THE COALITION
Of all the public characters of this devoted country (Mr. Pitt
alone excepted) there is not a man who has, or who deserves, the
nation’s confidence.--ROMILLY _21st March 1783_.
In politics, as in war, victories sometimes prove to be more disastrous
than defeats. When triumph lures a leader on into ever increasing
difficulties, he may well rue his seeming good fortune; while,
on the other hand, the retreat of his opponents may lessen their
responsibilities, and, by enabling them to concentrate, double the
strength of their next blow.
Such was the case with Fox and Pitt. Fox’s triumph over the former was
seen by discerning friends to be of the Pyrrhic kind. He owed it to an
unprincipled alliance, and for it he threw away the support of public
opinion. Pitt, on the other hand, fell gloriously, fighting strenuously
for terms of peace which, in the nature of things, his successors could
not sensibly ameliorate. Accordingly, events worked for him and against
the victors. Only a well organized party can resist the wear and tear
of parliamentary strife; and it lay in the nature of things that greed
of place and pension--to say nothing of political differences--should
sunder these hungry and unprincipled groups.
But while the voice of prudence counselled delay, missives from Windsor
urgently requested Pitt to assume the supreme command of the beaten
host. Well might the King be insistent. In the young statesman, and
in him alone, could he discern a possible saviour from the two-headed
monster of the Coalition. As usual, he viewed the crisis from a purely
personal point of view. In a characteristic letter to Shelburne he
said nothing on the wider issues that were at stake, still less did he
vouchsafe a word of thanks for his valuable services; but he deplored
his own lot in having to reign in a most profligate age, and declared
once more that he would never submit to the Coalition.
It seems probable that the credit of advising the choice of Pitt as the
new Prime Minister rests with Shelburne. Certainly the idea did not
originate with Henry Dundas, as he afterwards claimed; for on Monday
morning, 24th February 1783, Dundas wrote to Shelburne as follows:
MY DEAR LORD,
I cannot refrain from troubling your Lordship with a few lines
upon a subject of the most serious importance; and the particular
ground of my addressing you arises from the words which dropped
from you yesterday morning relative to Mr. Pitt. I did not pay
much attention to them when you uttered them, but I have revolved
them seriously and candidly in the course of the day yesterday,
and I completely satisfied my own mind that, young as he is, the
appointment of him to the Government of the country is the only
step that can be taken in the present moment attended with the most
distant chance of rearing up the Government of this country....
He is perfectly new ground, against whom no opposition can arise
except what may be expected from the desperation of that lately
allied faction, which I am satisfied will likewise gradually
decline till at last it will consist only of that insolent
aristocratical band who assume to themselves the prerogative of
appointing the rulers of the kingdom. I repeat it again that I am
certain the experiment will succeed if His Majesty will try it.[148]
HENRY DUNDAS.
The King warmly welcomed Shelburne’s suggestion, sent for Pitt, and
urged him to form a Ministry on his own terms. The young statesman,
far from succumbing to the glamour of the moment, at once foresaw
the difficulties of the proposal, and requested time for reflection.
Dundas sat up with him through that night, going through the names of
members of the House, and calculating the chances of adequate support.
In a letter which Pitt wrote to his mother on the 25th, he speaks of
the question as turning on that of numbers in the House. On the next
day and the morning of the 27th he seemed ready to accept the King’s
offer, on the strength of an assurance given by Dundas that Lord North
would not actively oppose him. But on the afternoon of that day he laid
before the King his reasons for declining the proposal.
The interview was long and earnest. It marked the beginning of that
contest of wills which only ceased with life itself. The King strove
hard to gain for his service the only man of note who stood between him
and the new Coalition. He plied the young Minister with every possible
argument.
Nothing [so the King wrote to Shelburne on that day] could get
him to depart from the ground he took, that nothing less than a
moral certainty of a majority in the House of Commons could make
him undertake the task; for that it would be dishonourable not to
succeed, if attempted; all I could obtain was that he should again
try, but as fixed a declaration that, if he cannot meet with what
he thinks certainty, he shall decline.[149]
We could wish to know more about this interview and to follow the
mental wrestling of the Sovereign with the young barrister. Rarely,
except perhaps from Chatham, had George III met with so firm a resolve
not to accept office; and we may reasonably infer that the reluctance
which baffled the arts of the King sprang from a deep fund of pride.
Pitt scorned to be Minister by sufferance of North--a man whom he
loathed. Further, why should he take up that burden at the bidding
of the Sovereign whom he knew to be the chief cause of the present
difficulties? Was it not better that George III and his former tool
should unravel the tangle of their own making? As North and Fox for the
present commanded the House of Commons, they must govern, as long as
they could hold together. Reasons of varied kinds, therefore, must have
led Pitt to hold back; and though he promised the King to consider the
matter, we may be sure that his resolve was virtually formed.
Other names were then mooted, including those of Thomas Pitt and Earl
Temple; but, as George III bitterly complained, not one of them had
spirit enough to stand forth. All his efforts to escape the meshes of
the Coalition were in vain. Meanwhile, public affairs went from bad
to worse. “Our internal regulations (so William Grenville wrote to
Temple), our loan, our commerce, our army, everything is at a stand
... we have no money, and our troops and seamen are in mutiny.”[150]
But, for a whole month, nothing bent the King’s purpose. It was clear
that he was seeking to sow discord among his opponents.[151] In this
he failed. Finally the Coalition succeeded in imposing its nominee,
the Duke of Portland, on the King; but, as George insisted that his
“friend,” Lord Thurlow, should continue to be Lord Chancellor, the duke
and his backers broke off the negotiations (18th to 20th March). At
once the King sent for Pitt in the following curt note--the first in
his long correspondence with him.[152]
Queen’s House, _March 20, 1783_.
Mr. Pitt, I desire you will come here immediately.
G. R.
Once more, then, the King made his offer to the young statesman. For
five days he sought to bend that stubborn will, urging the needs of
the public service and his own resolve never to admit the Duke of
Portland and North after their treatment of him. But on 25th March Pitt
politely, but most firmly, declined, on the same grounds as before.
The King thereupon declared himself much hurt at his refusal to stand
forth against “the most daring and unprincipled faction that the annals
of this kingdom ever produced.”[153] Once more he talked of retiring
to Hanover and leaving to the Coalition the task of governing Great
Britain. But on mentioning this scheme to his hard-headed counsellor,
Lord Thurlow, he is said to have received the illuminating advice
that the journey to Hanover was easy enough; but the example of
James II’s travels abroad warranted the conclusion that the return
journey was more difficult.[154] The story is _ben trovato_; but we
may doubt whether even Thurlow’s assurance was equal to this ironical
dissuasiveness, and whether George III would ask advice on a step
never meant to be taken, and threatened merely in petulance. Equally
unconvincing is the story of the King bursting into tears in the
presence of the hated Duke of Portland. If the age was lachrymose,[155]
George III was not.
