THE STRUGGLE WITH FOX
Let me lament,
With tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts,
That thou, my brother, my competitor
In top of all design, my mate in empire,
Friend and companion in the front of war,
The arm of mine own body, and the heart
Where mine his thoughts did kindle--that our stars,
Unreconciliable, should divide
Our equalness to this.
SHAKESPEARE, _Antony and Cleopatra_.
The first difficulty which confronted the young Prime Minister was of
a personal nature. On or about 23rd December, his cousin, Earl Temple,
threw up the Seals and forthwith retired to his domain of Stowe in
Buckinghamshire. This event seemed to presage the death of the infant
administration, which the action of the Earl had largely helped to
call to being. So assured was Fox of victory that he ascribed Temple’s
resignation to cowardice, and expressed regret at it because the
inevitable fall of the new Ministry would be explained away by the
action of the Earl.[193] Undoubtedly it was a severe blow to Pitt.
Bishop Tomline states that, on visiting him early on the next morning,
he found he had not had a moment’s sleep, an occurrence without
parallel in time of health.[194] For Pitt, like Napoleon, Wellington,
and other hard workers, enjoyed the priceless boon of sound and restful
slumber.
The reasons for Temple’s retirement cannot fully be fathomed owing to
the loss of his letters in these important weeks; but we know from the
Buckingham Papers that he was disgusted with political life and had
claimed the award of some honour as a sign of the King’s approval of
his services in Ireland, after his abrupt dismissal by Fox and North.
The proud and sensitive nobleman doubtless entered into the plan for
the overthrow of those enemies, in the hope of benefiting the State and
setting the crown on his own career. Rumour had already assigned to him
the Dukedom of Buckingham, and in this case that lying jade truthfully
voiced his desires.[195]
The prominent part which he had played in the late intrigue doubtless
led him to insist on some high honour. As to the nature of the claim
and its reception by Pitt we know nothing; for he loyally maintained
silence as to the cause of the rupture; but the Earl’s letter of 29th
December to Pitt breathes suppressed resentment in every line. It is
the peevish outpouring of a disappointed man, who saw his _protégés_ in
Ireland neglected, and his own wishes slighted.[196]
The question arises--why did not Pitt press the claims of his cousin?
His services in Ireland had been valuable; and to him the Prime
Minister very largely owed his present position. The answer would seem
to be that Pitt soon found out the truth as to his objectionable use of
the King’s name. At first he rejected the rumour to that effect, and
it is consonant with his character to suppose that, after probing the
matter to the bottom, he declined to press on the King Earl Temple’s
claims. The rupture was sharp and sudden. It is even possible that high
words passed between them. In any case, it is certain that Pitt did not
raise the question of a reward for the Earl’s services until ten months
later. Good taste may also have determined his conduct in this matter.
How could he at once confer a high dignity on the very man whose
politic whisperings had helped to raise him to power? Time must elapse
before Temple could gain the reward for his services in Ireland; and
it was not until early in October 1784 that Pitt mooted the question
of the Marquisate of Buckingham or the Order of the Garter.[197]
The following new letter from Pitt to his cousin, preserved in the
Chevening archives, contains the official notification of the former
of these honours.
Downing St.
_Nov. 23, 1784._
MY DEAR LORD,
Your Lordship will receive from Lord Sydney the official
notification of His Majesty’s having given orders for preparing
a Patent giving your Lordship the rank of Marquis. In addition
to this mark of His Majesty’s favour, I have great satisfaction
in being authorized to assure your Lordship that, if His Majesty
should depart from His present determination, of not giving the
rank of Duke out of His Royal Family, it is His gracious intention
to include your Lordship in any such promotion. I need not add how
happy I am in obeying H.M.’s commands on this occasion, nor how
truly I am at all times,
My dear Lord,
Your most affectionate and faithful servant,
W. PITT.
Turning from this personal matter, which brought friction for a
time between the Pitt and Grenville families, we notice other
difficulties confronting the young Premier, which might have daunted an
experienced statesman. The frivolous looked on with amusement at his
efforts.--“Well, Mr. Pitt may do what he likes during the holidays;
but it will only be a mince-pie administration, depend upon it.” So
spake that truest of true blues, Mrs. Crewe, to Wilberforce on 22nd
December; and she voiced the general opinion. Yet Pitt never faltered.
On the next day Wilberforce noted in his journal: “Pitt nobly firm.
