THE PEACE WITH AMERICA
Since the accession of our most gracious sovereign to the throne,
we have seen a system of government, which may well be called a
reign of experiments.--JUNIUS, Letter to the Duke of Grafton, 8th
July 1769.
James I was contemptible, but he did not lose an America.
His eldest grandson sold us, his younger lost us--but we
kept ourselves. Now we have run to meet the ruin--and it is
coming.--HORACE WALPOLE, 27th November 1781.
In the autumn of the year 1781 occurred a series of events which
brought Pitt for a time into open opposition to the King. As we have
seen, he had not hesitated to invite George III to enter the path of
Economical Reform which was peculiarly odious to him. But now the
divergence of their convictions seemed hopeless. For if Pitt inherited
the firmness of the Pitts and Grenvilles, George III summed up in his
person the pertinacity characteristic of the Guelfs and the Stuarts.
The gift of firmness, the blending of which with foresight and
intelligence produces the greatest of characters, was united in George
III with narrowness of vision, absorption in the claims of self, and a
pedantic clinging to the old and traditional. Coming of a tough stock,
and being admittedly slow and backward, he needed an exceptionally good
education in order to give him width of outlook and some acquaintance
with the lessons of history. But unfortunately his training was of the
most superficial character. Lord Waldegrave, his governor, found him
at the age of fourteen “uncommonly full of prejudices, contracted in
the nursery, and improved by bedchamber women and pages of the back
stairs.”[109] From these cramping influences he was never to shake
himself free. The death of his father, Frederick, Prince of Wales, in
1751, left him under the influence of his mother, an ambitious and
intriguing woman, who instilled into him the desire to govern as well
as reign. That advice accorded with the leanings of his nature, which,
though torpid, was yet masterful.
As will appear in the sequel, George III possessed characteristics
which made him a formidable opponent. His lack of mental endowments
was partly made up by his insight into character, and still more by
his determined will. If he was dull, he was dogged--a quality dear to
the Britons of that age. His private virtues, his homely good sense, a
bearing that was generally genial, and a courage which never quailed,
made him in many ways a pattern king for a plain people in ordinary
times.
Unhappily for him and his people, the times were extraordinary. Like
his contemporary, Louis XVI of France, he needed an intellectual
equipment wider than that which goes to make a model country squire.
In a period remarkable beyond all others for the infiltration of new
ideas, neither of these unfortunate monarchs had the least skill
in reading the signs of the times. But, while the royal hunter of
Versailles was so conscious of his defects as frequently to lean too
much on advisers and therefore waver, his equally Boeotian brother
of Windsor had an absolute belief in his prognostications (save
sometimes on foreign affairs) and scorned to change his mind. This last
peculiarity appears in a letter which he wrote to Pitt on 2nd March
1797. After chiding his Prime Minister for complying too much with the
Opposition, he continues:
My nature is quite different. I never assent till I am convinced
what is proposed is right, and then I keep [_sic_]; then I never
allow that to be destroyed by afterthoughts, which on all subjects
tend to weaken, never to strengthen, the original proposal.[110]
This is doubtless sound advice, provided that the first decision
emanates from a statesmanlike brain. How ruinous the results can be if
that resolve be the outcome of a narrow, proud, and self-complacent
understanding, the fortunes of the British Empire in the years 1774–83
may testify. Those who love to dwell on the “might-have-beens” of
history, may imagine what would have happened if the mild and wavering
King of France had ruled Great Britain, and if our pertinacious
sovereign had been in the place of the hapless Bourbon whose
vacillations marred everything in the memorable spring of 1789.
In certain matters George III showed great ability. If he was not a
statesman, he was a skilled intriguer. Shelburne, himself no tyro
in that art, rated the King’s powers high, stating that “by the
familiarity of his intercourse he obtained your confidence, procured
from you your opinion of different public characters, and then availed
himself of this knowledge to sow dissension.”[111] Further, the
skill and pertinacity with which he pulled the wires at elections is
astonishing. No British monarch has equalled him in his knowledge of
the means by which classes and individuals could be “got at.” Some of
his letters on these subjects, especially that on the need of making
up for the “bad votes” cast for Fox in the famous Westminster Election
of 1784, tempt one to think that George III missed his vocation, which
should have been that of electioneering agent of the Tory party.
In truth he almost succeeded in making Windsor and St. James’s the
headquarters of that faction.[112]
Despite his private virtues, he rarely attached men to him by the ties
of affection and devotion--the mark of a narrow and selfish nature.
His relations to his sons were of the coolest; and all his Ministers,
except, perhaps, Addington, left him on terms that bordered on dislike
if not hostility. The signs of the royal displeasure (as Junius justly
observed to the Duke of Grafton) were generally in proportion to the
abilities and integrity of the Minister. This singular conduct may be
referred to the profound egotism of the King which led him to view
politics solely from his own standpoint, to treat government as the
art of manipulating men by means of titles, places, and money,[113]
and to regard his Ministers as confidential clerks, trustworthy only
when they distrusted one another. The union of the Machiavellian
traits with signal virtue and piety in private life is a riddle that
can be explained only by his narrow outlook, which regarded all means
as justifiable for the “right cause,” and believed all opponents to
be wicked or contemptible. In fact, the narrowing lens of his vision
alike stunted and distorted all opponents until they appeared an
indistinguishable mass. A curious instance of facility in jumbling
together even irreconcilable opposites appeared in his remark to Lord
Malmesbury in 1793 that the _Illuminés_ (the Jacobins of Germany) “were
a sect invented by the Jesuits to overthrow all governments and all
order.”[114] Such was the mental equipment of the monarch on whom now
rested the fate of the Empire.
On Sunday, 25th November 1781, news arrived in London which sealed
the doom of Lord North’s Ministry. Cornwallis, with rather less
than seven thousand men, had surrendered to the Franco-American
forces at Yorktown. The blow was not heavy enough to daunt a really
united kingdom. On the Britain of that year, weary of the struggle,
and doubtful alike of its justice and its utility, the effect was
decisive. Lord North, on hearing the news from his colleague, Lord
George Germain, received it “as he would have taken a bullet through
his breast.” He threw up his arms and paced up and down the room,
exclaimed wildly: “Oh, God! it is all over.” This, if we may believe
Wraxall,[115] was the ejaculation of the man who latterly had been
the unwilling tool of his sovereign in the coercion of the American
colonists.
