Changes of Administration.--The Coalition Ministry.--The Establishment
of the Prince of Wales.--Fox's India Bill.--The King Defeats it by the
Agency of Lord Temple.--The Ministry is Dismissed, and Succeeded by Mr.
Pitt's Administration.--Opposition to the New Ministry in the House of
Commons.--Merits of the Contest between the Old and the New
Ministry.--Power of Pitt.--Pitt's India Bill.--Bill for the Government
of Canada.--The Marriage of the Prince of Wales to Mrs.
Fitzherbert.--The King becomes Deranged.--Proposal of a
Regency.--Opinions of Various Writers on the Course adopted.--Spread of
Revolutionary Societies and Opinions.--Bills for the Repression of
Sedition and Treason.--The Alien Act.--The Traitorous Correspondence
Act.--Treason and Sedition Bills.--Failure of some Prosecutions under
them.
The occurrences of the next year brought the question of the influence
of the crown into greater prominence. Lord Rockingham's administration,
unfortunately, came to a premature termination by his death at the
beginning of July. With a strange arrogance, Fox claimed the right of
dictating the choice of his successor to the King, making his
pretensions the more unwarrantable by the character of the person whom
he desired to nominate, the Duke of Portland, who, though a man of vast
property and considerable borough influence, was destitute of ability of
any kind, and had not even any of that official experience which in some
situations may at times compensate or conceal the want of talent.[73]
The King preferred Lord Shelburne, a statesman whose capacity was
confessedly of a very high order, who had more than once been Secretary
of State,[74] and who had been recognized as the leader of what was
sometimes called the Chatham section of the Whigs, ever since the death
of the great Earl. Indeed, if George III. had been guided by his own
wishes and judgment alone, he would have placed him at the Treasury, in
preference to Lord Rockingham, three months before. But, during the last
three months, jealousies had arisen between him and Fox, his colleague
in office, who charged him with concealing from him the knowledge of
various circumstances, the communication of which he had a right to
require. It was more certain that on one or two points connected with
the negotiations with the United States there had been divisions between
them, and that the majority of the cabinet had agreed with Lord
Shelburne. Lord Shelburne, therefore, became Prime-minister,[75] and
Fox, with some of his friends, resigned; Fox indemnifying himself by a
violent philippic against "those men who were now to direct the counsels
of the country," and whom he proceeded to describe as "men whom neither
promises could bind nor principles of honor could secure; who would
abandon fifty principles for the sake of power, and forget fifty
promises when they were no longer necessary to their ends; who, he had
no doubt, to secure themselves in the power which they had by the labor
of others obtained, would strive to strengthen it by any means which
corruption could procure."[76]
Fox at once went into what even those most disposed to cherish his
memory admit to have been a factious opposition. He caballed with the
very men to whom he had hitherto been most vehemently opposed for the
sole object of expelling Lord Shelburne from office. And when, at the
beginning of the session of 1783, the merits of the preliminary articles
of peace which had been provisionally concluded with the United States
came under discussion, though the peers approved of them, in the House
of Commons he defeated the ministers in two separate divisions,[77] and
thus rendered their retention of office impossible. He had gained this
victory by uniting with Lord North and a portion of the Tory party whom,
ever since his dismissal from office in 1774, he had been unwearied in
denouncing, threatening Lord North himself with impeachment. And he now
used it to compel the King to intrust the chief office in the government
to the very man whom his Majesty had refused to employ in such an office
six months before.
The transactions of the next twelve months exhibit in a striking light
more than one part of the practical working of our monarchical and
parliamentary constitution, not only in its correspondence with, but,
what is more important to notice, in its occasional partial deviations
from, strict theory. The theory has sometimes been expressed in the
formula, "The King reigns, but does not govern." But, like many another
terse apophthegm, it conveys an idea which requires some modification
before it can be regarded as an entirely correct representation of the
fact; and the King himself, especially if endowed with fair capacity and
force of character, imbued with earnest convictions, and animated by a
genuine zeal for the honor and welfare of his kingdom, will be likely to
dwell more on the possible modifications than on the rigid theory. Even
those who insist most on the letter of the theory will not deny that, if
the King has not actual power, he has at least great influence; and the
line between authority and influence is hard to draw. One of George the
Third's earliest ministers had explained to his Majesty that the
principle of the constitution was, "that the crown had an undoubted
right to choose its ministers, and that it was the duty of subjects to
support them, unless there were some very strong and urgent reasons to
the contrary."[78] And such a doctrine was too much in harmony with the
feelings of George III. himself not to be cordially accepted. For George
III. was by no means inclined to be a _Roi fainéant_. No sovereign was
ever penetrated with a more conscientious desire to do his duty to his
people. Conscious, perhaps, that his capacity was rather solid than
brilliant, he gave unremitting attention to the affairs of the nation in
every department of the government; and, perhaps not very unnaturally,
conceived that his doing so justified him, as far as he might be able,
in putting a constraint on his ministers to carry out his views. Thus,
he had notoriously induced Lord North to persevere in the late civil war
in America long after that minister had seen the hopelessness of the
contest; and it was, probably, only the knowledge of the strength of his
feelings on that subject, and of his warm attachment to that minister,
that caused the Parliament so long to withstand all the eloquence of the
advocates of peace, and the still stronger arguments of circumstances.
He might fairly think that he had now greater reason to adhere to his
own judgment; for Fox's recommendation of the Duke of Portland in
preference to Lord Shelburne was an act not only of unwarrantable
presumption, but of inconceivable folly, since there was no comparison
between the qualifications of the two men; and the coalition by which,
six months afterward, he had, as it were, revenged himself for the
rebuff, and had driven Lord Shelburne from office, was, as the King well
knew, and as even Fox's own friends did not conceal from themselves,
almost universally condemned out-of-doors.[79] To this combination,
therefore, his Majesty tried every expedient to escape from yielding.