Evening [at] Pitt’s. Cabinet formed.” On one topic alone did the young
chief show any anxiety. “What am I to do,” he asked, “if they stop the
supplies?” “They will not stop them,” replied his brother-in-law, Lord
Mahon, “it is the very thing they will not venture to do.”[198] The
surmise of this vivacious young nobleman (afterwards Earl Stanhope) was
for a time correct; but Pitt had rightly foreseen the chief difficulty
in his path. For the present, on the receipt of a message from the
King that no dissolution or prorogation would take place, Parliament
separated quietly for the vacation (26th December).
For Pitt that Christmastide brought little but disappointment and
anxiety. His cares were not lessened by the conduct which he found it
desirable to pursue towards the Earl of Shelburne, long the official
leader of the Chathamites. He did not include him in his Ministry,
partly, perhaps, from a feeling of delicacy at asking his former chief
to serve under him, but mainly from a conviction that his unpopularity
would needlessly burden the labouring ship of State. To Orde he
expressed his deep obligations to the Earl, but lamented his inability
to leave out of count “the absolute influence of prejudice” against
him. He did not even consult Shelburne as to the choice of coadjutors;
and the Earl let it be known that he would have no connection with
the new men, “lest he should injure them.”[199] Pitt also sustained
several direct rebuffs. Though, on 19th December, he sent an obsequious
request to the Duke of Grafton to strengthen his hands by accepting
the Privy Seal, that nobleman declined.[200] Camden was equally coy;
and, strangest of all, his own brother-in-law, Mahon, would not come
forward. We can detect a note of anxiety in the following letter of
Pitt to Lord Sackville, formerly Germain, which I have discovered in
the Pitt Papers (No. 102):
_Dec. 29, 1783._
MY LORD,
In the arduous situation in which His Majesty has condescended to
command my services at this important juncture, I am necessarily
anxious to obtain the honor of a support and assistance so
important as your Lordship’s. I flatter myself Mr. Herbert will
have had the goodness to express my sense of the honor your
Lordship did me by your obliging expressions towards me. Permit
me to add how much mortification I received in being disappointed
of his assistance at the Board of the Admiralty, which I took the
liberty of proposing to him, in consequence of the conversation
Lord Temple had had with your Lordship. I should sincerely lament
if any change of arrangements produced by Lord Temple’s resignation
should deprive the King and country in any degree of a support
which the present crisis renders so highly material to both. If
your Lordship would still allow us to hope that you might be
induced to mark by Mr. Herbert’s acceptance your disposition in
favour of the King’s Government, the opening may be made with the
greatest ease at any moment, and Your Lordship’s commands on the
subject would give me particular satisfaction.
From Wraxall’s Memoirs[201] we learn that the writer undertook to pave
the way for the receipt of Pitt’s letter; but all was in vain. Lord
Sackville refused to take office, though he promised a general support.
The most serious refusal was that of the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland
by Earl Cornwallis. George III highly approved of Pitt’s proposal
of that nobleman, whose tact and forbearance would have proved of
infinite service in so troublous a time.[202] Who knows whether the
rebellion and savage reprisals of 1798 might not have been averted
by the adoption of wiser methods at Dublin Castle in the eighties?
As it was, the most difficult administrative duty in the Empire was
soon to devolve upon a young nobleman, the Duke of Rutland, whose
chief qualifications seem to have been his showy parts, his splendid
hospitality, and his early patronage of Pitt.
The Cabinet as finally formed comprised the following seven members:
Pitt, First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer;
the Marquis of Carmarthen (son of the Duke of Leeds), an amiable
but unenterprising Secretary for Foreign Affairs; Lord Sydney (T.
Townshend), Home Secretary; Earl Gower, President of the Council (up to
December 1784, when Earl Camden succeeded him); the Duke of Rutland,
Lord Privy Seal (up to November 1784, when Earl Gower succeeded him,
the Duke taking the Viceroyalty of Ireland); Lord Howe, First Lord of
the Admiralty; Lord Thurlow, Lord Chancellor. In debating power this
Cabinet was deficient. Apart from Pitt and Thurlow, not one of the
Ministers could make a tolerable speech, or possessed the strength of
character which makes up for oratorical deficiencies.
Thurlow might have been a tower of strength in the Lords, but for his
duplicity, bad temper, and domineering ways. For the present, Pitt had
to put up with him as a disagreeable necessity. There was something
so threatening in his aspect as to elicit Thelwall’s picturesque
description of him as a man with the Norman Conquest in his eyebrow
and the Feudal System in every feature of his face. Add to these
formidable gifts a sonorous voice, his powers of crushing retort, above
all, his secret connection with George III, and his influence in the
Upper House can be imagined. Yet his reputation rested on a slight
basis; his knowledge of law was narrow, his culture slight, and his
private character contemptible. He was known to bully his mistress and
his illegitimate daughters, just as he browbeat juries and Whigs.[203]
On the whole his reputation is hard to explain save on the ground that
the majority of mankind is apt to be imposed on by externals, and is
too uncritical or too lazy to sound the depths of character.