While Lord North, the Parliament, and the nation were desirous of
ending the war, the King still held to his oft expressed opinion,
that it would be total ruin for Great Britain to give way in the
struggle, seeing that a great Power which begins to “moulder” must be
annihilated.[116] He therefore kept North to his post, and allowed the
King’s speech for the forthcoming autumn session to be only slightly
altered; the crucial sentence ran as follows:
No endeavours have been wanting on my part to extinguish that
spirit of rebellion which our enemies have found means to foment
and maintain in the colonies, & to restore to my deluded subjects
in America that happy and prosperous condition which they
formerly derived from a due obedience to the laws; but the late
misfortune in that quarter calls loudly for your firm concurrence
and assistance to frustrate the designs of our enemies, equally
prejudicial to the real interests of America and to those of Great
Britain.
The gauntlet thus defiantly flung down was taken up with spirit by Fox
and Burke, who even ventured to threaten with impeachment the Secretary
for the Colonies, Germain, and the First Lord of the Admiralty, the
Earl of Sandwich. This was unfair. They were little more than puppets
moved by the King; and he was responsible ultimately for the bad
condition of the army and navy, and was sole cause for the continuance
of the war. No one imagined (so Romilly wrote on 4th December 1781)
that the war would go on after the disaster at Yorktown.[117]
In the ensuing debates on the King’s speech, Pitt made an effective
attack on Ministers, upbraiding them with the inconsistency of their
statements and the obscurity in which they shrouded their plans. For
himself, with his profound conviction as to the need of promptly
terminating the war, he adjured them to state clearly what line of
conduct they meant to pursue. This last challenge went home because
the language of Ministers was openly inconsistent, that of the Lord
Advocate, Dundas, being hardly different from the views held by the
Opposition. In fact it was now said that there were three parties on
the Government benches--the King’s, Lord North’s, and that of Dundas,
shading off from war _à outrance_ to something like conciliation with
America.
Nevertheless, the House (as Fox wrote in his Journal) was “tenacious
of places and pensions,” and at first supported the Government by
substantial majorities; but a typical placeman like Selwyn wrote early
in December that if the measures and conduct of the Ministry were not
changed, they were completely undone. Nervousness about his sinecure
made the wit a true prophet. Not only was the majority breaking into
groups, but the Opposition was acting well together. This again was a
result of the Yorktown disaster. Only a few days previously, Shelburne,
the leader of the Chathamites, had in vain proposed to the official
chief of the Whigs, Rockingham, that they should unite their followers,
so that there should be but two parties, “that of the Crown and that of
the people.”
Now, however, as victory came in sight, the Opposition closed its
ranks, while the once serried phalanx of placemen opposite began to
split up from sheer panic. During this interesting time Pitt made
another speech, which won high encomiums from Horace Walpole for its
“amazing logical abilities.” Equally notable was the alertness which
fastened on a slight incident. In the midst of his tirade against the
inconsistencies of Ministers, North and Germain began to whisper
together, while that wary little placeman, Welbore Ellis, who was
between them, bent down his head to listen. At once Pitt exclaimed: “I
will wait until the unanimity is a little better restored. I will wait
until the Nestor of the Treasury has reconciled the difference between
the Agamemnon and the Achilles of the American War.”[118]
Little by little Lord North’s majority dwindled away. It sank to a
single vote on 22nd February 1782, when General Conway brought forward
a motion for the termination of the war. On the renewal of the motion
five days later, the House, amidst a scene of great excitement,
declared against North by 234 votes to 215. The Ministry, under
pressure from the King, held on for a few days, and, on 8th March, even
defeated a vote of censure by a majority of ten.
Pitt, who was one of the tellers for the minority, had startled
the House, in the course of a fighting speech, by the following
notable words: “For myself, I could not expect to form part of a new
administration; but, were my doing so more within my reach, I would
never accept a subordinate situation.” On the authority of Admiral
Keppel, his neighbour in the House, he is said to have repented
immediately of this declaration, and to have wished to rise and
explain or mitigate it. If so, the feeling must surely have been only
momentary. Pitt, as we have seen, was essentially methodical. His
feelings, his words, even his lightest jests, were always completely
under control. It is therefore impossible to regard so important a
statement as due to the whim of the moment, or to the exaggeration
of which a nervous or unskilful speaker is often guilty. Still less
can we believe that he seriously intended to explain away his words.
So weak an action would have been wholly repugnant to another of his
characteristics--pride. The declaration was probably the outcome of
his unwavering self-confidence and of a belief that any Ministry which
could be formed must be short lived.
If so, his conduct was well suited to bring him to the front at a time
more opportune than the present. It was inconceivable that a monarch so
masterful and skilled in intrigue as George III should long submit to
be controlled by the now victorious Whig families, whose overthrow had
been his chief aim. To foment the schisms in their ranks, and shelve
them at the first possible time was an alternative far preferable to
that of retiring to Hanover--a suggestion which he once more threw out
to Lord North. When the struggle between Crown and Commons had come to
its second phase, it would be time for a young member to take a leading
place.
A crisis became imminent forthwith, on the House passing a declaration
that it would “consider as enemies to His Majesty and to this country
all who should advise or by any means attempt the further prosecution
of offensive war on the continent of America.” By this Act the Commons
reasserted their undoubted right of controlling the prerogative of the
Crown even in the question of peace or war.[119] The declaration was a
preliminary to impeachment of Ministers in case they still persisted in
defying the House.
It also led the King, on 11th March, to send his champion, the
Chancellor, Lord Thurlow, to consult with Lord Rockingham. The leader
of the official Whigs knew that he had the game in his hands, and
sought to dictate the conditions on which alone he would form an
administration. They were as follows: “American Independence; no Veto;
Establishment Bill; great parts of Contractors Bill; Custom House and
Excise, etc., Bill; Peace in general, if possible; Economy in every
branch.”[120] The King demurred to these terms, and after eight days
the overture lapsed. Meanwhile Lord North’s position in the House was
becoming intolerable, and on 20th March he announced the resignation of
his Ministry. On going to take leave of the King, he was greeted by the
following characteristic words: “Remember, my Lord, that it is you who
desert me, not I you.”