And when Pitt's well-considered and judicious refusal of the government
left him no alternative but that of submission to Fox's dictation, it
would hardly have been very unnatural if his disposition and attitude
toward a ministry which had thus forced itself upon him had been those
attributed to him by Lord John Russell, of "an enemy constantly on the
watch against it."[80] But for some time that was not the impression of
the ministers themselves. In July, when they had been in office more
than three months, Fox admitted that he had never behaved toward them as
if he were displeased with them, and that he had no project of
substituting any other administration for the present one.[81] And his
temperate treatment of them was the more remarkable, because a flagrant
blunder of Burke (who filled the post of Paymaster), in reinstating some
clerks who had been dismissed by his predecessor for dishonesty, had
manifestly weakened the ministry in the House of Commons;[82] while in
another case, in which the King had clearly in no slight degree a
personal right to have his opinion consulted and his wishes accepted by
them as the guide for their conduct, the establishment to be arranged
for the Prince of Wales, whose twenty-first birthday was approaching,
Fox persuaded the Parliament to settle on the young Prince an allowance
of so large an amount that some even of his own colleagues disliked it
as extravagant;[83] while the King himself reasonably disapproved both
of the amount and of the mode of giving it, the amount being large
beyond all precedent, and the fact of its being given by Parliament
rendering the Prince entirely independent of his parental control, of
which his conduct had given abundant proof that he stood greatly in
need.
That he presently changed his line of behavior toward them was caused by
their introduction of a bill which he regarded as aimed in no small
degree at his own prerogative and independence--the celebrated India
Bill, by which, in the November session, Fox proposed to abrogate all
the charters which different sovereigns had granted to the East India
Company, to abolish all vested rights of either the Company or
individuals, and to confer on a board of seven persons, to be named by
Parliament, the entire administration of all the territories in any way
occupied by the Company. It was at once objected to by the Opposition in
the House of Commons, now led by Mr. Pitt, as a measure thoroughly
unconstitutional, on the twofold ground that such an abrogation of
formally granted charters, and such an extinction of vested rights, was
absolutely without precedent; and also that one real, if concealed,
object of the bill was to confer on the ministers who had framed and
introduced it so vast an amount of patronage as would render them
absolute masters of the House of Commons, and indirectly, therefore, of
the King himself, who would be practically disabled from ever dismissing
them. That such a revocation of ancient charters, and such an immovable
establishment of an administration, were inconsistent with the
principles of the constitution, was not a position taken up by Pitt in
the heat of debate, but was his deliberate opinion, as may be fairly
inferred from his assertion of it in a private letter[84] to his friend
the Duke of Rutland. It may, however, be doubted whether the epithet
"unconstitutional" could be properly applied to the bill on either
ground. There is, indeed, a certain vagueness in the meaning, or at all
events in the frequent use of this adjective. Sometimes it is used to
imply a violation of the provisions of the Great Charter, or of its
later development, the Bill of Rights; sometimes to impute some imagined
departure from the principles which guided the framers of those
enactments. But in neither sense does it seem applicable to this bill.
To designate the infringement or revocation of a charter by such a
description would be to affirm the existence of a right in the sovereign
to invest a charter, from whatever motive it may originally have been
granted, with such a character of inviolability or perpetuity that no
Parliament should, on ever such strong grounds of public good, have the
power of interfering with it. And to attribute such a power to the crown
appears less consistent with the limitations affixed to the royal
prerogative by the constitution, than to regard all trusts created by
the crown as subject to parliamentary revision in the interests of the
entire nation. On the second ground the description seems even less
applicable. An arrangement of patronage is a mere matter of detail, not
of principle. For the minister to propose such an arrangement as should
secure for himself and his party a perpetual monopoly of power and
office might be grasping and arrogant; for Parliament (and Parliament
consists of the sovereign and the peers, as well as of the House of
Commons) to assent to such an arrangement might be short-sighted and
impolitic; but it is not clear that either the minister in proposing
such an enactment, or the Parliament in adopting it, would be violating
either the letter or the spirit of the constitution. Every member of the
Governing Board was to be appointed by the Parliament itself; and,
though unquestionably Fox would have the nomination, and though he could
reckon on the support of the majority in the House of Commons for those
whom he might select, still it was a strictly constitutional machinery
that he was putting in motion.
A measure, however, may be very objectionable without being
unconstitutional, and such a view of the India Bill the progress of the
debates in the House of Commons disposed the King to take of it. In the
House of Peers Lord Thurlow described the bill as one to take the crown
off his head and place it on that of Mr. Fox; and, even without adopting
that description to its full extent, the King might easily regard the
bill as a very unscrupulous attempt to curtail his legitimate authority
and influence. He became most anxious to prevent the bill from being
presented to him for his royal assent. And it was presently represented
to him that the knowledge of his desire would probably induce the Lords
to reject it. Among the peers who had attacked the bill on its first
introduction into their House was Earl Temple, whose father had taken so
prominent a part in the negotiations for the formation of a new ministry
in 1765, and who had himself been Lord-lieutenant of Ireland under Lord
Shelburne's administration. But he had not thought it prudent to divide
the House against its first reading, and felt great doubts as to his
success in a division on the second, unless he could fortify his
opposition by some arguments as yet untried. He had no difficulty in
finding a willing and effective coadjutor. Since the retirement of Lord
Bute from court, no peer had made himself so personally acceptable to
the King as Lord Thurlow, who had been Lord Chancellor during the last
four years of Lord North's administration, and, in consequence, as it
was generally understood, of the earnest request of George III., had
been allowed to retain the seals by Lord Rockingham, and afterward by
Lord Shelburne. What special attraction drew the King toward him, unless
it were some idea of his honesty and attachment to the King himself--on
both of which points subsequent events proved his Majesty to be wholly
mistaken--it is not very easy to divine; but his interest with the King
at this time was notorious, and equally notorious was the deep
resentment which he cherished against Fox and Lord North, of whom, as he
alleged, the former had proscribed and the latter had betrayed him. To
him, therefore, Lord Temple now applied for advice as to the best mode
of working on the King's mind, and, with his assistance, drew up a
memorial on the character of the India Bill, on its inevitable fruits if
it should pass (which it described as an extinction of "more than half
of the royal power, and a consequent disabling of his Majesty for the
rest of his reign"), and on the most effectual plan for defeating it;
for which end it was suggested that his Majesty should authorize some
one to make some of the Lords "acquainted with his wishes" that the bill
should be rejected.[85]
George III. eagerly adopted the suggestion, and drew up a brief note,
which he intrusted to Lord Temple himself, and which stated that "his
Majesty allowed Earl Temple to say that whoever voted for the India Bill
was not only not his friend, but would be considered by him as his
enemy. And, if these words were not strong enough, Earl Temple might
whatever words he might deem stronger and more to the purpose."[86]
Lord Temple lost no time in availing himself of the permission thus
granted him; and, as it was by no means his object to keep the
transaction secret, his conduct was made the subject of severe comment
by the Prime-minister himself the next time that the bill was mentioned
in the Upper House. The Duke of Portland, indeed, professed to have
learned it only from common report, and to hope that the report was
unfounded, since, were it true, "he should be wanting in the duty he
owed to the public as a minister if he did not take the opportunity of
proposing a measure upon it to their lordships that would prove that
they felt the same jealousy, the same detestation, the same desire to
mark and stigmatize every attempt to violate the constitution as he
did." Lord Temple, in reply, abstained from introducing any mention of
the King's opinions or wishes, but avowed plainly that he had used his
privilege as a peer to solicit an interview with his Majesty, and that
at that interview "he had given his advice. What that advice had been he
would not then say; it was lodged in the breast of his Majesty, nor
would he declare the purport of it without the royal consent, or till he
saw a proper occasion. But, though he would not declare affirmatively
what his advice to his sovereign was, he would tell their lordships
negatively what it was not. It was not friendly to the principle and
objects of the bill."[87] The debate lasted till near midnight. Of the
speakers, a great majority declared against the bill; and, on the
division, it was rejected by a majority of nineteen.[88] This took place
on the 15th of December. On the 18th, as the ministers had not
resigned--not regarding a single defeat in the Upper House as a
necessary cause for such a step--the King sent messengers to them to
demand their resignation, and the next day it was publicly announced in
the House of Commons that Pitt had accepted the office of
Prime-minister.