For the present Pitt tolerated Thurlow just as the commander of an
untried warship might tolerate the presence of an imposing gun of
uncertain power, in the midst of light weapons. The boom of his voice
was worth something to a Ministry in which the posts not of Cabinet
rank were filled as follows: The Duke of Richmond, Master-General
of the Ordnance;[204] Kenyon, Attorney-General; Pepper Arden,
Solicitor-General; William Grenville (afterwards Lord Grenville) and
Lord Mulgrave, joint Paymasters of the Forces; Henry Dundas (afterwards
Lord Melville), Treasurer of the Navy; Sir George Yonge, Secretary at
War; George Rose and Thomas Steele, Secretaries of the Treasury; Thomas
Orde, Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Of these the Duke
of Richmond had great private influence, but was personally unpopular.
Grenville and Rose were useful, hard-working men, but uninteresting
in personality and speech. Their characters and that of Dundas will
concern us in Chapter XII. Here we may note that the bold and jovial
nature of Dundas made him popular as a man; but his defection from
Lord North, and his capacity for intrigue impaired his influence in
the House. Nevertheless his fighting powers, his legal training, his
knowledge of men and affairs, and his skill in parrying the blows
of the Opposition made him an effective lieutenant in the House. By
degrees, as we shall see, he acquired great influence over Pitt; and
after his entry to the Cabinet as Home Secretary in 1791, he, together
with Grenville, came to form around Pitt what may almost be termed
an inner Cabinet. For the present, however, the distrust with which
the “Caledonian thane” was regarded permitted him to be no more than
the chief among Pitt’s subordinates; and the ingenious poetaster of
the “Rolliad” maliciously aimed these lines at his weakest point, his
inconsistency:
His ready tongue with sophistries at will
Can say, unsay, and be consistent still;
This day can censure, and the next retract,
In speech extol, and stigmatize in act.
The other subordinates claim only the briefest notice. Sir George
Yonge was a nonentity, under whom the British army sank to the nadir
of efficiency. Kenyon and Pepper Arden were very young men; the latter
was one of Pitt’s Cambridge friends, lively and amiable, but having
little influence in debate. The House could not take Pepper seriously.
On the whole the Ministry aroused little confidence among friends and
much derision among opponents. The general opinion was expressed by Sir
Gilbert Elliot (first Earl of Minto) that Pitt’s colleagues were “a set
of children playing at Ministers, and must be sent back to school, and
in a few days all will have returned to its former course.”[205] On the
other hand Daniel Pulteney, writing to the Duke of Rutland, said that
people approved the appointments and were glad that Pitt, in showing
attention to existing interests, proved himself to be not “too virtuous
and speculative for a Minister.”[206]
Such were the predictions concerning a premiership which was to last
nearly eighteen years. In one respect the mediocrity of his colleagues
made Pitt’s task easier. His commanding temper would never have brooked
the superior airs of the earls, Temple and Shelburne. From the outset
he could carry out his plan of moulding the Cabinet to his will and
enforcing its discipline, without hindrance except from Thurlow;
and the final ejection of that cross-grained egoist marked not only
the triumph of Pitt, but also the consolidation of the Cabinet in
what seems to be its permanent form, a body moulded by, and largely
responsible to, the Prime Minister.
All this was hidden from the gaze of the most discerning amidst the
gloom and uncertainties of the first days of the year 1784. Shortly
before Parliament re-assembled events occurred which helped to
strengthen a confessedly weak administration. At the request of Pitt,
George III created four new peerages. Thomas Pitt received the title of
Lord Camelford; Edward Eliot (father of Pitt’s brother-in-law) became
Lord Eliot; Henry Thynne was created Lord Carteret; and a barony was
conferred on the second son of the Duke of Northumberland. Thus the
sources of nobility, which had remained hermetically sealed during
the previous administration, were now opened with a highly suggestive
readiness.