Most sovereigns would now have accepted defeat. But George III was
no less dogged of will than ingenious in finding a way of escape. He
had one chance left. Beside the official Whig families, headed by
Rockingham, there were the Chathamites, led by Shelburne, who occupied
an intermediate position not easy to define. Like most political
groups which profess to be above party, they had succeeded in forming
another party. They differed from the Whigs in not desiring to see the
royal prerogative shorn of power, as it had been under the first two
Georges to the advantage of the old governing families. In foreign
and colonial affairs they aimed at the triumph of a truly national
policy, which, while furthering the cause of freedom, also made for
the greatness of the Empire. Even amidst his protests against the
continuance of the war, Shelburne raised his voice, as Chatham had
done, against a complete severance of the tie uniting the colonies to
the motherland.[121] These opinions seem to us now unpractical in view
of the existing state of things. Certainly, if we may judge by the
speeches of William Pitt, he had overshot the limits of the Chathamite
traditions which his chief still observed.
Nevertheless, the Chathamites, albeit a somewhat _doctrinaire_
group, indeed scarcely a party, might now be utilized as a buffer
between the throne and the Whig magnates. Accordingly, the King,
during an interview with Shelburne, in which he expressed his dislike
of Rockingham, proposed that Shelburne should form a Cabinet with
Rockingham as head, Shelburne being the intermediary between the
King and the Prime Minister. As Shelburne knew that he could not
stand without the support of the Whigs, the latter had their way at
nearly all points. The King most reluctantly consented not to veto
American Independence--a matter on which Rockingham stood firm. In
smaller and personal matters, on which George III set much store, he
partly succeeded. He refused to see Rockingham until the latter was
Prime Minister; he insisted on keeping his factotum, Lord Thurlow,
as Chancellor, and he fought hard to keep the gentlemen of the royal
household unchanged; but, as he wrote to Lord North, “the number I have
saved is incredibly few.” Among them was Lord Montagu, the governor
of the King’s son, whom Horace Walpole dubbed the King’s spy on the
Prince of Wales, and the only man in whom he (George III) had any
confidence. The same sharp critic noted that the King now used, with
some success, the only artifice in which he had ever succeeded, that
of sowing discord. He had openly shown that Shelburne and Thurlow were
his men in the Cabinet; and Fox, who became Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs, said that the new Cabinet belonged partly to the King
and partly to the people. In the very limited sense in which the Whigs
were a popular party (for the official Whigs sought the support of the
people mainly in order to browbeat the King), the remark was correct.
However that may be, the King had certainly contrived largely to
nullify the victory of the Whigs by fomenting discords in the Cabinet.
So astute an intriguer as Shelburne was certain to chafe at the
ascendancy of Rockingham; and the King’s tactics, while humiliating the
Prime Minister, enabled Shelburne secretly to arrange matters according
to the royal behests. Shelburne held the secretaryship for Home
Affairs, which then carried with it a supervision of the executive at
Dublin Castle. He also brought in Dunning (now created Lord Ashburton
without the knowledge of Rockingham) as Chancellor of the Duchy of
Lancaster; and it has been ascertained that he sought to include Pitt
in the Cabinet with some high office. Which office he was to have is
not clear; but Lady Chatham wrote to Shelburne on 28th March in terms
which implied an office of Cabinet rank. Here, however, Rockingham
protested with success; and as a result only the Vice-Treasurership of
Ireland was offered him, an office which by his previous declaration he
had bound himself to refuse.[122] His exclusion from the Cabinet by the
influence of the official Whigs served to alienate him from that party,
and brought him more in contact with men who were beginning to figure
as supporters of the royal prerogative.
As a private member, Pitt gave his support to the new Ministry; and
on 29th April he made a brief but telling appeal for unanimity,
“from which the salvation of the nation could alone be hoped for.”
Certainly the Ministry needed the help of all patriots. The prestige
of Britain was at the lowest ebb. Beaten alike in the New World and
in the Mediterranean, where Minorca had recently been recovered by
the Spaniards, she seemed at the end of her resources. Ireland was
in a state of veiled rebellion. The Parliament at Dublin unanimously
demanded the repeal of Poynings Act and that of the year 1720, which
assured its dependence on the British Government; and some 100,000
Volunteers were ready to take the field to make good the claim. In
vain did the new Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Portland, seek to gain
time. Grattan, whom the Earl of Mornington styled “the most upright
and temperate demagogue that ever appeared in any country,” had
Ireland at his back. He refused to wait; and in the month of May the
British Parliament gave effect to his demands by unanimously conceding
legislative independence to the Dublin Parliament.[123] Pitt did not
speak on the subject, but he probably agreed with the change, which in
the circumstances was inevitable. The news aroused in Ireland a storm
of enthusiasm, and the Dublin Parliament voted the sum of £100,000 for
raising 20,000 seamen. For the present, then, the Irish question was
shelved, but at the cost of many difficulties in the future.
About the same time, the cloud which had hung so ominously over
Britain’s navy cleared away. News arrived of the victory which Rodney
gained over the French fleet under Count de Grasse near Dominica
on 12th April 1782,[124] which saved the West Indian colonies and
restored Britain’s supremacy on the ocean. Equally fortunate was
Eliott’s repulse of a determined attack on Gibraltar by the French and
Spaniards, which brought about the relief of the garrison and ensured
the total failure of the prolonged and desperate efforts of France and
Spain to seize the key of the Mediterranean.
The spirit of the nation rose with these successes; and Shelburne
brought forward a Bill for arming the people. The motion came to
little, probably because of the fear which the Lord George Gordon riots
had aroused;[125] but, as the sequel will show, it took effect in some
quarters and provided the basis for the far more important Volunteer
Movement of the Great French War.