But Fox, who had anticipated the dismissal of himself and his
colleagues, was by no means inclined to acquiesce in it, or to yield
without a struggle; and on the 17th one of his partisans in the House of
Commons, Mr. Baker, one of the members for Hertfordshire, brought
forward some resolutions on the subject of the late division in the
House of Lords. He professed to rest them solely on rumors, but he urged
that "it was the duty of that House to express its abhorrence even of
that rumor," since by such an action as was alleged "that responsibility
of ministers which was the life of the constitution would be taken away,
and with it the principal check that the public had upon the crown." And
he urged "the members of that House, as the guardians of the
constitution, to stand forward and preserve it from ruin, to maintain
that equilibrium between the three branches of the Legislature, and that
independence without which the constitution could no longer exist," and
with this view to resolve "that to report any opinion, or pretended
opinion, of his Majesty upon any bill or other proceeding depending in
either House of Parliament, with a view to influence the votes of the
members, is a high crime and misdemeanor, derogatory to the honor of the
crown, a breach of the fundamental privileges of Parliament, and
subversive of the constitution of the country." It was opposed by Pitt,
chiefly on the ground that Mr. Baker only based the necessity for such a
resolution on common report, which he, fairly enough, denied to be a
sufficient justification of it; and partly on the undoubted and
"inalienable right of peers, either individually or collectively, to
advise his Majesty, whenever they thought the situation of public
affairs made such a step an essential part of their duty." But it was
supported by Lord North as "necessary on constitutional principles,"
since the acts so generally reported and believed "affected the freedom
of debate;" and by Fox, who declared that the action which was reported,
if true, "struck at the great bulwark of our liberties, and went to the
absolute annihilation, not of our chartered rights only, but of those
radical and fundamental ones which are paramount to all charters, which
were consigned to our care by the sovereign disposition of Nature, which
we cannot relinquish without violating the most sacred of all
obligations, to which we are entitled, not as members of society, but as
individuals and as men; the right of adhering steadily and uniformly to
the great and supreme laws of conscience and duty; of preferring, at all
hazards and without equivocation, those general and substantial
interests which members have sworn to prefer; of acquitting themselves
honorably to their constituents, to their friends, to their own minds,
and to that public whose trustees they were, and for whom they acted."
He avowed his conviction that rumor in this instance spoke truth, and,
affirming that "the responsibility of ministers is the only pledge and
security the people of England possesses against the infinite abuses so
natural to the exercise of royal powers," argued that, if "this great
bulwark of the constitution were once removed, the people would become
in every respect the slaves and property of despotism. This must be the
necessary consequence of secret influence." He argued that the sole
distinction between an absolute and a limited monarchy was that the
sovereign in one is a despot, and may do as he pleases, but that in the
other he is himself subjected to the laws, and consequently is not at
liberty to advise with any one in public affairs who is not responsible
for that advice, and that the constitution has clearly directed his
negative to operate under the same wise restrictions. Mr. Baker's
resolution was carried by a large majority; but, as we have seen, did
not deter the King from dismissing the ministry.
The conduct of George III. in this transaction has been discussed by
writers of both parties with such candor that the Tory historian, Lord
Stanhope, while evidently desirous to defend it by implication, passes a
slight censure on it in the phrase that "the course pursued by the King
was most unusual, and most extreme, and most undesirable to establish as
a precedent;"[89] while, on the other hand, so rigid a Whig as Lord
Campbell urges in his favor "that if it be ever excusable in a King of
England to cabal against his ministers, George III. may well be defended
for the course he now took, for they had been forced upon him by a
factious intrigue, and public opinion was decidedly in his favor."[90]
But to those who regard not the excuse which previous provocation may be
conceived in some degree to furnish to human infirmity, but only the
strict theory and principle of the constitution on which the doctrine of
the responsibility of the ministers and the consequent irresponsibility
of the sovereign rests, Lord Campbell's conditional justification for
the communication made through Lord Temple will hardly appear
admissible. We cannot be sure how far Mr. Grenville's "Diary" is to be
trusted for transactions in which he was not personally concerned, or
for conversations at which he was not present; but in giving an
account[91] of some of the occurrences of the spring of 1766, while Lord
Rockingham was Prime-minister, we find him relating a conversation
between the King and Lord Mansfield on the ministerial measure for
conciliating the American Colonies by the repeal of the Stamp Act,
combined, however, with an assertion of the _right_ to tax. "He (Lord
Mansfield) took notice of the King's name having been bandied about in a
very improper manner; to which the King assented, saying he had been
very much displeased at it, as thinking it unconstitutional to have his
name mentioned as a means to sway any man's opinion in any business
which was before Parliament; and that all those who approached him knew
that to be his sentiment. Lord Mansfield said he differed from his
Majesty in that opinion, for that, though it would be unconstitutional
to endeavor by his Majesty's name to carry questions in Parliament, yet
where the lawful rights of the King and Parliament were to be asserted
and maintained, he thought the making his Majesty's opinion in support
of those rights to be known was very fit and becoming." The line here
alleged to have been drawn by the great Chief-justice, between
proclaiming the King's opinion in support of rights, but withholding it
in the case of measures, is, perhaps, too fine to be perceptible by
ordinary intellects. But however the King may have understood the judge,
it is clear that the doctrine thus asserted does not justify, but
condemns, such an act as the communication of the King's opinion and
wishes in the case under consideration. If it "would be unconstitutional
to endeavor by his Majesty's name to carry questions in Parliament," it
must be at least equally so to use his name to defeat them. And the case
is infinitely stronger, if the measure to be defeated be one which has
been introduced by his ministers. For there can be no doubt whatever
that, so long as they are his ministers, they are entitled to his full
and complete support on every question; alike in their general policy
and on each separate measure. When he can no longer give them that
support, which the very act of conferring their offices on them promised
them, his only legitimate and becoming course is to dismiss them from
their offices, and to abide the judgment of Parliament and the nation on
that act. Thus William IV. acted in the autumn of 1834; and thus George
III. himself acted at the end of the month of which we are speaking. But
to retain them in their offices, and to employ an unofficial declaration
of his dissent from them to defeat their policy, is neither consistent
with the straightforward conduct due from one gentleman to another, nor
with the principle on which the system of administration, such as
prevails in this country, is founded.