In any case, the Coalition had conquered. They dictated their terms.
George bent before the parliamentary storm, perhaps taking heart from
Thurlow’s words, that time and patience would cure the present evils.
On the last day of March, Pitt, with the relic of Shelburne’s Ministry,
resigned office; and on the 2nd of April the new Ministers kissed
hands. One who saw that function declared that he foresaw the fate of
the Coalition Ministry; for when Fox came up for that ceremony, “George
III turned back his ears and eyes just like the horse at Astley’s when
the tailor he had determined to throw was getting on him.”[156]
The observer augured well. Fox’s eagerness to mount the saddle, and
Pitt’s determination to stand aloof largely determined their future
careers and the course of history. Success comes to the man who knows,
not only when to strike swiftly and hard, but also how to bide his
time. The examples of Pericles and Epaminondas; of Fabius Maximus,
Caesar and Caesar Augustus in ancient history; of Louis XI, Elizabeth,
Cromwell, William of Orange, Talleyrand, and even of Napoleon, might
be cited as proofs of the power inherent in far-seeing patience. With
Pitt’s refusal of power in the spring of 1783 we may compare Napoleon’s
prudent reserve in the French political game of the years 1797–8, based
as it was on his declaration to Talleyrand in October 1797: “It is only
with prudence, wisdom and great dexterity that obstacles are surmounted
and important ends attained.... I see no impossibility in attaining,
in the course of a few years, those splendid results of which the
heated and enthusiastic imagination catches a glimpse, but which the
extremely cool, persevering and positive man alone can grasp.” Pitt’s
great speech of 21st February 1783 showed him to possess imaginative
gifts and ambition of a high order; his refusal of office, owing to
the stubborn facts of arithmetic, was the outcome of those cool and
calculating instincts without which aspiring genius is a balloon devoid
of ballast.
The reception accorded by the public to the Coalition Ministry was
far from flattering. No sooner were the names of Ministers known,
on 2nd April 1783, than indignation ran high. The Duke of Portland,
as First Lord of the Treasury, was seen to be an ornamental figure,
easily controllable by Fox. The two Secretaries of State were North
and Fox, the latter leading the House of Commons; and this close
official union of two men who had spent their lives in vilifying each
other was generally reprobated.[157] Fox, formerly the bitterest of
North’s revilers, was held to have betrayed his Whig principles; and
his once enthusiastic constituents at Westminster, at his re-election
refused him a hearing, shouting him down several times. The conduct of
North, the reviled, seemed incredibly base and unmanly. For the rest,
Lord John Cavendish (dubbed by Selwyn “the learned canary-bird”) took
Pitt’s place at the Exchequer; Lord Stormont became President of the
Council, the Earl of Carlisle, Lord Privy Seal; and Keppel returned to
the Admiralty. The foregoing formed the Cabinet. As the King was forced
to part with his man, Thurlow, the Lord Chancellor’s seal was put in
commission, Lord Loughborough (formerly Mr. Wedderburn, a man apt at
betrayal) becoming first commissioner. Burke and Sheridan were rewarded
with the subordinate posts of Paymaster of the Forces and Secretary
to the Treasury. Thus the Whig members were in the ascendant, though
North’s party predominated in the House of Commons. Temple resigned the
Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland, which went, after an embarrassing delay,
to one of Fox’s boon companions at Brooks’s, Lord Northington.[158]
Wilberforce, with his usual power of hitting off a situation, declared
that the Fox-North Coalition inherited the defects of its progenitors,
the violence of Fox and the corruption of North. This was the general
opinion. As for George III, he raged against this unnatural union.
He could not mention the subject without falling into the flurried
incoherent kind of talk which afterwards marked the on-coming of
attacks of lunacy. Private hatred of Fox, as the man who led astray
the Prince of Wales into the equally odious paths of gambling and
political opposition, fed the King’s animosity against the Whig orator
as the foe of the constitution. But the vials of his wrath were poured
forth on North, for his betrayal of the royal confidence lavished on
him for a decade. On 1st April, George III informed Temple that he
hoped the nation’s eyes would soon be opened, and that the Pitts and
Grenvilles would deliver him from the thraldom of the Coalition. For
the present, he would certainly refuse to grant any honours asked for
by the new Ministry.[159] As the greed of the Coalition was notorious,
the situation thus became piquant in the extreme. Amusement at the
irony of the situation must have helped, in Pitt’s case, to lighten
the disappointment of retiring from office. Certainly he was never
downcast. Wilberforce’s journal shows him to have been a frequent and a
joyous visitor to Wimbledon. This was the time of the spring-sowing of
the flower-beds of Lauriston House with the fragments of Ryder’s opera
hat. (See Chapter XII.)
Other and more practical fruits of his hopefulness were his efforts
for Parliamentary Reform, clouded over though that cause was by the
alliance of Whigs and the former “King’s Friends.” Acting not as a
partisan (for, just before resigning office, he informed the House
that he belonged to no party), he introduced a motion on 7th May for
the Reform of Parliament. On this occasion London and Kent seemed to
take an interest in the motion, and the approaches to St. Stephen’s as
well as the galleries were thronged by petitioners in favour of Reform.
The freeholders of Kent, the householders of the Tower Hamlets, and
the electors of Westminster (the last headed by Fox!), came in great
numbers to give weight to their petitions. Horace Walpole noted that
Kent and Essex had joined the Quintuple Alliance (_i.e._, of counties)
in favour of Reform.[160]
In due course Pitt rose to bring in his motion. He claimed that the
disasters of the past years had at length caused the people “to turn
their eyes inward on themselves” to find out the cause of the evil.
No one could now doubt that the radical fault in the constitution was
the secret influence of the Crown as exerted on the House of Commons.
For the redress of this evil three plans had been proposed, first, the
extension of the franchise to every man--a proposal which he scouted as
both impracticable and even undesirable, seeing that the minority must
then hold themselves to be slaves to the majority. (It is difficult to
follow Pitt here; for every electoral system implies a majority and
minority; and hardship arises only when the majority is subservient to
the minority--as was the case in 1783.) Their forefathers, he added,
had never contemplated giving a vote to every man, and the scheme was
“a mere speculative proposition that may be good in theory but which
it would be absurd and chimerical to endeavour to reduce to practice.”