It is remarkable, as showing the strong bent of Pitt’s nature towards
civil affairs, that he spoke, not on these topics, but solely on the
cause of Parliamentary Reform. His insistence on this topic at a time
of national peril can be paralleled by the action of another statesman
a century later; and it is significant that, when Mr. Gladstone
introduced his Franchise Bill in 1884, he was warmly reproached by
Lord Randolph Churchill for bringing forward this topic amidst the
conflicts or complications in which we were involved in Egypt, the
Sudan, Afghanistan, and South Africa. But the Liberal leader claimed
that by conferring the franchise on some two million of citizens, the
people would be arrayed “in one solid compacted mass around the ancient
throne which it has loved so well and round a constitution now to be
more than ever powerful and more than ever free.” The plea has been
justified by events; and we can now gauge at its true value the politic
daring of the two statesmen who sought to meet dangers from without by
strengthening the fabric of the Empire at its base.
In the year 1782 the gravity of the crisis was far greater than that of
the year 1884; for the storms were beating on an edifice dangerously
narrow at the ground. Realizing that the subject of the representation
was too complicated to be handled except after an official
investigation, Pitt for the present proposed merely the formation of a
Committee of Inquiry which should report on the best means of carrying
out “a moderate and substantial reform.” His proposals, and still more
the fame of his eloquence, aroused great interest; so that on the
morning of 7th May a crowd endeavoured to gain access to Westminster
Hall. Many of the “news-writers” were excluded, with results harmful to
the printed reports of the speech.[126] Pitt prefaced his remarks by
acknowledging most thankfully that they had now to do with a Ministry
which desired such a measure, and not with one that “laboured to
exert the corrupt influence of the Crown in support of an inadequate
representation of the people.” He assumed it as proven that the House
of Commons had received an improper and dangerous bias, which impaired
the constitution.
That beautiful frame of government which has made us the envy and
admiration of mankind, in which the people are entitled to hold so
distinguished a share, is so far dwindled, and has so far departed
from its original purity, as that the representatives have ceased,
in a great degree, to be connected with the people. It is of the
essence of the constitution that the people should have a share in
the government by the means of representation; and its excellence
and permanency is calculated to consist in this representation,
having been designed to be equal, easy, practicable, and complete.
When it ceases to be so; when the representative ceases to have
connection with the constituent, and is either dependent on
the Crown or the aristocracy, there is a defect in the frame
of representation, and it is not innovation but recovery of
constitution, to repair it.
He then pointed out some of the worst anomalies of the existing system.
There were some boroughs wholly controlled, or absolutely possessed,
by the Treasury. In others its influence was contested solely by a
great landowner, but never by the inhabitants in their own right. Some
few boroughs [Old Sarum is the classical instance] had only one or two
voters. Other towns,
in the lofty possession of English freedom, claim to themselves
the right to bring their votes to market. They have no other
market, no other property, and no other stake in the country, than
the property and price which they procure for their votes. Such
boroughs are the most dangerous of all. So far from consulting the
interests of their country in the choice which they make, they hold
out their borough to the best purchaser.... It is a fact pretty
well known that the Nabob of Arcot had no less than seven or eight
members in that House. May not a foreign State in enmity with this
country, by means of these boroughs, procure a party of men to act
for them under the mask and character of members of that House?
Pitt then warned the Commons that the forces of corruption might
soon be found to be as strong as ever. Though they had grown with
our growth, they had not decayed with our decay. For years they had
maintained in power a Ministry which had worked ruin to the Empire.
Finally, he referred to the opinion of his father on this great subject
and besought members to satisfy the longings now widely expressed
throughout the kingdom, which must carry the matter to a triumphant
issue. His speech was loudly cheered. The able orations of Fox and
Sheridan also seemed to carry the House with them; but, as in former
cases, the undercurrent of self-interest worked potently against
Reform, and ensured the rejection of Pitt’s proposal by 161 votes to
141. The country gentlemen were alarmed at his motion, the opposition
of Pitt’s relative, Thomas Pitt, being especially strong.
Probably it was a tactical mistake for Pitt, a private member, to bring
forward such a motion. If he had waited until the Ministry had so far
prevailed over its external difficulties and internal dissensions as
to be able to take up the question, his support might have ensured the
triumph of the Government proposals. As it was, the misgivings of the
cautious, the vested interests of nominee members, the embarrassments
of the Ministry, and the opposition of the old Whig families, doomed
to failure his second effort in this direction. Not for the space of
forty-eight years was so favourable an opportunity to recur; and then
it was a new Industrial England which burst through the trammels of an
old-world representation.
Undaunted by this rebuff, he spoke on 17th May in favour of the motion
of a veteran reformer, Alderman Sawbridge, for shortening the duration
of Parliaments. Only one of his arguments has come down to us, namely
his contention that the Septennial Act placed undue influence in the
hands of Ministers, as appeared from the strenuous opposition which the
enemies of political purity had always offered to the repeal of that
measure. Fox spoke for the motion; but Burke, who had been persuaded
to absent himself from the earlier debate, now let loose the vials of
his wrath against a Reform of Parliament in whatever shape it came.
Sheridan describes him as attacking Pitt “in a scream of passion,” with
the assertion that Parliament was just what it ought to be, and that
all change would be fatal to the welfare of the nation.
Burke’s diatribe prepares us for the part which he played during the
French Revolution. The man who discerned perfection in a Parliamentary
system, in which Scotland had only 4,000 voters and 45 members,
while 19 Cornish villages returned 38 members; in which the Duke of
Norfolk could put in 11 members, and the Nabob of Arcot 7 or 8, while
Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, and Birmingham remained politically
dumb--such a man might well regard the French revolutionists as “the
ablest architects of ruin” that the world had ever seen. His tirade
against short Parliaments carried the House with him, the motion being
rejected by a majority of 88.
It is interesting to find Pitt taking part at a meeting of friends
of Reform at the Thatched House Tavern (18th May 1782), which seems
to have been held under the auspices of Major Cartwright’s “Society
for Promoting Constitutional Information.” The Duke of Richmond, Lord
Mahon, Sir Cecil Wray, and the Lord Mayor were present. A motion was
passed urging the need of petitioning Parliament for “a substantial
reformation of the Commons House of Parliament”; and the minutes of
the meeting were in Pitt’s handwriting. He was then in correspondence
with John Frost, an attorney of Percy Street, who was secretary for
the Middlesex Reform Committee; and in the second letter the young
statesman refers to some honour which that committee proposed to confer
on him for his efforts on their behalf. These facts and Pitt’s letters
to Frost were produced by Erskine during his defence of Frost against
a charge of sedition early in the Hilary Term 1793.[127] The episode
was highly effective and probably ensured the mitigation of Frost’s
sentence. The whole incident is noteworthy, as it points the contrast
between the earlier and later phases of Pitt’s career which was to be
produced by the French Revolution.