As has been already mentioned, the King at once dismissed the Coalition
Ministry. Mr. Pitt accepted the conduct of affairs, and by so doing
accepted the responsibility for all the acts of the King which had
conduced to his appointment. Lord John Russell, who in his "Memorials
and Correspondence of Fox" has related and examined the whole
transaction at considerable though not superfluous length, while blaming
the prudence, and in some points the propriety, of Fox's conduct, at the
same time severely censures Pitt as "committing a great fault in
accepting office as the price of an unworthy intrigue," and affirms that
"he and his colleagues who accepted office upon the success of this
intrigue placed themselves in an unconstitutional position."[92] This
seems to be a charge which can hardly be borne out. In dismissing his
former ministry, the King was clearly acting within his right; and, if
so, Pitt was equally within his in undertaking the government. The truer
doctrine would seem to be, that, in so undertaking it, he assumed the
entire responsibility for the dismissal of his predecessors,[93] and
left it to the people at large, by the votes of their representatives,
to decide whether that dismissal were justified, and whether, as its
inevitable consequence, his acceptance of office were also justified or
not. The entire series of transactions, from the meeting of Parliament
in November, 1783, to its dissolution in the following March, may be
constitutionally regarded as an appeal by the King from the existing
House of Commons to the entire nation, as represented by the
constituencies; and their verdict, as is well known, ratified in the
most emphatic manner all that had been done. And we may assert this
without implying that, if the single act of empowering Lord Temple to
influence the peers by the declaration of the King's private feeling had
been submitted by itself to the electors, they would have justified
that. The stirring excitement of the three months' contest between the
great rivals led them to pronounce upon the transaction as a whole, and
to leave unnoticed what seemed for the moment to be the minor
issues--the moves, if we may borrow a metaphor from the chess-table,
which opened the game; and it may be observed that, though, on the 17th
of December, Pitt resisted Mr. Baker's resolution with his utmost
energy, in the numerous debates which ensued he carefully avoided all
allusion to Lord Temple's conduct, or to the measure which had led to
the dismissal of his predecessors, farther than was necessary for the
explanation of the principles of his own India Bill. It may even be
surmised that, if he had been inclined to recognize Lord Temple's
interference as warrantable, the breach between that peer and himself,
which occurred before the end of the week, would not have taken place,
since it seems nearly certain that the cause of that breach was a
refusal on the part of Pitt to recommend his cousin for promotion in the
peerage, a step which, at such a moment, would have had the appearance
of an approval of his most recent deed,[94] but which he could hardly
have refused, if it had been done with his privity. The battle, as need
hardly be told, was first fought among the representatives of the people
in the House of Commons; for there was only one occasion on which the
opinion of the Lords was invited, when they declared in favor of Pitt by
a decisive majority.[95] But in the Lower House the contest was carried
on for more than two months with extraordinary activity and ability, by
a series of resolutions and motions brought forward by the partisans of
the coalition, and contested by the youthful minister. In one respect
the war was waged on very unequal terms, Pitt, who had been but three
years in Parliament, and whose official experience could as yet only be
counted by months, having to contend almost single-handed against the
combined experience and eloquence of Lord North, Fox, and Burke.
Fortunately, however, for him, their own mismanagement soon turned the
advantage to his side. They were too angry and too confident to be
skilful, or even ordinarily cautious. The leaders on both sides made
professions in one respect similar; they both alike denied that a desire
of office influenced either their conduct or their language (a denial
for which Pitt's refusal of the Treasury, a year before, gained him more
credit than could be expected by Fox after his coalition with Lord
North), and both alike professed to be struggling for the constitution
alone, for some fundamental principle which each charged his antagonist
with violating; Fox on one occasion even going so far as, in some
degree, to involve the King himself in his censures, declaring not only
that "the struggle was, in fact, one between Pitt himself and the
constitution," but that it was also one "between liberty and the
influence of the crown," and "between prerogative and the constitution;"
and that "Pitt had been brought into power by means absolutely
subversive of the constitution."[96] But no act of which he thus accused
the minister or the King showed such a disregard of the fundamental
principle of the constitution of Parliament as was exhibited by Fox
himself when, in the very first debate after the Christmas recess, he
called in question that most undoubted prerogative of the crown to
dissolve the Parliament, and, drawing a distinction which had certainly
never been heard of before, declared that, though the King had an
incontestable right to dissolve the Parliament after the close of a
session, "many great lawyers" doubted whether he had such a right in the
middle of a session, a dissolution at such a period being "a penal" one.