These words should be noted. For they refute the slander that Pitt
“ratted” from the cause of Reform in and after 1790, when it was based
on the Jacobin theory of universal suffrage, which he had always
repudiated.
Pitt’s second proposal of Reform was to abolish the “rotten boroughs.”
He confessed that they were “deformities” in our system, but he felt
that they could not be removed without endangering the whole pile.
The third proposal seemed to him far better, namely, to add a number
of members for the counties and the metropolis. He summed up his
contentions in three Resolutions: (1) for the prevention of bribery and
undue expense at elections; (2) the disfranchisement of boroughs where
corruption was proven; (3) an addition to members of counties and of
the metropolis. The details of these proposals were to be specified in
a Bill, if the Resolutions were carried. They met with support from
Fox, while their very limited character, which Sheridan ridiculed,
commended them to Dundas and Thomas Pitt, who previously had opposed
Reform.[161] As a pledge of his sincerity, Thomas Pitt offered to
surrender his rights over the parliamentary borough of Old Sarum.
All was of no avail. North, Colonel Luttrell, Lord Mulgrave, and others
declaimed against any change in the glorious constitution. The House
by a majority of one hundred and forty-four reprobated the dangerous
spirit of innovation which was abroad. Doubtless the demoralization of
the Whigs made defeat inevitable. Pitt himself spoke with less than
his usual effectiveness; and the absence of petitions from the new
manufacturing towns showed that the country at large cared little for
the question. This apathy seems to us unaccountable until we remember
that Manchester, Leeds, and Halifax tamely suffered Richard Cromwell to
annul the act of enfranchisement which the great Oliver had bestowed
upon them. Evidently the age-long torpor still lay upon the land.
In the rest of the session, Pitt brought in measures for effecting
retrenchment in the public offices. He commented on such abuses as the
following: that the chief clerk of the navy office received a salary
of £250 a year, but ten times that amount in gifts, and other clerks in
the same proportion. The Secretary of the Post Office raised his salary
of £500 to a total of £3,000 by a 2½ per cent. charge on all packets--a
curiously cumbrous method of redress. The expense of stationery at the
office of Lord North during his term at the Treasury was £1,300 a year,
one item being £340 for whip-cord! By careful economies Pitt hoped to
save the nation £40,000 a year. The debate was rendered remarkable by
a speech from Burke. The great man was smarting under the censure of
the House for reinstating two dishonest officials, and had betrayed the
Celtic sensitiveness of his nature by drearily ranting until Fox and
Sheridan fairly pulled him to his seat. He now rallied Pitt on “prying
into the little perquisites of little men in little offices, while he
suffered the greatest abuses to exist in the offices under his eye.
He seemed to have that nice olfactory nerve which could smell a ball
of horsedung a thousand miles off, but which was not affected by the
stench of a dunghill under his very window.” Burke, however, failed
to substantiate the latter part of his malodorous simile. The measure
passed the Commons, only to perish in the Lords. Keppel denied that
there were any abuses at the Admiralty; the Duke of Portland opined
that Pitt’s reforms would cost as much as they saved; and Stormont
declared that they would be highly inconvenient.[162] The same fate
befell a measure, which Pitt warmly supported, for lessening expenses
at elections.
In his speech on Lord John Cavendish’s Budget, Pitt showed a practical
knowledge of finance which enabled him trenchantly to expose the weak
points of his successor’s proposals; and he further pointed out the
best means for launching a loan on the most favourable terms. His
reputation gained in solidity during the session; and if his speeches,
after the great effort of 21st February, lacked brilliance, they
exhibited his capacity and his grasp of affairs.
Ministers, on the other hand, lost ground, owing to their own blunders
and the widening of the gulf between their discordant sections. A case
in point was their treatment of the question of the allowance for the
Prince of Wales. As will appear later more in detail, the relations
between the King and the Prince were already so strained that the
Ministry--“my son’s Ministry,” the King sometimes called it--must
have known the question to be thorny. The tastes of George III being
as frugal as those of his son were extravagant, a clear understanding
with the King seemed the first essential to a settlement. Yet Fox
and his supporters in the Cabinet prevailed on the other Ministers,
rather reluctantly, to allot the sum of £100,000 a year to the Prince,
and that, too, without consulting the King. According to Horace
Walpole, the proposal came to light during a casual conversation
between the King and the Duke of Portland on 11th June. The account
given in the “Fox Memorials” seems, however, to convict George III
of inconsistency.[163] In any case, he angrily declaimed against the
proposal, as showing that Ministers, despite their professions of
economy, “were ready to sacrifice the public interests to the wishes
of _an ill-advised young man_”; he declared his readiness to allow the
Prince £50,000 a year from the Civil List, so as not to burden the
public. This was the sum which he himself had received as Prince of
Wales; and he held strong ground in proposing to support his bachelor
son on a similar allowance.
This was the mine sprung upon the Ministry on 16th June. It promised
to end their existence; and Fox believed that the King would seize
the opportunity to dismiss Ministers, dissolve Parliament, and appeal
to the country on the cry of economy, paternal authority, and no
mischief-making between father and son. Doubtless he would have done
so but for the very speedy compliance of the Prince of Wales with
his expressed wishes--an act of submission due less to the filial
devotion of the Prince than to his desire to save his favourite from
a crushing defeat at the polls. Ultimately, on 23rd June, the House
agreed to vote the sum of £60,000 for the present needs of the Prince,
as regards debts and the furnishing of Carlton House, and £50,000
a year out of the Civil List. The incident led to some regrettable
complications. Fox seems to have attributed the King’s sudden anger to
an intrigue of Pitt, whom he dubbed “an unscrupulous opposer.”[164]
Further, the Prince thenceforth more than ever looked on his father
and the opponents of Fox as his own personal enemies, in that they
bound him down to an insufficient allowance, which he felt no scruple
in exceeding. The wretched business of the Prince of Wales’s debts, and
even that of the Regency, resulted in no small measure from the bad
blood engendered in the strife of June 1783.
The King, also, as we can now see by the new light which the Dropmore
Papers have thrown on events, watched the course of affairs more
closely than ever in order to pave the way to office for the Pitts and
Grenvilles. But his rancour did not blunt his prudence. He was resolved
not to exchange one set of masters for another. If Pitt came in, it
must be on terms favourable to the Crown. George saw Temple after his
abandonment of the cares of State at Dublin Castle, and soon began to
sound him and Pitt as to their ideas on a future Ministry.[165]
There was one grave objection to Pitt, namely, his zeal for Reform.