Another incident, which it is more pleasing to relate, concerned
Pitt alone. On 11th January the Clerkship of the Pells, a sinecure
worth £3,000 a year for life, fell vacant by the death of Sir Edward
Walpole, a younger son of the Whig statesman. According to precedent,
it would have been not only justifiable, but usual for Pitt to take
this post. Despite the advice of his friends to this effect, Pitt
refused to increase his very slender private income at the public
expense, and prevailed on Colonel Barré to accept the sinecure in
place of the pension of £3,200 a year generously voted to him by the
economical Rockingham. This most unexpected conduct, which of course
saved the public funds the amount of that pension, was loudly praised
by Barré himself and by all who were not inveterate partisans. These
last decried Pitt’s action as resulting either from love of applause
or from priggishness. The taunt has been echoed in later times, even
by those who laud to the skies Chatham’s self-abnegation in the matter
of official perquisites. Nothing better illustrates the malice which
has dogged the footsteps of the son than that sneers should be his
reward for an action similar in all respects to that which has elicited
praise for his father. Both of them, surely, desired at the outset to
emphasize their resolve to put down financial jobbery in the public
service. Their actions were prompted solely by patriotism.
On 12th January, when Parliament met, Pitt had to bear the brunt of
reiterated attacks from Fox, Erskine, and General Conway, under cover
of motions for resuming a Committee to consider the state of the
nation. The young Minister parried their blows by stating his resolve
to bring in very soon an India Bill. Then, flinging back their taunts,
that he had crept into office by the backstairs, he uttered these
memorable words: “The integrity of my own heart and the probity of the
public, as well as my private principles, shall always be my sources
of action. I will never condescend to be the instrument of any secret
advisers whatever; nor in any one instance, while I have the honour to
act as Minister of the Crown in this House, will I be responsible for
measures not my own, or at least in which my heart and judgement do not
cordially acquiesce.” The glance of contempt which he flung at Lord
North (the unwilling tool of George III in the American War) gave point
to this declaration. In truth, it sounded the keynote of Pitt’s career.
He came into office to save the country from the Coalition, but he came
in untrammelled by royal control; and his action in resigning in 1801
evinced the proud consistency of his convictions.
Beaten in the first division in the House of Commons by a majority of
thirty-nine, and on the next day by even larger numbers, he held on
his way unmoved.[207] In consonance with the traditions of Chatham, he
cared little for Parliament provided that the country was with him; and
of this there were unmistakable proofs. The East India Company, acting
through a sub-committee which sat permanently for the defence of its
interests, was arousing all the chartered bodies of the land against a
policy that seemed to threaten other vested interests. “Our property
and charter are forcibly invaded: look to your own.” This was the
battle-cry, unscrupulous but effective, which made aldermen, freemen,
wardens, and liverymen of venerable companies bestir themselves. A
little later the City of London sent an address of thanks to the King
for his action in saving the country from the evils of Fox’s India Bill.
* * * * *
Thus Pitt, wafted onwards by the breath of popular favour, could
confidently expose his India Bill to the contrary gusts that eddied
in the House of Commons (14th January 1784). The methods used in its
preparation were in signal contrast to those employed by Fox. The Whig
leader, far from consulting the East India Company, had drawn up his
Bill in concert with Burke and others hostile to its interests and
ill-informed as to its working. Pitt, on the contrary, took care to
find out the views entertained in Leadenhall Street. The Pitt Papers
show that the Company manifested a desire to meet him more than half
way, and that their representative officials conferred with him on
5th January 1784. Indeed, his Bill was in large measure the outcome
of resolutions which seem to have been framed at that conference and
which gained the assent of five-sixths of those present at a General
Court of the Company held on 10th January. The resolutions were to
this effect:--That the Company, confiding in the justice of Government
for the relief of some of its most pressing claims, consented that the
following powers should be vested in the Crown: (1) All despatches to
or from India to be communicated to one of the King’s Ministers, and
the Directors must conform to the King’s pleasure. The controlling
power to be vested in the Minister and other responsible persons
delegated to attend to the affairs of the Company. (2) Despatches
relating to commercial affairs must likewise be submitted to the
Minister, who may negative them if they bear on civil or military
Government, or on the revenues of the Company. In case of dispute, the
decision of His Majesty in Council shall be final. (3) The General
Court of the Company shall be restrained from rescinding any act of
the Court of Directors only after the King’s pleasure shall have been
signified on the same. (4) The Government in India to be carried on in
the name of the Company by a Governor and three councillors in each of
the Presidencies, the Governor and the Commander-in-Chief (who shall be
next in Council to the Governor) being appointed and recalled by the
Crown, while the Company appointed the two other councillors, subject
to His Majesty’s approbation. They could be recalled either by the
Crown or by the Company.[208]
When the Company agreed to sacrifice so much of its powers, the battle
was half won; but, for the present, the chief difficulty lay in the
House of Commons. In introducing his India Bill on 14th January, Pitt
sought to forestall the criticisms of the hostile majority by reminding
the House that the government of territories so remote and so different
from our own must be in a sense irrational--“inconvenient to the mother
and supreme power, oppressive and inadequate to the necessities of the
governed.” In such a case any scheme of government must be a choice
between inconveniences. He then stated the principles on which he
based his proposals. Firstly, the Indian dominion must not be in the
hands of the Company of merchants in Leadenhall Street. Nevertheless,
any change should be made not violently, but with the concurrence of
that Company, its commercial affairs being left as far as possible to
its supervision, wherever they were not mixed up with questions of
policy and revenue. Where these questions were involved, obviously
Government must have a voice.