Professing to believe that an immediate dissolution was intended, he
even threatened to propose to the House of Commons "measures to guard
against a step so inimical to the true interests of the country," and
made a more direct attack than ever on the King himself, by the
assertion of a probability that, even if Pitt did not contemplate a
dissolution, his royal master might employ "secret influence" to
overrule him, and might dissolve in spite of him,[97] an imputation
which Lord North, with a strange departure from his customary
good-humor, condescended to endorse.[98] There could be no doubt that
both the doubt and the menace were of themselves distinct attacks on the
constitution; and they were, moreover, singularly impolitic and
inconsistent with others of the speaker's arguments, since, if the
nation at large approved of his views and conduct, a dissolution--which
would have placed the decision in its hands--would have been the very
thing he should most have desired. On another evening, though he
admitted as a principle that the sovereign had the prerogative of
choosing his ministers, he not only sought to narrow the effect of that
admission by the assertion that "to exercise that prerogative in
opposition to the House of Commons would be a measure as unsafe as
unjustifiable,"[99] but to confine the right of deciding the title of
the ministers to confidence to the existing House of Commons. He accused
Pitt of "courting the affection of the people, and on this foundation
wishing to support himself in opposition to the repeated resolutions of
the House passed in the last three weeks." Had he confined himself to
urging the necessity of the ministers and the House of Commons being in
harmony, even though such a mention of the House of Commons by itself
were to a certain extent an ignoring of the weight of the other branches
of the Legislature, he would have only been advancing a doctrine which
is practically established at the present day, since there has been
certainly more than one instance in which a ministry has retired which
enjoyed the confidence of both the sovereign and the House of Lords,
because it was not supported by a majority in the House of Commons. But
when he proceeded to make it a charge against the minister that he
trusted to the good-will of the people to enable him to disregard the
verdict of the House of Commons, he forgot that it was only as
representing the people that the House had any right to pronounce a
verdict; and that, if it were true that the judgment of the people was
more favorable to the minister than that of the House of Commons, the
difference which thus existed was a condemnation of the existing House,
and an irresistible reason for calling on the constituencies to elect
another.
Pitt, therefore, had no slight advantage in defending himself against so
rash an assailant. "He did not shrink," he said, "from avowing himself
the friend of the King's just prerogative," and in doing so he
maintained that he had a title to be regarded as the champion of the
people not less than of the crown. "Prerogative had been justly called a
part of the rights of the people, and he was sure it was a part of their
rights which they were never more inclined to defend, of which they were
never more jealous, than at that hour."[100] And he contended that Fox's
objections to a dissolution betrayed a consciousness that he had not the
confidence of the nation. At last, when the contest had lasted nearly
two months, Fox took the matter into his own hands, and, no longer
putting his partisans in the front of the battle, on the 1st of March he
himself moved for an address to the King, the most essential clause of
which "submitted to his Majesty's royal consideration that the
continuance of an administration which did not possess the confidence of
the representatives of the people must be injurious to the public
service." ... And, therefore, that "his Majesty's faithful Commons did
find themselves obliged again to beseech his Majesty that he would be
graciously pleased to lay the foundation of a strong and stable
government by the previous removal of his present ministers." In the
speech with which he introduced this address he put himself forward as
especially the champion of the House of Commons. He charged the
Prime-minister with an express design "to reduce the House to
insignificance, to render it a mere appendage to the court, an
appurtenance to the administration." He asserted the existence of a
systematic "design to degrade the House, after which there was not
another step necessary to complete the catastrophe of the constitution."
And on this occasion he distinguished the feelings of the King from
those which influenced the minister, affirming his confidence "that the
King's heart had no share in the present business."[101]
Pitt, on the other hand, in reply, affirmed that he was called on by
duty "to defend the rights of the other branches of the Legislature; the
just and constitutional prerogative of the sovereign," upon which the
Opposition was seeking to encroach, without even having shown a single
reason to justify such invasion. He freely admitted that, if the House
of Commons or either of the other branches of the Legislature
"disapproved of an administration on proper grounds, it would not be
well for that administration to retain office." But in the present
instance he contended that "no ground for disapprobation had been
shown." The existing administration "had, in fact, by an unaccountable
obstinacy and untowardness of circumstances, been deprived of all
opportunity" of showing its capacity or its intentions. "If any
accusations should be made and proved against it, if any charges should
be substantiated, it would, indeed be proper for the ministers to
resign; and if, in such a case he were afterward to continue in office,
he would suffer himself to be stigmatized as the champion of
prerogative, and the unconstitutional supporter of the usurpation of the
crown. But till this period arrived, he should reckon it his duty to
adhere to the principles of the constitution, as delivered to us by our
ancestors; to defend them against innovation and encroachment, and to
maintain them with firmness." "The constitution of this country," he
presently added, "is its glory; but in what a nice adjustment does its
excellence consist! Equally free from the distractions of democracy and
the tyranny of monarchy, its happiness is to be found in its mixture of
parts. It was this mixed government which the prudence of our ancestors
devised, and which it will be our wisdom to support. They experienced
all the vicissitudes and distractions of a republic; they felt all the
vassalage and despotism of a simple monarchy. They abandoned both; and,
by blending each together, extracted a system which has been the envy
and admiration of the world. This system it is the object of the present
address to defeat and destroy. It is the intention of this address to
arrogate a power which does not belong to the House of Commons; to place
a negative on the exercise of the prerogative, and to destroy the
balance of power in the government as it was settled at the Revolution."
Fox had urged that our history afforded no example of a ministry
retaining office after the House of Commons had passed a resolution
condemning it. Pitt, in reply, urged that our history equally failed to
furnish any instance of a ministry having been called on to retire
without any misconduct being alleged against them. And the result of the
division showed that his arguments and his firmness were producing an
impression on the House, for, though he was again defeated, the majority
against him (only twelve) was far smaller than on any previous
division.[102] A week later, this feeling in his favor was shown still
more decidedly, when Fox, on moving for a fresh address, or, as he
termed it, a representation to the King that the House had received his
Majesty's reply to their address "with surprise and affliction," he
could only carry it by a single vote.[103] And this division closed the
struggle. Fox made no farther effort. Before the end of the month the
Parliament was dissolved, and the general election which ensued sent to
the House a majority to support the ministers which Pitt was fairly
warranted in claiming as the full justification of the course which he
had pursued.
On a review of the whole of this extraordinary transaction, or series of
transactions, it is impossible to avoid regarding the issue of the
struggle as an all-important element in the case, and a test almost
decisive of the correctness of conduct of the rival leaders. We may
leave out of the question the action of the King in his communication to
Lord Temple, which, although sanctioned by the great legal authority of
Lord Thurlow, we are, for reasons already given, compelled to regard as
unconstitutional, but for which Mr. Pitt was only technically
responsible; having, indeed, made himself so by his subsequent
acceptance of office, but having had no previous suspicion of the royal
intentions. Similarly, we may dismiss from our consideration the merits
or demerits of Fox's India Bill, the designs which were imputed to its
framers, or the consequences which, whether intended or not by them,
were predicted as certain to flow from it. And we may confine ourselves
to the question whether, in the great Parliamentary struggle which
ensued, and which lasted for more than three months,[104] the doctrines
advanced by Mr. Fox, and the conduct pursued by him, were more or less
in accordance with the admitted rules and principles of the
constitution.
