Pitt's merits and defects,
we must never forget that he belonged to a peculiar class of statesmen,
and that he must be tried by a peculiar standard. It is not easy to
compare him fairly with such men as Ximenes and Sully, Richelieu and
Oxenstiern, John de Witt, and Warren Hastings. The means by which those
politicians governed great communities were of quite a different
kind from those which Pitt was under the necessity of employing. Some
talents, which they never had any opportunity of showing that they
possessed, were developed in him to an extraordinary degree. In some
qualities, on the other hand, to which they owe a large part of their
fame, he was decidedly their inferior. They transacted business in their
closets, or at boards where a few confidential councillors sate. It was
his lot to be born in an age and in a country in which parliamentary
government was completely established. His whole training from infancy
was such as fitted him to bear a part in parliamentary government;
and, from the prime of his manhood to his death, all the powers of
his vigorous mind were almost constantly exerted in the work of
parliamentary government. He accordingly became the greatest master
of the whole art of parliamentary government that has ever existed, a
greater than Montague or Walpole, a greater than his father Chatham,
or his rival Fox, a greater than either of his illustrious successors,
Canning and Peel.