Pitt did not speak during the debates on two other measures which alone
of all the reformers’ programme passed through Parliament in 1782.
They were the Contractors Bill, which, by excluding all contractors
from Parliament and disfranchising all revenue officers, dealt a blow
at some forms of political corruption.[128] By the other Act several
sinecures, with salaries of about £70,000 a year, were swept away.
The King exerted his influence against both measures, his man, Lord
Thurlow, striving by every means to defeat the former of them in the
Lords; while the Economy Bill was shorn of some of its more drastic
clauses by the action of Shelburne and Thurlow in Cabinet Councils.
The difficulty of common action was seen during the discussion of a
Bill for the repression of bribery at elections (19th June). Pitt spoke
in favour of the motion, but, strange to say, Fox opposed it. This was
the first occasion on which they voted in opposite lobbies, though
there had been no friendship or close intercourse between them. The
motion was of course lost.
* * * * *
Their relations were destined quickly to alter, owing to an event
which opened another phase of the long struggle between the King and
the hostile Whig “phalanx.” On 1st July 1782 the Marquis of Rockingham
died. Of small ability, he yet held a conspicuous place in the
affairs of State, owing to his vast landed estates, the strength of
his political and family connections, and to his high character. At
once the King and the “phalanx” girded themselves for the conflict.
On the very next day George III offered the Premiership to the Earl
of Shelburne, now more than ever inclining to the King’s side. With
an openness which did not always characterize him, that Minister
at once referred the proposal to his colleagues, only to have it
rejected by the official Whigs. Four of Rockingham’s most decided
friends in the Cabinet--Fox, the Duke of Richmond, Lord John Cavendish,
and Admiral Keppel--demanded that the Duke of Portland should be
Prime Minister.[129] Such a proposal was doubly objectionable;
first, because the Duke, as then appeared from his conduct at Dublin
Castle, had little insight and no strength of character; secondly,
because the proposal itself was scarcely constitutional; for the
King had, as he still has, the right to select his Prime Minister.
Nevertheless, Shelburne consented to refer the proposal to George III,
who emphatically rejected it. Thereupon Fox and Lord John Cavendish
resigned; Shelburne undertook to form an Administration and offered the
Chancellorship of the Exchequer, vacated by Lord John Cavendish, to
William Pitt. He at once accepted it.
The other chief changes were that Thomas Townshend (soon to become Lord
Sydney) took the Secretaryship of State held by Shelburne, while Fox
was succeeded as Secretary for Foreign Affairs by Lord Grantham, and
the Duke of Portland, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, by Earl Temple. Burke
and Sheridan marked their attachment to the Whigs by resigning their
subordinate offices. It was in face of able, eloquent, and exasperated
men like these that Pitt took up the burden of office, along with the
virtual leadership of the House of Commons, at the age of twenty-three.
The conduct of Fox and his friends in resigning office was hotly
arraigned. A debate on their action in voting a pension of £3,200 a
year to Colonel Barré turned mainly on the larger question (9th July).
Fox, conscious that Barré’s pension was a blot on Ministers who had
posed as champions of economy, retorted fiercely on his critics,
declaring Shelburne and his followers to be heedless alike “of promises
which they had made, of engagements into which they had entered, of
principles which they had maintained, of the system on which they had
set out.... They would abandon fifty principles for the sake of power,
and forget fifty promises when they were no longer requisite to their
ends; ... and he expected to see that, in a very short time, they would
be joined by those men whom that House had precipitated from their
seats.”[130]
Had Fox been satisfied with defending his own resignation on the ground
of disagreement with Shelburne on details of policy, his relations to
the Chathamites might have remained cordial. But the attack on Pitt’s
chief was so violent as to provoke sharp rejoinders. General Conway
defended Shelburne from the charge of apostasy, and stated that it
was he who had convinced George III of the need of recognizing the
independence of the American colonies; also that the differences
between Shelburne and Fox on that point were merely differing shades of
opinion.[131] Pitt expressed his regret at the resignation of Fox, but
attributed it in the main to a dislike of Shelburne rather than of his
policy. For himself, he said, he completely trusted the noble earl, and
if he were called upon to serve under him (his appointment was not yet
confirmed) he would do so cheerfully in any capacity and to the utmost
of his power. The strictures of Fox were further discounted by the fact
that Richmond and Keppel did not resign their seats in the Cabinet.
On reviewing the action of Fox after this lapse of time it seems
impossible to acquit him of the charge of acting with haste and bad
temper. His charges against the sincerity of Shelburne respecting the
details of the negotiation then begun with France and America have been
refuted, or at least minimized, by an eminent authority.[132] Fox must
have known as well as Conway that Shelburne had induced George III
to recognize the independence of the American colonies--a political
service of the highest order; and if on matters of detail he sharply
differed from him, and thought him insincere, meddlesome, and too
friendly to the King, it was his duty to remain in office with his
Whig friends so as to curb those tendencies. It is by no means certain
(as Mr. Lecky asserted) that he would have been always, or generally,
outvoted;[133] and his presence in the Cabinet would have strengthened
his party in the Commons. It may be granted that he believed he was
taking the only straightforward course; but his vehement nature
often led him to unwise conclusions. True, his colleagues nearly
always forgave him; for it was a signal proof of the warmth of his
disposition that his friends loved him even when he offended them; but
they came by degrees to distrust his judgement, and to see that other
gifts than courage, eloquence, and personal charm were needed in a
leader. Certain it is that public opinion condemned his resignation as
hasty, ill-timed, and compromising to the cause of Reform.