Seeing that the Coalition Ministry was lukewarm on this subject,
the King strove to ensure similar complaisance on the part of its
successor. He therefore commissioned his secret bargainer, Thurlow, to
see Pitt and clear up this question. The ex-Lord Chancellor invited his
former colleague to dinner on 19th July, five days after the end of
the session. He was very wary in his overtures, and Pitt complained to
Grenville that he had a very good meal, but little information. Thurlow
was profuse in hints and innuendos, which Pitt gauged at their real
value. First he depicted the situation as by no means unfavourable to
the King, who had gone through the worst when he admitted the Foxites
to office. On Pitt suggesting that perhaps he would become reconciled
to them, Thurlow hastened to add that that was impossible, especially
after the affair of the Prince’s allowance. The “King’s friend” then
turned the conversation to the subject of Parliamentary Reform and the
influence of the Crown.
His object (so Pitt wrote to Earl Temple) was to insinuate that
a change was not so necessary to the King; and to endeavour to
make it (if it should take place) rather our act than his; and
on that ground to try whether terms might not be imposed that
could not otherwise. This is so totally contrary to every idea we
both entertain that I thought it necessary to take full care to
counteract it. I stated in general that if the King’s feelings
did not point strongly to a change, it was not what we sought.
But that if they did, and we could form a permanent system,
consistent with our principles, and on public ground, we should not
decline it. I reminded him how much I was personally pledged to
Parliamentary Reform on the principles I had publicly explained,
which I should support on every seasonable occasion. I treated as
out of the question any idea of measures being taken to extend
[Crown] influence, though such means as are fairly in the hands
of Ministers would undoubtedly be to be exerted. And I said that
I wished those with whom I might act, and the King (if he called
upon me) to be fully apprized of the grounds on which I should
necessarily proceed....[166]
This is a declaration of the highest importance. If Thurlow was not
very explicit, Pitt certainly was; and it is clear that he fathomed
the intentions of George III. They were, in brief, to use the present
unsatisfactory state of things as an inducement to a patriotic and
ambitious young man to come forward as a “King’s friend,” taking up the
place which North’s defection had left vacant. Shelving the problem of
Parliamentary Reform, Pitt was to govern for the King and by means of
his influence. The young statesman saw the snare, skilfully evaded it,
and let it be understood that, if he took office, he would come in on
his own terms, not on those of the King. Firm in the alliance of the
Grenvilles, and all who detested the Coalition Ministry, he needed not
to supplicate the royal favour. Once more he would bide his time, until
the King sued for his support. Temple in his reply warmly commended his
sound sense and honourable conduct, acknowledging that Pitt was pledged
to Reform, so long as there was any chance of success.
A time of skilful balancing now ensued. The King, disappointed at
Pitt’s independent attitude, took Temple’s advice, and decided to
leave to his Ministers the odium of concluding peace, and of bringing
in proposals of Reform which would certainly disappoint some and
exasperate others of their following. It is clear, however, that, after
his annoyance at the question of the Prince of Wales’s allowance,
George resolved to dismiss his Ministers as soon as their popularity
waned, and to recur to personal rule, if he could find a serviceable
instrument. It was generally known by the end of the session that
Pitt might play that part as soon as he chose. George hinted as much
to Thurlow, who passed it on to the political world. The news was
well known when Pitt went down to Brighthelmstone for sea-bathing in
August.[167]
Other causes, however, besides the aloofness of Pitt, concurred to
postpone the crisis. The Cabinet, feeling its position insecure, was
in no haste to sign the definitive treaties of peace, feeling the
interval of uncertainty to be some guarantee of continuance in office.
There was also some hope that the Czarina, Catharine II, intent as she
was on plans against Turkey, would court our alliance and thus end our
isolation.[168] Thus the state of party affairs in England, as well as
the changing ambitions of the Czarina, helped to postpone the final
settlement; but ultimately the treaties were signed on 3rd September
at Versailles. They varied very slightly from the preliminaries which
Ministers, when in opposition, had so violently attacked. Apart from
a stipulation for the safeguarding of British property in the ceded
island of Tobago, and the better definition of our rights in the gum
trade, there was no material change. The American Loyalists, for
whom Fox and Burke had so passionately pleaded, were left in the
same position as in the preliminary treaty. The Coalition Ministry
in five months of bargaining secured no better terms from France and
Spain than Shelburne had arranged. Fox and North, who had blamed
their predecessors for failing to make a commercial agreement with
the United States, now had to confess their own failure. Finally, the
Preliminaries with Holland, signed on 2nd September, showed that Fox,
who, with Sheridan, had declaimed against the expected retrocession of
Trincomalee to the Dutch, now consented to it. Negapatam, a far less
commanding post, was retained.
These actions exposed Ministers to the charge of gross inconsistency
in ratifying conditions of peace against which they had inveighed in
unmeasured terms. On 11th November Pitt rallied them on this topic, and
then, soaring from the low levels of partisan warfare, to the heights
of statesmanlike survey, he uttered these words:
The nation has a right to expect that, without delay, a complete
commercial system, suited to the novelty of our situation, will
be laid before Parliament. I am acquainted with the difficulty
of the business and will not attribute the delay hitherto to any
neglect on the part of Ministers. I am willing to ascribe it to the
nature of the negotiation; but I expect that the business will soon
be brought forward, not by piece-meal, but that one grand system
of commerce, built upon the circumstances of the times, will be
submitted to the House for their consideration.[169]
This is the first sign of Pitt’s resolve to give effect to the
teachings of Adam Smith, and to aid in founding on the ruins of our old
colonial system a fabric far sounder and more beneficent. It is further
significant, as showing the absence of factiousness in the Opposition,
that the address to the King of thanks for the peace was carried
unanimously.
* * * * *
We have looked ahead in order to glance at Pitt’s conduct respecting
the treaties of peace concluded on 3rd September; let us turn to his
movements during the vacation. First he ran down to Brighthelmstone
to take some dips in the sea; and then struck away westwards towards
Somerset for a flying visit to Lady Chatham at Burton Pynsent. Next,
after a short stay at Kingston Hall, Bankes’s country house in Dorset,
in company with Wilberforce and Eliot, he returned to town on 7th
September in order to look into the political situation. He found that
the Ministry was losing favour mainly because the King refused to grant
any peerages at their request. Apart from this, however, there was no
sign of a collapse. That stormy petrel of politics, Lord Thurlow, was
abroad; and Pitt probably considered it tactful not to linger about
town, but to visit the Continent. Before setting out, he attended the
_levée_ at St. James’s on 10th September; and the King inquired the
time of his return “in a rather significant manner.”[170]
On the next day he met Wilberforce and Eliot at Canterbury, and on
the 12th they crossed to Calais. He found the journey to Reims more
comfortable, and the appearance of the people more prosperous, than he
had expected; but “the face of the country the dullest I ever saw.”