These doctrines may be reduced to two: the first a declaration that no
minister is justified in retaining office any longer than he is
sustained in it by the favorable judgment of the representatives of the
people. Taken by itself, this, but for one consideration, might be
pronounced the superfluous assertion of a truism; superfluous, because
it is obvious that a House of Commons hostile to a minister can compel
his resignation by obstructing all his measures. And Pitt himself
recognized this as fully as Fox, though we may hardly agree with him
that the Opposition was bound to allow him time to develop his policy,
and to bring forward his various measures, before it pronounced an
opinion adverse to them. In 1835, when Sir R. Peel first met Parliament
after his acceptance of office, consequent on the King's dismissal of
Lord Melbourne's ministry, the Opposition encountered and defeated him
twice in the first week of the session--on the choice of a Speaker, and
on the address, though the latter had been framed with the most skilful
care to avoid any necessity for objection; but no attempt was made by
him to call in question the perfect right of Lord J. Russell and his
followers in the House to choose their own time and field of battle. But
there is one farther consideration, that the authority belonging to the
judgment of the House of Commons depends on that judgment being not
solely its own, but the judgment also of the constituencies which have
returned it, and whose mouth-piece it is; and also that the House is not
immortal, but is liable to be sent back to those constituencies, to see
whether they will ratify the judgment which their representatives have
expressed; whether, in other words, their judgment be the judgment of
the nation also. This farther consideration was, in fact, Pitt's plea
for resisting the majorities which, through January and February, so
repeatedly pronounced against him. And in determining to appeal to the
constituencies, as the court of ultimate resort, he was clearly within
the lines of the constitution.
It follows that Fox, in protesting against a dissolution, in threatening
even to take steps to prevent it, was acting in self-evident violation
of all constitutional principle and precedent. He was denying one of the
most universally acknowledged of the royal prerogatives. The distinction
which he endeavored to draw between a dissolution at the close of a
session and one in the middle of it, had manifestly no validity in law
or in common-sense. The minister had a clear right to appeal from the
House of Commons to the people, and one equally clear to choose his own
time for making that appeal. The appeal was made, the judgment of the
nation was pronounced, and its pronouncement may be, and indeed must be,
accepted as a sufficient justification, in a constitutional point of
view, of Pitt's conduct both in accepting and retaining office. If he
retained it for three months, in opposition to the voice of the existing
House of Commons, he could certainly allege that he was retaining it in
accordance with the deliberate judgment of the nation.
And this is the verdict of a modern statesman, a very careful student of
the theory of our Parliamentary constitution, and one whom party
connection would notoriously have inclined to defend the line taken by
Mr. Fox, had it been possible to do so. Indeed, he may be said to show
his bias in that statesman's favor when he affirms that he would have
been right in moving a resolution of censure on Pitt for "his acceptance
of office," which he presently calls the result of "the success of a
court intrigue,"[105] and, without a particle of evidence to justify the
imputation, affirms to "have been prepared beforehand with much art and
combination." But _amicus Fox, sed magis arnica veritas_; and though he
thus passes censure on Pitt, where the facts on which he bases it are at
least unproved, on those points as to which the facts are clear and
certain he condemns Fox altogether, affirming that his "attempt to show
that the crown had not the prerogative of dissolving Parliament in the
middle of a session had neither law nor precedent in its support."[106]
And he proceeds to lay down, with great clearness and accuracy, "the
practice as well as the theory of our mixed government," which is, that
"when two of the powers of the state cannot" agree, and the business of
the state is stopped, the only appeal is to the people at large. Thus,
when in the reign of Queen Anne the House of Lords and the House of
Commons fulminated resolutions at each other, a dissolution cleared the
air and restored serenity. If no case had occurred since the Revolution
of a quarrel between the crown and the House of Commons, the cause is to
be sought in the prudence with which every sovereign who had reigned
since that event had wielded his constitutional authority. If George
III. had been wanting in that prudence, it did not follow that he was
debarred from the right of appealing to the people. Any other doctrine
would invest the House of Commons, elected for the ordinary business of
the state, with a supreme power over every branch of it. This supreme
power must rest somewhere; according to our constitution it rests in the
common assent of the realm, signified by the persons duly qualified to
elect the members of the House of Commons; and Lord Russell, in thus
expounding his ideas on this subject, was undoubtedly expressing the
view that ever since the transactions of which we have been speaking has
been taken of the point chiefly in dispute. Since that day there has
been more than one instance of Parliament being dissolved in the middle
of a session; but, though the prudence of the different ministers who
advised such dissolutions may, perhaps, have been questioned--nay,
though in one memorable instance it was undoubtedly a penal dissolution
in the fullest sense of the word[107]--no one has ever accused the
sovereign's advisers of seducing him into an unconstitutional exercise
of his prerogative.
Pitt was now Prime-minister, with a degree of power in Parliament and of
popularity out-of-doors that no former minister, not even his own
father, had ever enjoyed. As such, by the confession of one who was
certainly no friendly critic,[108] "he became the greatest master of
Parliamentary government that has ever existed." His administration may
be regarded as a fresh starting-point in the history of the country, as
the inauguration of the principle of steady amendment, improvement, and
progress, in place of the maxims which had guided all his predecessors
since the Revolution, of regarding every thing as permanently settled by
the arrangements made at that time, and their own duty, consequently, as
binding them to keep everything in its existing condition. But, of all
the ministers recorded in our annals, there is not one so greatly in
advance of his time as Pitt; and from the very outset of his ministerial
career he applied himself, not only to the removal or correction of
admitted abuses or defects, but, in cases where the fault, being in our
general system of policy, had been less conspicuous, to the
establishment of new principles of action which have been the rules of
all succeeding statesmen. He was not, indeed, the first raiser of the
question of Parliamentary Reform, but he was the first to produce an
elaborate scheme with that object, parts of which, such as the
suppression of the smaller boroughs and the enfranchisement of places
which had gradually become more important, have been leading features of
every subsequent bill on the subject. He was the first to propose the
removal of those political disabilities under which the Roman Catholics
labored, which no one before him had regarded as consistent with the
safety of the state, and to which he sacrificed office. He was the first
to conceive the idea of developing our national industries and resources
by commercial treaties with other nations, even choosing for his
essay-piece a treaty with a country with which our relations for nearly
five hundred years had been almost uninterruptedly hostile, and which
Fox, in the heat of his opposition, objected even to consider in any
other light than that of an enemy. He laid the foundation for all
subsequent legislation connected with our colonies in his Bill for the
Government of Canada; and he established a system for the government of
our Indian dependencies on so statesman-like a principle, that all
subsequent administrations concurred in upholding it, till subsequent
events compelled the abolition of all the share in the government of the
country previously possessed by the Company.