His action was especially unfortunate in this last respect. In April he
had written that, if the Rockingham Cabinet could stay in office long
enough to deal “a good stout blow to the influence of the Crown,” it
would not matter if the Ministry broke up. But the blow had not been
dealt; the passing of the Economy Bill and the exclusion of contractors
from Parliament and revenue officers from the franchise had only
scotched the snake of corruption, not killed it. Yet the party which
alone could deal the final blow was now weakened by the action of the
most ardent of reformers. The worst result of all, perhaps, remains to
be noticed. When Fox maliciously taunted Shelburne with being about to
unite with Lord North in order to keep in office, no one could have
imagined that the speaker would soon have recourse to that despicable
manœuvre; but the curse, flung out in heedless wrath, was destined to
come home to roost.
Pitt now came to office by a path which necessitated a sharp divergence
from Fox--a divergence, be it noted, due to party tactics and not
to the inner convictions of the men themselves. After the foregoing
account of the session of 1782--it ended on 11th July--the reader will
be in a position to judge for himself whether up to that time Pitt or
Fox was to blame for a split which seems unnatural and blameworthy.
In the month of August Pitt moved into the “vast awkward house” in
Downing Street which was to be his official residence. Dissensions soon
arose in the Cabinet; and in addition there were the dangers resulting
from the war and the urgent need of concluding peace. Accordingly
Pitt was able to spend but very few days out of town at his beloved
Hayes, even in the heat of summer, still less to go on circuit as
he had intended. The Shelburne Ministry contrived to simplify the
diplomatic situation by offering to recognize the independence of the
United States (27th September). The frankness with which this was
done, at a time when Vergennes, the French Foreign Minister, showed a
keen desire to shut those growing communities out from the valley of
the Mississippi,[134] served somewhat to allay the anti-British fury
kindled by the War. The Americans saw, what had long been discerned at
Westminster, that the Bourbons were using them as pawns in their game
for the overthrow of the British Empire; and their envoys resolved to
break loose from their engagement not to treat separately for a peace
with England. The preliminaries of peace, signed on 30th November,
accorded to the young Commonwealth the Mississippi as its boundary on
the west, and the larger part of the great lakes on the north, together
with fishery rights off Newfoundland. All these terms, including that
of the independence of the States, were provisional, taking effect
whenever peace should be settled with France and Spain.
The negotiations with France and Spain were rendered easier by the
ill-will now existing between the Bourbon Powers and the United
States. The relief of the garrison of Gibraltar by Lord Howe further
disposed them to abate their terms. On the other hand, they knew of
the difficulties of the British Cabinet, and the general desire of the
nation for peace. Matters were therefore in a complicated state at the
end of the year 1782; and we learn from a statement of Shelburne that
during November he refrained from summoning Cabinet Councils in order
to preserve unanimity.[135] Ministers had indeed differed sharply,
firstly, on the question whether Gibraltar should be handed back to
Spain, and secondly, on that of the indemnity. The King and Shelburne
wished to have Porto Rico and West Florida in exchange for Gibraltar;
Grafton preferred Porto Rico and Trinidad; while Richmond, Keppel
(probably also Pitt) objected to the cession of the great fortress
which had been so stoutly held against a three years’ siege.[136]
Such was the state of affairs when, on 5th December, Parliament
reassembled. On the next day Pitt committed a mistake which exposed him
to a reprimand from the King through Shelburne. Fox pressed Ministers
to declare that the acknowledgement of American independence was
unconditional. The senior Minister in the House, Townshend, replied
that that condition of peace would take effect only on the conclusion
of a general peace. Pitt, however, added that “the clear indisputable
meaning of the provisional agreements made with the American
commissioners was the unqualified recognition of their independence”;
and it would form part of the treaty with the belligerent powers.[137]
Here he overshot the mark. That recognition depended on the conclusion
of treaties with France and Spain. The King, therefore, sent him a
rebuke through Shelburne, adding, however, “It is no wonder that so
young a man should have made a slip.”--We cannot regret the occurrence,
for it shows how anxious Pitt was to have that great question settled.
In the ensuing debates Pitt sharply retorted on Burke, who, quoting
from “Hudibras,” had accused Ministers of making the King speak--
As if hypocrisy and nonsense
Had got the advowson of his conscience.
The son of Chatham showed something of his father’s fire, reprobating
the unseemly jeer of the speaker and declaring that he repelled the
further charge of hypocrisy “with scorn and contempt.” A retort
courteous, or humorous, would have been more in place after Burke’s
raillery; but Pitt, though witty in private, rarely used this gift in
the House, probably because he wished to be taken seriously. In this
he succeeded. In all but name he was leader of the House of Commons.
The task of keeping together a majority was extremely difficult; for,
according to Gibbon, the Ministry could command only 140 votes, while
as many as 120 voted with Lord North, 90 with Fox, the rest drifted
about as marketable flotsam. The situation became worse still late in
the year, when rumours began to fly about that Fox and Lord North were
about to join their discordant forces for the overthrow of the Ministry.
In these circumstances the Shelburne Cabinet rendered the greatest
possible service by holding on to office, while they pressed through
the negotiations with France, Spain, and Holland. Ultimately, the
preliminaries of peace were signed on 20th January 1783. They brought
no disgrace on a Power which had latterly been warring against half
the world. The chief loss in the West Indies was Tobago, a small but
wealthy island, in which British merchants had large interests. It
was surrendered to the French, who recovered their former possession,
St. Lucia. On the other hand, they gave back to Britain Dominica,
Grenada, St. Vincent, St. Kitts, Nevis, and Montserrat. The cession of
the islands of Miquelon and St. Pierre enabled France to gain a firmer
footing in the Newfoundland fisheries. In Africa we gave back Senegal
and Goree to France; while her stations in India, conquered by us, were
likewise restored. Spain gained more largely than France. She retained
her recent conquests, West Florida and Minorca, and she acquired East
Florida, while recognizing the reconquest of the Bahamas by England.
The Dutch ceded Negapatam but recovered Trincomalee. These conditions
were ultimately ratified by the Treaty of Versailles (3rd September
1783).
Terms so favourable could not have been secured had not the Court of
Versailles felt the need of peace in order to repair its shattered
finances. It was the shadow of the oncoming eclipse of 1789 which
warned Louis XVI and Vergennes to agree with their adversary while they
were in the way with him. Nevertheless, the Shelburne Ministry deserves
the highest credit for making head against internal difficulties, and
for gaining terms which were far less burdensome than those imposed on
France by the Seven Years’ War.