The reception of the party at Reims, where they proposed to improve
their French before proceeding to Paris, had a spice of novelty.
Each of the three friends had trusted to the others to provide the
needful introductions. As a result they were able only to obtain one
introduction, through the London banker, Thellusson, and this proved
to be to a grocer, whom they found behind his counter selling figs and
raisins. Somewhat crestfallen, the three _milords anglais_ returned to
their inn. Not for ten days did they gain an _entrée_ to the intendant
of Reims, and through him to the Archbishop. His Grace was by no means
an awe-inspiring personage; he figures in Wilberforce’s letters as a
jolly fellow, about forty years of age, who played billiards like other
people. The three friends also met an Abbé de Lageard, “a fellow of
infinite humour,” who used to entertain them by visits of five or six
hours at a stretch. To him, early in their acquaintance, Pitt mooted a
grievance, that there, in the middle of Champagne, they could get no
wine that was even tolerable. The abbé thereupon entertained them at
his house with the best wine of the province, and with five hours of
breezy talk.
Pitt, so we learn from Wilberforce, was the most fluent of the visitors
on these occasions. His ear, “quick for every sound but music,”
readily caught the intonations of the language, and he soon conversed
with ease and fair accuracy. Some few of his _mots_ are preserved
by Wilberforce. In answer to the abbé’s inquiry about his opinion
of French institutions, Pitt replied: “Sir, you have no political
liberty, but as for liberty in civil affairs, you have more than you
think.” His opinion on the durability of the English constitution is
even more surprising. “The part of our constitution which will first
perish is the prerogative of the King and the authority of the House
of Peers.”[171] None of Pitt’s sayings is more remarkable than this,
uttered as it was long before the storms of the French Revolution, and
after the British monarchy had easily weathered the Atlantic gale.
Possibly the conviction here recorded helps to explain why, at the
close of the year, Pitt undertook to support the monarchy, in order to
maintain that balance of the English constitution which all thinkers
(especially Montesquieu) had praised as its peculiar excellence.
The third of the _mots_ mentioned by Wilberforce illustrates the
generosity of Pitt’s character, a trait in which his opponents, judging
from his generally cold exterior, believed him to be deficient. On the
abbé expressing surprise at so moral a country as England allowing
itself to be governed by Fox, a man signally deficient in private
character, Pitt replied: “Ah! you have not been under the wand of the
magician.” Out of the varied scintillations of wit and gaiety with
which Pitt brightened this five weeks’ sojourn in France, we catch
a glimpse of these three sparks alone. Doubtless the weakness of
Wilberforce’s eyes at that time accounts for the tantalizingly meagre
entries in his diary; but, seeing how elusive a figure Pitt is, we must
be thankful even for these slight jottings.
We are therefore left wondering about the intercourse between the
three Englishmen and Talleyrand, who was then staying with his uncle,
the Archbishop of Reims. Of their brilliant conversations--for where
Talleyrand was dullness could not dwell--we know nothing. Talleyrand
and Pitt, we are told, instructed one another in their mother tongues
and exchanged ideas, especially on literature and the advantages
of Free Trade.[172] What a subject for Landor, this interchange of
thoughts between the ablest young men of the age, who agreed on all
the essentials of politics and yet were soon to be forced by destiny
into bitter conflict! How different the future might have been had
Talleyrand had enough strength and straightforwardness to become chief
of the French Republic!
The stay of the three friends at Reims ended on 9th October, owing to
Pitt’s desire to reach Paris in time to see George Rose, a Secretary
of the Treasury, who had been travelling on the Continent with Lord
Thurlow. There can be little doubt that Pitt hoped to hear from him
news respecting the situation in London; for they had confidential
converse, in which Pitt gained over Rose completely to his side.[173]
At Paris he had intercourse with Lafayette, Benjamin Franklin, and
many other celebrities. By special invitation they shared in the
gala festivities of the Court at Fontainebleau, and there saw not
only the French Ministers and chief nobles, but also the King and
Queen (15th-19th October). That was the heyday of Louis XVI and Marie
Antoinette. The conclusion of the Peace of Versailles with England
seemed to place France without question at the head of the political
world. She had sundered the Empire of her rival, and with ordinary
wisdom she might hope to keep the lead as a commercial and colonizing
power. Strong in the alliance of Austria and Spain, with her friendship
courted by the United States, Prussia, Sweden, and Holland--at times
by the Czarina Catharine--France seemed to be high above the reach of
adverse fortune. The prestige of the monarchy was as yet undimmed by
the affair of the Diamond Necklace. The factious opposition of the
Parlements had scarcely begun; and the days of hunting and festivity
at Fontainebleau must have realized those visions of charm and beauty
in which Burke has enshrined Marie Antoinette, “glittering like the
morning star, full of life and splendour and joy.”
By her side at Court and in the hunting field was that strange
opposite, her husband. What the friends thought of Louis XVI in
hunting attire is shown by Wilberforce’s note--“clumsy strange figure
in immense boots.” Whether the King spoke to them is doubtful, for
his words were ever few, and etiquette forbade his conversing much
with foreigners.[174] But the Queen, with her usual vivacity and wit,
rallied them upon their friend, the grocer, at Reims. The courtiers
often crowded round Pitt (so Wilberforce recalls), “and he behaved
with great spirit, though he was sometimes a little bored when they
talked to him about Parliamentary Reform.” At Fontainebleau Pitt met
Lafayette at dinner in company with the American Minister, Franklin.
Again we long to know of the converse of these representative men. Only
one scrap survives, namely, that Pitt informed the Frenchman, whom his
admirers termed “the hero of both worlds,” that his principles were too
democratic for him.[175] When the tempest burst upon Western Europe,
this soon became apparent.
Necker, the Minister who in 1789 aspired to ride on the winds and
control the storm, was desirous of allying his family with that of
Pitt. The ex-Controller-General of French Finances and his ambitious
consort sought to strengthen their claims on the Government for a
return to office, by an alliance with a powerful family. What alliance
could be so brilliant for these Genevese Protestants as with the son
of Chatham? We now know for certain that Necker and his wife urgently
wished for this union; for a year later the mother, when seriously ill,
wrote to her daughter (the future Mme. de Staël) in these terms:
I did desire that you should marry Mr. Pitt. I wished to confide
you to the care of a husband who had made for himself a great
name; I also could have wished for a son-in-law to whose care I
could commend your poor father, and who would feel the full weight
of his charge. You were not disposed to give me this satisfaction.