A great writer of the past generation,[109] who in some respects has
done full justice to his genius and political virtue, has, however
(partly, it can hardly be doubted, from regarding himself as a follower
of his great rival, Fox), contrasted his capacity as a War-minister with
that of his father, drawing a comparison on this point very
disadvantageous to the son. We need not stop to examine how far the
praises which he bestows on Lord Chatham's talents as a planner of
military operations are deserved; but it may very fairly be contended
that the disparaging views of Pitt's military policy which he has
advanced are founded solely on what is in this as well as in many other
instances a most delusive criterion, success. It is true,
unquestionably, that in the campaigns of 1793-4-5 against the French
revolutionists, while he took upon this country the entire burden of the
naval war, on land he contented himself with playing a secondary part,
and employing a comparatively small force (which, however, doubled that
which his father had sent to Minden),[110] for the success of the
military operations trusting chiefly to the far stronger Austrian and
Prussian divisions, under the command of Prince Coburg and the Duke of
Brunswick, to which the British regiments were but auxiliaries. It is
true, also, that the result of their operations was unfortunate, and
that the German generals proved wholly unable to contend with the fiery
and more skilful impetuosity of Jourdan and Pichégru. But the question
is not whether Pitt's confidence in the prowess of his allies was
misplaced, but whether he had not abundant reason to justify him in
entertaining it. And, to judge fairly on this point, we must recollect
the reputation which for the last forty years the Austrian and Prussian
armies had enjoyed. The result of the seven years' war had established
the renown of the Prussians, and the Duke of Brunswick was understood to
be a favorite pupil of the Great Frederic. The same war had shown that
the Austrians were not very unequal to the Prussians; while the
reputation of the French troops had fallen to the lowest ebb, the most
memorable event in their annals during the same war being the rout of
Rosbach, when 60,000 of them fled before Frederic and 22,000. At the
breaking out of the Revolution, it might be said that De Bouille was the
only French general of the slightest reputation, and since the sad
journey to Varennes he had been an exile from his country. And, though
again in 1803 Pitt once more trusted for success on land to Continental
alliances, not only does he deserve admiration for the diplomatic talent
with which he united Austria, Prussia, and Russia against France, but it
can hardly be doubted that confederacy would have been triumphant, had
not the incompetent vanity of Alexander ruined all its prospects by his
rash disregard at Austerlitz of the experienced warnings of his own
staff.[111]
The new form of government which he established for India, and to which
allusion has been made, has lost the greater part of its importance in
the eyes of the present generation, from the more-recent abolition of
the political authority of the East India Company, though of some of the
principles which he avowed he had taken for his guides it is worth while
to preserve the record; with such clearness, as well as statesman-like
wisdom, do they affirm the objects which every one should keep in view
who applies himself to legislation for distant dependencies where the
privileges and interests of foreign fellow-subjects are to be regarded
with as jealous a solicitude as those of our own countrymen. These
objects may be briefly described as being the reconciling the vested and
chartered interests of the Company with the legitimate authority of the
King's government; for, though Pitt admitted that "state necessity"
might occasionally be allowed as a valid reason for the abrogation of a
charter, he affirmed that nothing short of such absolute necessity could
excuse such a measure, and he relied on the previous history of the
Company to prove the fallacy of an observation that had sometimes been
made, that commercial companies could not govern empires. There were
three interests to be considered: that of the native Indians, that of
the Company, and that of this country; and the problem to be solved was,
"how to do the most good to India and to the East India Company with the
least injury to our constitution." Some of his remarks contained
unavoidable allusions to Fox's bill of the previous year, since some of
the provisions of his bill were entirely opposite to those which Fox had
framed, the most material point of difference being the character of the
Board of Control which he proposed to establish. Fox, as has been seen,
had proposed to make the commissioners to be appointed under his bill
irremovable for several years, whatever changes might take place in the
home government; an arrangement which the opposers of the bill suspected
of being designed to prevent any change in the home government from
taking place. Pitt, on the other hand, laid down as one of his leading
principles that "the board could not be permanent, that it must be
subordinate to the administration of the day, and that permanency would
be in itself a deviation from the principles of the constitution, and
would involve the board in contradictions to the executive government
that could not fail to be attended with great public inconvenience. An
institution to control the government of India must be either totally
independent of the government of this country or subordinate to it."
"The board was to consist of none but privy councillors," and instead of
the vast amount of patronage which was to have been created by the bill
of 1783, this board was "to create no increase of officers nor to impose
any new burdens." ... "The first and leading ideas would be, to limit
the subsisting patronage;" ... and so little was Pitt covetous to
engross that which did and must continue to subsist, that he left even
"the officers of the government of Bengal to the nomination of the Court
of Directors, subject only to the negative of the crown; and the Court
of Directors was also to have the nomination of the officers of all the
subordinate governments, except only of the commander-in-chief, who, for
various reasons, must remain to be appointed by the crown." Another very
important part of the arrangement was, that "gradation and succession
were to be the general rule of promotion," a regulation which of itself
would be "a forcible check upon patronage, and tend greatly to its
reduction." The governor of Bengal was to be the governor-general of the
whole country, the governors of Madras and Bombay being subordinate to
him; and each governor was to be assisted by a council of three members,
of whom the commander of the forces was to be one.
The spirit in which a law or a government is administered is commonly of
greater practical importance than the words in which the regulation or
the system is framed or defined; and Pitt, therefore, concluded his
speech by laying down a few "clear and simple principles as those from
which alone a good government could arise. The first and principal
object would be to take care to prevent the government from being
ambitious and bent on conquest. Commerce was our object, and, with a
view to its extension, a pacific system should prevail, and a system of
defence and conciliation. The government there ought, therefore, in an
especial manner, to avoid wars, or entering into alliances likely to
create wars." It was not to forget "to pay a due regard to self-defence,
or to guard against sudden hostilities from neighboring powers, and,
whenever there was reason to apprehend attack, to be in a state of
preparation. This was indispensably necessary; but whenever such
circumstances occurred, the executive government in India was not to
content itself with acting there as the circumstances of the case might
require; it was also to send immediate advice home of what had happened,
of what measures had been taken in consequence, and what farther
measures were intended to be pursued; and a tribunal was to be
established to take cognizance of such matters." The system of taking
presents from the natives was to be absolutely prohibited, a regulation
which he hoped would "tend effectually to check private corruption;"
and, lastly, it was proposed to establish a court of criminal judicature
for the trial in England of certain classes of delinquents after their
return from India. The Judges of the court were to be men of the highest
character; they were to be chosen by ballot, some being taken from the
bench of judges, some from each House of Parliament. And they were "not
to be tied down to strict rules of evidence, but to be upon their oaths
to give their judgments conscientiously, and to pronounce such judgment
as the common law would warrant." Such a tribunal he admitted to be an
innovation; but, "unless some new process were instituted, offences
shocking to humanity, opposite to justice, and contrary to every
principle of religion and morality, must continue to prevail, unchecked,
uncontrolled, and unrestrained, and the necessity of the case outweighed
the risk and the hazard of the innovation."