This is the light in which they are regarded now. In that age, when the
spoils of office rather than patriotism prompted the words and votes
of members, the details of the peace afforded a welcome opportunity
for undermining the Ministry. Already it seemed to be in difficulties.
The waverers inside the Cabinet, or those who were chafed by the
overbearing ways and personal diplomacy of Shelburne, began to leave
the labouring ship. Keppel threw up the Admiralty, the Duke of Richmond
absented himself from the Cabinet Councils, and Grafton and Conway
seemed on the point of retiring.[138] Pitt remained faithful, but urged
the need of strengthening the Ministry by alliance with Fox and his
followers. Shelburne at first inclined to a compact with Lord North’s
party; though both he and Pitt objected strongly to the inclusion of
North himself in the Cabinet. As “the lord in the blue ribbon” had his
party well in hand, it was impossible to bring them in without him. It
remained, then, to seek help from the Foxites. Here the bitter personal
feud between Shelburne and Fox complicated the situation fatally both
for Shelburne, Fox, and Pitt. But before the fight began in Parliament
on the burning topic of the hour, Pitt made an attempt to bring in Fox
(11th February). He acted with the consent of Shelburne and with the
knowledge, and probably the grudging permission, of the King.
Few private interviews have been more important. On it depended the
fortunes of the Ministry, and to some extent, of the Empire. If it
succeeded, the terms of peace were certain to pass through Parliament.
An alliance would also be formed between two political groups which had
almost the same aims and were held apart only by the personal pique
of their leaders. A union of the best elements of the Whigs and the
Chathamites would tend to curb the power of the King, maintain the
honour of the flag, and secure the passage of much-needed reforms.
The defeat, or at least the postponement, of these salutary aims must
necessarily result from persistence in the miserable feud. For the
two men themselves that interview was fraught with grave issues. The
repulse of the natural affinities was certain to doom one of them to an
unnatural alliance or to helpless opposition.
It must have been with a keen sense of the importance of the crisis
that these able men faced one another. The interview was soon over.
Pitt stated to Fox the object of his visit; whereupon the Whig leader
asked whether it was proposed that Lord Shelburne should remain
First Lord of the Treasury. On Pitt answering in the affirmative,
Fox remarked that it was impossible for him to form part of any
Administration of which Lord Shelburne was the head. Pitt at once drew
himself up (so Dundas afterwards declared), and the proud movement of
his head, the significance of which many an opponent was destined to
feel, ended the interview. According to Bishop Tomline, he broke off
the conversation with the words: “I did not come here to betray Lord
Shelburne.” The breach was irreparable.[139]
Three days later, Dundas (soon to be a firm supporter of Pitt) made a
despairing effort to win over Lord North, who coolly repulsed him. On
that same day Fox offered his alliance to the man whom for thirteen
years he had railed at as the instrument of corruption and tyranny.
They agreed
that nothing more was required to be done in reducing the influence
of the Crown by economical reform, and that on parliamentary reform
every man should follow his own opinion. Mr. Fox having urged
that the King should not be suffered to be his own Minister, Lord
North replied: “If you mean there should not be a government by
departments, I agree with you. I think it a very bad system. There
should be one man, or a Cabinet, to govern the whole and direct
every measure. Government by departments was not brought in by me.
I found it so, and had not vigour and resolution to put an end
to it. The King ought to be treated with all sort of respect and
attention, but the appearance of power is all that a King of this
country can have.”[140]
They then began to consider the question of the distribution of
offices, and finally decided to oppose the forthcoming address to the
King expressing thankfulness at the peace.
Thus was formed the famous, or infamous, Coalition of 1783. With the
policy of reducing the governing power of the King, it is impossible
not to feel much sympathy. George III had hitherto governed England
without much let or hindrance, except from Chatham and Rockingham. His
narrowness and obstinacy were the chief causes of the American War;
and we now know that during four years he had kept Lord North to that
work, despite his remonstrances. But nothing could reconcile the new
alliance to the public. A shiver of disgust ran through the nation when
it transpired that Fox had plighted troth with the man whom he had
threatened to impeach; and that impression was never to die away.
Further, it is doubtful whether enthusiasm for Reform was the chief
motive that prompted Fox’s action.[141] As we have seen, he gave up
Economic Reform; and his stipulation respecting Parliamentary Reform
was so half-hearted as to doom that question to failure. How could that
cause thrive when it would have the effect of sending the chiefs of
the future Ministry into opposite lobbies? Fox must have known enough
of Parliament to see that his present conduct hopelessly impaired the
strength of the reformers, in what was at all times an uphill fight. In
truth, the whole incident brings into sharp relief the defects of his
character, which, while rich in enthusiasms, ever lacked balance, and
so frequently led him to a reckless use of most questionable means for
the compassing of ends in themselves desirable.
In this instance his recklessness was to blast his whole career. He
seems not to have considered the general impression certain to be
created by his facile union with a long-loathed opponent. But the
public, always prone to harsh judgements on political inconsistencies,
at once inferred that he joined North, partly in order to be revenged
on Shelburne for some personal slights, but mainly with the view of
snatching at the sweets of office which he had of late so unaccountably
cast aside. His conduct seemed oddly to blend all that was foolish in
wayward boyhood with the cunning of an unscrupulous politician. The
cynical majority argued that such extremes as Fox and North could meet
only under the overmastering pressure of greed; and to idealists or
patriots the Coalition of 1783 seemed to plunge England back into the
old slough of selfishness from which the noble pride of Chatham had
raised her.
The name of Chatham reminds us of the Coalition which in 1757 he
framed with his former opponent, the Duke of Newcastle. The two cases
have indeed been compared; but they have very little in common. Then
the very existence of England was at stake. She was in the midst of a
war which was being grossly mismanaged; and the union of the one able
statesman of the age with the manipulator of patronage, was practically
the only means of avoiding a national disaster. Now, in February 1783,
hostilities were at an end; the terms of peace were arranged, and were
certain to take effect, if the new Coalition allowed it. The action
of the elder Pitt in 1757 was inspired by patriotism and crowned by
deserved triumph. That of Fox and North rested, in part, on more sordid
motives, jeopardized the conclusion of peace, threw the political world
into utter confusion, and ended in disaster.