Well! All is now forgiven.[176]
Clearly the match was to have been of an eleemosynary character; and
all who rejoice in the eager exuberance of the life of Mme. de Staël
cannot be surprised at her refusal, even when a young girl, to become
a testamentary asset in the life of her father. Whether her repugnance
at the idea was further increased by seeing Pitt in one of his “bored”
moods, we do not know. Indeed it is uncertain whether they ever met. If
we may judge from the sketch of Pitt written by Wilberforce in 1821,
the affair was mooted in the frigid bargaining manner usual with French
parents. Horace Walpole, a close friend of M. Necker, remarked to Lord
Camden, who thereupon passed it on to Pitt, that the Neckers had so
much respect for him that, if he claimed the hand of their daughter,
he would not be refused--by the parents. What would have happened when
Mlle. Necker came to be asked must be left to the imagination.[177]
* * * * *
From the charms of the French Court and the meshes of matrimonial
schemes Pitt was suddenly called away. A special messenger bade him
return at once to London. What he had all along hoped now came to
pass. The King’s dislike of his Ministers had overcome all other
feelings, and he now appealed to Pitt to free him from the toils of
the Coalition. The friends spent twenty-four hours in a carriage, then
suffered the usual miseries of a Channel passage, and reached London on
24th October.
The situation was serious. Though delivered from fear of war, the
country was beset by many perils. Consols were on the decline.
The state of Ireland was alarming. The Associations of Volunteers
overshadowed the Government at Dublin, and seemed about to dictate
terms to that at Westminster. Their attitude aroused keen resentment,
seeing that the legislative independence of Ireland had been proclaimed
to be the cure for all her evils. “What! (exclaimed Horace Walpole)
Would they throw off our Parliament and yet amend it.” Worst of all,
perhaps, was the almost complete indifference of Britons to the
political situation. The same rather cynical observer had already noted
that no one, except interested politicians, really cared who was in, or
out of, office. His words deserve quotation:
Our levity is unlike that of the French. They turn everything into
a jest, an epigram, or a ballad. We are not pleasant but violent,
and yet remember nothing for a moment. This was not our character
formerly.... Can the people be much attached to any man if they
think well of none? Can they hate any man superlatively if they
think ill of all? In my own opinion we have no positive character
at present at all. We are not so bad as most great nations
have been when sinking. We have no excessive vices, no raging
animosities.[178]
The passage is interesting in more ways than one. Milton dubbed us
fickle and alleged our insular situation as the cause.[179] Addison
in one of his essays repeated the charge, which was perfectly natural
early in the eighteenth century. Further, Horace Walpole’s criticism is
remarkable as that of a shrewd observer during what he termed a time
of “comfortable calm.” He saw the two leading nations, as it were,
drifting sluggishly in a Sargasso Sea of politics after one storm;
and they and he never suspected the approach of a far more terrible
tempest. Neither in London nor Paris had any inspiring personality come
to the front. Pitt had not fully emerged. Robespierre was intent on
his briefs at Arras; the Corsican, who was to quicken the pulse of all
peoples, still studied under the monks of Brienne; and Horace Walpole
could therefore complain of the pettiness of politics, the aimless
brawlings of Westminster, the lighter vagaries of Versailles, and the
dullness of the world.
At London all was soon to change. Though Fox and North kept their
majority solid on the question of the peace, yet they came to grief
over a measure of almost equal importance. On 18th November, amidst
scenes of unequalled excitement, Fox brought forward his India Bill;
and on a question where vast patronage was at stake passions rose
to fever heat. Indian affairs will be treated more fully in another
chapter; and it must suffice to state here that the East India
Company was in a deplorable condition, mainly owing to the war with
Hyder Ali and the insubordination and rapacity of the Company’s
servants, which led to abuses degrading to Britain and oppressive to
the natives of India. According to the terms of North’s Regulating
Act of 1773, Parliament had the right of intervention in all matters
of high policy; but in one important question the Company had set its
behests at naught. In April 1782 a vote of censure was passed on the
Governor-General, Warren Hastings, and the Company was requested to
recall him. The Court of Directors issued an order to this effect; but
the Court of Proprietors reversed their decision, and Hastings was left
in a position ambiguous and irritating to all parties. Consequently
dictates of policy and the interests of the nation compelled Parliament
to assert its paramount authority.
But the manner of the intervention and the act itself were alike
extraordinary. The new India Bill was the joint work of Fox and Burke
with some aid from the law-officers of the Crown. It has often been
said, on the scantiest of evidence, to have been framed mainly by
Burke; but the clauses which abrograted the Charter of the East India
Company and vested the control of Indian affairs chiefly in Parliament,
bear the imprint of the mind of Fox rather than of the more cautious
and conservative statesman.[180] In strict propriety the measure
ought to have originated with Lord North. He privately expressed his
approval, and then, alleging indisposition, stayed away from Parliament
on the day of its introduction.[181]
Fox opened his case in a speech of great power. He dilated on the
ills resulting from the disorders in the Company’s service, and, in
particular, from the ambition of Warren Hastings. He then showed the
tendency of the parliamentary reports on Indian affairs, and claimed
that, in the virtual bankruptcy of the Company (which could not
discharge its debts to the Crown), Parliament had the right to take the
supreme control of its territories. We may pause here to notice that
the Directors of the Company stoutly denied the assertion as to their
bankruptcy, and claimed that, when its expenses were reduced to a peace
footing, the Company’s creditors would be in a better position than
any creditors in Europe.[182] Their printed report of 23rd January
1784 laid stress on the heavy charge involved by conquests in India
“which the wisdom of the nation has given up for equivalents in other
parts of the world.” It also claimed the payment of £260,687, the
charge incurred by the Company for the maintenance of French prisoners
in the Seven Years’ War. The Directors further stated that, if
Government would check the very extensive smuggling in tea (an article
which formed the most valuable of the monopolies of the Company),
more than double the amount would be sold by legitimate means. These
facts should be borne in mind, as the Company succeeded in spreading a
conviction that the attack of Fox was unjust.
In the rest of his speech Fox detailed his proposals for effecting
drastic changes in India, and explained the reasons for separating
administrative affairs from purely mercantile affairs. Many authorities
claimed that the territories of the Company belonged in reality to the
Crown; others denied this claim. On one point all must agree, that the
Crown could not possibly deal with “a remote and difficult trade.”