These were the general outlines of the constitution which in 1784 the
Parliament established for India, and the skill with which it was
adapted to the very peculiar character of the settlements to be governed
is sufficiently proved by the fact that it was maintained with very
little alteration equally by Whig and Tory administrations for
three-quarters of a century, till the great convulsion of the Mutiny
compelled an entire alteration in the system, and the abolition of the
governing powers of the Company, as we shall have occasion to relate in
a subsequent chapter. The principles which Pitt had laid down as the
guiding maxims for the governors; the avoidance of ambitious views of
conquest, the preservation of peace, and the limitation of the aims of
the government to the encouragement and extension of commerce, were not
equally adhered to. Undoubtedly, in some instances, the wars in which,
even during Pitt's too short lifetime, the Indian government was
engaged, came under his description of wars which were justifiable on
the ground of self-defence--wars undertaken for the preservation of what
had been previously won or purchased, rather than for the acquisition of
new territories at the expense of chiefs who had given us no
provocation. But for others, though professedly undertaken with a view
only of anticipating hostile intentions, the development of which might
possibly be reserved for a distant future, it is not easy to find a
similar justification; and it may be feared that in more than one case
governors-general, conscious of great abilities, have been too much
inclined to adopt the pernicious maxim of Louis XIV., that the
aggrandizement and extension of his dominions is the noblest object
which a ruler of nations can have in view. Yet, though unable on
strictly moral grounds to justify all the warlike enterprises which make
up so large a part of our subsequent Indian history, it is impossible,
probably, for even the most rigid moralist to avoid some feelings of
national pride in the genius of our countrymen, who in the short space
of a single century have built up an empire of a magnitude unequalled
even by the Caesars, and have governed and still are governing it in so
wise and beneficent a spirit, and with such a display of administrative
capacity, that our rule is recognized as a blessing by the great
majority of the nations themselves, as a protection from ceaseless
intestine war, from rapine, and that worst of tyrannies, anarchy, which
was their normal condition before Clive established our supremacy at
Plassy, and into which they would surely and speedily fall back, if our
controlling authority were to be withdrawn.
India was not the only British settlement for which the growth of our
empire compelled Pitt to devise a constitution. The year which saw his
birth had also seen the conquest of Canada from the French; and in 1774
a system of government for the new province had been established which
it is sufficient here to describe as one, which differed but little from
a pure despotism, the administration being vested in a governor and
Legislative Council, every member of which was to be nominated by the
crown. But the working of this act had from the first proved very
unsatisfactory, and had become more so as the population increased by
the influx of fresh settlers from Great Britain, and also from the
United States, here many of those who in the recent civil war had
adhered the connection with the mother country had been exposed to
constant malice and ill-treatment, and had preferred crossing the border
and obtaining lands in Canada to returning to England. Pitt recognized
the evil, and undertook to remedy it and in 1791 he introduced a bill to
establish a constitution for Canada, which a recent historian describes
as "remarkable, as recognizing for the first time the wise and generous
principle of independent colonial institutions, which has since been
fully developed in every dependency of the British crown capable of
local self-government."[112] One peculiar difficulty in framing such a
constitution arose from the circumstance of the old French colonists,
who greatly outnumbered the settlers of British blood, being attached to
the Roman Catholic religion; while the British settlers were nearly, or
perhaps all, Protestant, though of different denominations. The
difficulty was, indeed, lessened by the circumstance that the French
dwelt in Quebec and the district between that city and the mouth of the
St. Lawrence, and that the English had for the most part betaken
themselves to the more inland region. And this local separation of the
two races the minister now took for his guide in the arrangement which
he devised. The most important feature in it was the division of the
province into two parts, as Upper and Lower Canada, and the
establishment of a distinct local Legislature for each division, a House
of Assembly being created in each, and a Council, so as, in Pitt's
words, "to give both divisions the full advantages of the British
constitution." The Assemblies were to have the power of taxation (so
that there was no room left for such perverse legislation by a British
Parliament as had lately cost its sovereign the United States). The act
of _habeas corpus_ was extended to the province (a privilege which no
one of French blood had ever enjoyed before); the tenure of land was to
be the socage[113] tenure so long and happily established in England.
Complete religious toleration was established, and a certain proportion
of land was allotted in Upper Canada, as a provision for a Protestant
clergy, and the foundation of an ecclesiastical establishment. So great
was Pitt's desire to complete the resemblance between the colony and
Great Britain, that he even contemplated the creation of an aristocracy,
by the introduction of a provision enabling the King to grant hereditary
colonial titles, the possession of which should include hereditary seats
in the provincial Council. The two latter clauses were opposed by Fox,
and the latter of them, though sanctioned by Parliament, was never
carried out in practice. But Fox, bitter as he was at this time in his
general opposition to the government, agreed cordially in the general
principles of the bill, avowing his conviction that "the only method of
retaining distant colonies with advantage is to enable them to govern
themselves," so that each party in the British Parliament is entitled to
a share of the credit for this pattern of all subsequent colonial
constitutions--Pitt for the original genius for organization which his
contrivance of all the complicated details of the measure displayed, and
Fox for his frank adoption of the general principle inculcated by his
rival, even while differing as to some of the minor details of the
measure. During these years the country was increasing in prosperity,
and the minister was daily rising in credit; more powerful and more
popular than the most successful or the most brilliant of his
predecessors. But during these same years two great constitutional
difficulties had arisen, one of which, indeed, the deep sense which both
parties felt of the danger of investigating it shelved almost as soon as
it was seen; but the other of which, besides the importance which it
derived from the degree in which it involved the principle of the
supreme authority of Parliament, and brought under discussion even that
which regulates the succession to the crown, imperilled the existence of
the ministry, and threatened a total change in both the domestic and
foreign policy of the nation.