The fruits of the new Coalition were soon to appear. On Monday 17th
February, the debates opened on the address to the King relative to
the peace. In the Lords the opposition of Keppel and Richmond to their
late colleagues was an ominous sign; but still more so was the combined
attack of Foxites and Northites in the Lower House. North spoke with
something of the restraint which became a man so largely responsible
for the present humiliations. He fastened on the worst parts of the
treaty--the cession of Minorca and the Floridas to Spain, and the
absence of any guarantees for the American Loyalists. Where he trod
with measured steps, Sheridan and Fox rushed in with frothy violence.
Sheridan declared that the treaty “relinquished completely everything
that was glorious and great in the country”; and his chief branded it
as “the most disastrous and disgraceful peace that ever this country
had made.” Then adverting to the understanding with North, which was
generally known, Fox defended it by quoting the phrase, “Amicitiae
sempiternae, inimicitiae placabiles.”[142]
Pitt’s speech, in reply to Fox, was not one of his happiest efforts,
and Ministers were left in a minority of sixteen. He excelled himself,
however, four days later during the debate on a vote of censure
brought against the Administration by his former colleague, Lord John
Cavendish. The attack was ingeniously made under cover of a series of
resolutions, affirming that the House of Commons accepted the peace,
while believing the concessions made to our enemies to be excessive,
and demanding better terms for the American Loyalists. Fox spoke with
his usual ardour in favour of these mutually destructive resolutions.
After declaring that all who looked at the terms of peace must “blush
for the ignominy of the national character,” he proceeded to defend his
alliance with Lord North. The times, he said, were now changed; they
had to deal with a Prime Minister, Shelburne, who was “in his nature,
habitudes, and principles, an enemy to the privileges of the people.”
They must therefore form “the strongest Coalition which may re-instate
the people in their rights, privileges, and possessions.”[143]
We do not know whether Pitt was aware that the orator had just bartered
away the cause of Parliamentary Reform; but he certainly suspected it;
and the surmise must have kindled a fire of indignation before which
his bodily weakness vanished. During the long speech of his opponent
he suffered from fits of vomiting which compelled him at times to hold
open a small door behind him, called Solomon’s porch. But when, at one
o’clock in the morning, he rose to reply, all his weakness vanished.
In a speech of three hours he traversed the whole ground of the treaty
and reviewed the situation brought about by the recent monstrous
Coalition. He fought hard for the Peace, which the present resolutions
imperilled, and still more so for the maintenance of the honourable
traditions of public life.
After briefly adverting to the strange part now played by Fox, he
continued in terms which showed that he appealed more to the nation
than to Parliament.
The triumphs of party, Sir, with which this self-appointed Minister
seems so highly elate, shall never seduce me to any inconsistency
which the busiest suspicion shall presume to glance at. I will
never engage in political enmities without a public cause. I
will never forego such enmities without the public approbation;
nor will I be questioned and cast off in the face of this House
by one virtuous and dissatisfied friend.[144] These, Sir, the
sober and durable triumphs of reason over the weak and profligate
inconsistencies of party violence; these, Sir, the steady
triumphs of virtue over success itself, shall be mine, not only
in my present situation but through every future condition of my
life--triumphs which no length of time shall diminish, which no
change of principle shall sully.
He then showed that a continuance of war would be full of peril and
might lead to national bankruptcy; that Ministers were not, as at the
end of the Seven Years’ War, able to dictate terms of peace, and that
those now proposed were as favourable as could be expected. If we had
ceded Florida, we had regained the Bahamas and Providence. While losing
Tobago and St. Lucia, we recovered Grenada, Dominica, St. Kitts, Nevis,
and Montserrat. In Africa we should once more hold Senegambia, the best
and healthiest settlement. The loss of Minorca was bearable, for the
island was expensive in peace and never tenable in war. Then, adverting
to the alleged betrayal of the American Loyalists, he appealed warmly
for reconciliation with the United States, and still more warmly
deprecated the suspicion that Congress would be guilty of the base
injustice of doing nothing for those sufferers. His words have the ring
of sincere conviction; but it is painful to have to add that these
magnanimous hopes were doomed to disappointment.[145]
Descending to the lower levels of party strife, he declared that
his opponents were aiming their shafts, not at the Treaty, but at
the Earl of Shelburne. Their unnatural coalition was brought about
by personal spite; and, he added with thrilling emphasis: “If this
ill-omened marriage is not already solemnized, I know a just and lawful
impediment, and, in the name of the public safety, I here forbid the
banns.” Finally, in what seemed a farewell to the cares of office,
he vindicated his conduct, as inspired by the traditions of Chatham,
and he appealed to the House and to the nation at large in this noble
peroration:
You may take from me, Sir, the privileges and emoluments of place,
but you cannot, and you shall not, take from me those habitual and
warm regards for the prosperity of Great Britain, which constitute
the honour, the happiness, the pride of my life, and which I trust
death alone can extinguish. And, with this consolation, the loss of
power, Sir, and the loss of fortune, though I affect not to despise
them, I hope I soon shall be able to forget:
Laudo manentem. Si celeres quatit
Pennas, resigno quae dedit
... probamque
Pauperiem sine dote quaero.[146]
A member of the House relates that when he came to the words--“et mea
virtute me involvo”--he paused for a moment, drew his handkerchief
across his lips, and then, as if recovering from a slight
embarrassment, gave the final words with thrilling effect.[147]
The whole speech aroused an interest and emotion unequalled since
the time of Chatham’s mighty orations. North complimented the young
Chancellor on his amazing eloquence, which had so deeply affected every
member of the House, and stated that, though he himself was the object
of his thunder, he had listened to that thunder with astonishment and
delight. He then asserted that better terms might have been gained,
especially from the Americans, and declared his belief that the new
Coalition would greatly benefit the country. The House by a majority of
seventeen decided for North and against Pitt.
In the Lords, Shelburne had a majority of thirteen; but the victory of
North and Fox in the Commons led him to offer to resign office on 24th
February 1783. In this honourable manner ended Pitt’s first tenure of
office.