Accordingly he sought to form “a mixed system of government, adapted
to the mixed complexion of our interests in India.” For administrative
work he proposed to establish a Board of seven commissioners, nominated
by Parliament, for three or five years--four years was the term
finally suggested--having full power to appoint and dismiss officers
in India, and complete control over its government. The Board was to
sit in London, “under the very eye of Parliament,” and the minutes
of its meetings were to be open to inspection by Parliament. If this
experiment succeeded, he proposed that in future the King should
nominate the seven commissioners, and he was to fill up vacancies that
might occur in the meantime. As for the mercantile interests of the
Company, they were to be managed by a subordinate Board or Council,
consisting of eight members chosen by Parliament from among the larger
proprietors.
He further proposed to remedy the worst abuses in India in a second
Bill which would abolish the holding of monopolies, such as that for
opium, which had been jobbed away to the son of a former chairman of
the Company. Security of tenure would be granted to the Zamindars, or
native landlords, and the acceptance of presents by the Company’s
servants in India--a fertile source of corruption and oppression--would
be strictly forbidden. Fox admitted that the private influence of the
Crown, even in its worst days, was nothing compared with that of the
East India Company, and wisely abstained for the present from naming
the seven commissioners whom he proposed to appoint.[183]
Here was the weak point of an otherwise excellent measure; and Pitt,
towards whom all eyes were directed, fastened upon it. While admitting
the urgent need of reform, he deprecated the abrogation of all the
charters and privileges of an ancient Company under the plea of
necessity. “Is not necessity,” he said, “the plea of every illegal
exertion of power? Is not necessity the pretence of every usurpation?
Necessity is the argument of tyrants: it is the creed of slaves.”
Further, what evils must result if that formidable political weapon,
the patronage of the Company, were transferred to the Ministers then in
power, and finally to the Crown? On the one side it would tend to the
grossest corruption, on the other, to despotism.[184]
Pitt, it will be seen, opposed the measure owing to the indirect but
inevitable consequences which it would entail in the vitiated state of
affairs then existing in Parliament, where an unwholesome Coalition
held together only with the aim of enjoying the spoils of office and
even richer booty in the future.[185] The possession of the enormous
patronage of the India Company opened up golden vistas that fired the
imaginations even of the dull squires who trooped after Lord North. As
for the far livelier followers of Fox, they were jubilant at prospects
which promised not only places in the East, but a long lease of power
at St. Stephen’s. Their opponents were alike depressed and indignant.
A former friend of Fox, Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, commented on the
“spirit of ambition, rapacity and confiscation” that characterized his
proposals; and the bad impression caused by the patronage section of
his Bill was intensified when it appeared that four of the seven new
commissioners were to be declared Foxites, better known at Brooks’s
Club than at the India House, namely, Lord Fitzwilliam, Frederick
Montagu, Sir Henry Fletcher, and Robert Gregory. In Lord North’s
interest there were his son, Colonel North, Viscount Lewisham, and Sir
Gilbert Elliot.
The appointment of seven pronounced partisans to these posts of
almost unbounded responsibility wrecked the measure. In itself the
Bill contained many excellent features. The transference of governing
power from the Company to Parliament in conjunction with the Crown,
on terms ultimately favourable to the latter, was a bold step; but
much could be said for it, and Pitt certainly overshot the limits of
fair criticism in his first speech. If Fox and North had chosen the
seven commissioners fairly from among all three parties, the mouths
of gainsayers would have been stopped. Now, however, the partisan
corollary to the measure justified the most vehement strictures. A
flood of satire was poured on the Bill. Two caricatures in particular
had a very wide circulation, probably at the expense of the threatened
Company. One represented Fox as Samson carrying off the ruins of the
East India House; the second, by Sayer, who soon became Pitt’s man and
received a small post from him, showed Fox as Carlo Khan riding into
Delhi on an elephant having the face of Lord North, and preceded by
Burke as trumpeter.
Pitt wrote privately to the Governor of the Company suggesting that
its prestige would be enhanced if a meeting of its creditors could be
arranged and a declaration could be procured that they would allow
ample time for the discharge of their claims.[186] But caricatures,
suggestions, and petitions were needless. The same facts which
discredited the Bill in the country whetted the eagerness of the
ministerial majority in Parliament. At the second reading Pitt briskly
renewed his attacks; and he now had the support of William Grenville in
a statesmanlike speech, which lacked “the commanding tone, the majesty,
and all the captivating rotundity and splendour of Pitt’s eloquence,”
but equalled it in argumentative power.[187] Dundas, Jenkinson, and
Scott (the future Lord Eldon), reinforced the assault: but all was in
vain. Burke, in a majestic oration, proclaimed that the Bill would
save India from manifold evils which he depicted with righteous
indignation.[188] But material interests told more than eloquence and
morality. The influence of Ministers and the hopes of their followers
ensured the speedy passing of this complex and far-reaching measure
through the Commons by a final majority of 208 votes to 102 (3rd
December).
This was a heavy blow to the Opposition, especially to Pitt, who had
said that he would fight the whole Bill, clause by clause. Horace
Walpole wrote two days later that Pitt had slunk from the contest,
but that the check would do him good, dazzled as he had been by his
premature fame. Walpole also remarked that, while excelling Chatham in
logical power, the son had much less firmness and perseverance. Readers
of those charming letters will note with some amusement that in the
middle of the next month, Walpole wrote that nothing but obstinacy
prevented Pitt resigning his post as Prime Minister. After that Walpole
gave up the rôle of political prophet.
For now there occurred a series of events which taught modesty to
wiseacres. The King intervened in a surprising manner. In the House of
Lords influence from above was suddenly pitted against the interests of
the nether world. George III had long been awaiting a fit opportunity
for tripping up the hated Ministry. A few weeks before, he had covered
Fox and North with ridicule in front of the whole Court. Acting on
the first rumour of the death of Sir Eyre Coote in India, they had
proffered a request that his ribbon of the Order of the Bath should go
to a friend, and believed that they had secured the granted assent of
the Sovereign. The aspirant therefore appeared at the next levée at St.
James’s Palace with the officers of the Order; but the King, affecting
great surprise at the unseemly haste of his ministers in acting on
unofficial information, refused to confer the ribbon, repulsed their
entreaties, and postponed the ceremony.[189]
George was now to taste the sweets of revenge in a matter more than
ceremonial. His coadjutor was Earl Temple, who had advised him to wait
until the times were ripe; and from a MS. preserved at Chevening we
learn that the King hastily sent for the Earl on the night of 11th
December. Thurlow also had an interview with him and pointed out in
unmeasured terms the humiliations which he would suffer from Fox’s
India Bill, namely, that it would transfer to the present Ministers
“more than half the royal power.” Always jealous of his patronage, the
King at once determined to ward off so insidious an attack. But he and
his advisers acted with characteristic caution. They considered--and
this is an interesting point in our constitutional history--that the
exercise of the royal veto on the Bill, if it should pass both Houses,
would be a “violent” step.[190] They preferred to act secretly and
indirectly through the Lords.
In order to exert pressure in the most drastic way possible, a card was
written (probably in the King’s hand) stating “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 an enemy; and if
these words were not strong enough, Earl Temple might use whatever
words he might deem stronger and more to the purpose.”[191] Armed with
this card, Temple set to work to whittle down the Fox-North majority.
His success was startling and complete. The golden glint of the spoils
of the Indies paled under the thunder-cloud of the royal displeasure.
The fear of losing all chance of advancement at home, whether titular
or material, sent place-hunters and trimmers trooping over to the
Opposition; and a measure, the success of which seemed assured, was
thrown out on 17th December by a majority of nineteen. On the next day
the King ordered Lord North and Fox to send in their Seals of office by
their Under-Secretaries, “as a personal interview on the occasion would
be disagreeable to him.” He entrusted the Seals at once to Temple, who
on the day following signified to the other Ministers their dismissal
from office. On the same day, 19th December, the King sent for Pitt
and appointed him First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the
Exchequer.
* * * * *
Thus it was that Pitt became Prime Minister before he attained his
twenty-fifth year. His acceptance of office after the recent use of
the royal prerogative is an action that stands in need of defence.
There can be no doubt that George III abused his power by seeking in
an underhand way to influence the votes of the Peers. The assertion
of Earl Stanhope that his action did not involve the infraction of
any specific rule of the constitution will not pass muster. As was
ably pointed out in the debate in the Commons on 17th December, the
three parts of the constitution, King, Lords, and Commons, exist
independently; and, just as the interference of one branch of the
Legislature in the debates and actions of the other is most properly
resented, so too the intervention of the Crown during the debates
is undoubtedly an infraction of the liberties of Parliament. While
not forbidden by any specific rule of the constitution, such action
contravenes the spirit of the ninth clause of the Bill of Rights, which
stipulates for complete freedom of debate and speech in Parliament.
The attitude of Pitt towards this question during the debate of 17th
December in the Commons is noteworthy. He did not attempt to defend
such a use of the royal prerogative as was then first reported: he
asserted, no doubt with perfect sincerity, that the report was an idle
rumour, of which the House could take no cognizance. The House did not
share his opinion. Swayed by a vehement speech of Fox, who declaimed
against the “infernal spirit of intrigue” ever present in the King’s
counsels, and charged Pitt with an underhand attempt to gain power,
members decided by a majority of nearly two to one that to report the
opinion, or pretended opinion, of the King on any Bill under discussion
in Parliament, was a high crime and misdemeanour, subversive of the
constitution.[192]
It was in face of these resolutions that Pitt, on 19th December, took
office. If he looked solely to Parliament, his position was hopeless.
Confronting him was a hostile majority, smarting under a great
disappointment, and threatening him, and still more his relative, Earl
Temple, with the penalties of the constitution. On hearing the news
of his acceptance of office, the members of the Coalition burst into
loud laughter, and gleefully trooped over to the Opposition benches.
Scarcely could they conceal their mirth during the ensuing debates;
and on 22nd December the House resolved itself into a Committee to
consider the state of the nation. Certainly Pitt’s position was trying
enough; for his triumph seemed to be the result of a backstairs
intrigue, unworthy of the son of Chatham, and fatal to the influence
of Parliament. He figured as the King’s Minister, carried to office by
the votes of nineteen Peers, against the will of the Commons. One can
therefore understand the persistence of the Whig tradition, in which
his action appeared the great betrayal of the liberties of Parliament.
Nevertheless, if we carry the question to the highest Court of Appeal,
the action of Pitt is justifiable. The prerogatives of Parliament
are subservient to the interests of the nation. And when the majority
of the House of Commons acts in a way strongly reprobated by public
opinion, its authority undergoes an immediate eclipse. In a not
dissimilar case, Chatham dared to appeal from a discredited House to
the people at large; and his son was justified in taking a step which
involved a reference to the people’s will at the first favourable
opportunity. Pitt always looked on the Coalition as an unprincipled
intrigue, in which the forms of the constitution were used in order to
violate its spirit. He knew that the country condemned what Romilly
termed “that scandalous alliance.” The original crime of the Coalition
seemed more than ever heinous when Ministers appointed solely their own
nominees to regulate Indian affairs. This very fact damned the India
Bill in the eyes of the public, which cared not a jot for parliamentary
majorities held together by hopes of booty. Men who had formerly
inveighed against George III now began to revise their judgements and
to pronounce even his last device justifiable when directed against
Ministers who were about to perpetrate the most gigantic job of the
century. In looking away from the votes of a corrupt Parliament to the
will of the nation, Pitt was but following in the footsteps of his
father, who had more than once made a similar appeal, and never in vain.
Finally we must remember that Pitt did not take office as a “King’s
Friend.” He had consistently refused to bind himself down to the
conditions which George III sought to impose. The King knew full well
that he had to deal with a man of sternly independent nature. He had
failed to bend Pitt’s will in the summer, when conditions favoured his
own “cause.” Now, when he was accused of violating the constitution,
and a hostile majority in the Commons held most threatening language,
he could not but uphold a Minister who stood forth in his defence. If
in July Pitt refused to bow before the royal behests, surely he might
expect to dictate his own terms in December. The King’s difficulty
was Pitt’s opportunity; and, as events were to prove, George III had,
at least for a time, to give up his attempts at personal rule and to
acquiesce in the rule of a Prime Minister who gave unity and strength
to the administration. While freeing himself from the loathed yoke of
the Whig oligarchy, the King unwittingly accepted the control of a man
who personified the nation.
The importance of the events of 17th-22nd December 1783 can scarcely be
overrated. In a personal sense they exerted an incalculable influence
on the fortunes of George III, Pitt, Fox, Burke, and many lesser men.
In constitutional history, as will afterwards appear, they brought
about the development of the Cabinet and the reconstruction of the
two chief political parties in their modern forms. The happy ending
of the crisis enabled the ship of State to reach smoother waters and
make harbour, though many of her crew and all foreign beholders looked
on her as wellnigh a castaway. All this, and more, depended on Pitt’s
action in those days. He knew the serious nature of the emergency; and
at such a time it behoves the one able steersman to take the helm,
regardless of all cries as to his youth and his forwardness. Pitt had
the proud confidence of Chatham, that he and he alone could save the
kingdom, and the verdict of mankind has applauded the resolve of the
father in the crisis of 1756, and the determination of his youthful son
in the equally dark days at the close of 1783. Conduct, which in a weak
and pliable man would have been a crime, is one of the many titles to
fame of William Pitt the Younger.