Having laid down these guiding principles, he proceeded to fill in
details. He claimed that his proposals were such as not to interfere
arbitrarily with the privileges of the Company; and that his new Board
of Control would be found to be, not the organ of a party, but an
adjunct of the governmental machinery. It was to consist of at least
two of the Ministers of the Crown, namely, the Secretary for Home
Affairs and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, along with a certain
number of Privy Councillors named by the King. These last were to
attend regularly, and were not to be paid. All the despatches of the
Company, except those of a completely commercial nature, were to be
submitted to the new India Board and countersigned by it. While not
controlling the patronage of the Company, the Board would have the
right to negative their chief appointments. The three Presidencies were
henceforth to be administered, each by a Governor (a Governor-General
in the case of Bengal), a Commander-in-Chief, and a Council. The
Crown would appoint these three Commanders-in-Chief, and would have
the right of recalling the Governors and their councillors--a clause
calculated to prevent such a fiasco as that of the attempted recall of
Warren Hastings. Finally, in order to curb the abuses in the Company’s
service, Pitt proposed to institute at Westminster a tribunal for the
trial of offences committed in India, and he suggested that parts of
the second India Bill of Fox might be adopted for the prevention of
abuses in India.
There can be no doubt that this measure excelled that of Fox in many
respects. It left the actual details of administration to Governors
and councillors who were on the spot and could act therefore with
promptitude; but, by subjecting them in all matters other than
commercial to what was in effect a special committee of the Privy
Council, it associated the Government of India with the British
constitution in a way that answered the needs of the time and the
developments of the future.
But the House of Commons was in no mood to gauge the excellences of
the scheme. It was swayed rather by the vehement criticisms of Fox,
who declared that the Bill gave far too much influence to the Crown,
and that, if passed, it must inevitably lead to the loss of India. The
Fox-North Coalition still voted solidly for their chiefs, and on 23rd
January the measure was thrown out on the second reading by 222 votes
to 214.
Scenes of great excitement ensued. Fox and his followers loudly called
on the Ministry to resign. Pitt sat still, vouchsafing no reply to the
clamour, except when General Conway accused him of sending agents over
the land to corrupt the voters. Then he started to his feet, defying
Conway to substantiate the charge, but, for the rest, declaring his
indifference to the slanders of opponents, and his determination to
work for the welfare of the State.
Three days later, when Fox charged him with acting as the
unconstitutional Minister of the Crown and overriding the powers of
Parliament, he replied that such was not his act and intention. His
conduct was unusual because the occasion was unprecedented. To have
resigned after the recent vote would have brought to power Ministers
who, he believed, had not the confidence of the nation; and he further
pointed to the recent diminution of the votes of the Opposition. The
argument was telling, for the hostile majority had dwindled from one
hundred and six on 3rd December, to thirty-nine on 12th January, and
now to eight. These facts clinched his contention that the feeling of
the House was inclining to the favourable verdict which the country had
begun to declare. A shrewd observer like Wraxall came to see that Pitt
was vindicating the constitution even in his seeming breach of it.[209]
Nevertheless, everything was at hazard. Though the majority against
him lessened, it was still a clear majority; and to appeal from an
indisputable fact to what was at most a surmise, seemed a defiance of
the House. As such it met with severe handling at the hands of Fox and
his sturdy henchman, Coke of Norfolk. They, however, finally agreed
to adjourn the whole question for three days. Why Fox did not at once
press his advantage to the utmost is hard to say. Perhaps he feared
to let loose the passions of the House upon the country at large when
Consols were down at 54 and national ruin seemed imminent. He may have
desired to gain time in order to watch the trend of public opinion, and
to appear as a peace-restoring Neptune rather than an inconsiderate
Aeolus.
An influential minority of the House longed for calm. On that very
day fifty-three of its members met privately at the St. Albans Tavern
to urge a union of parties on a more natural and less unpopular basis
than the Fox-North Coalition. Appointing a committee of five, they
besought the Duke of Portland to use his influence to bring about a
connection between Fox and Pitt. As we have seen, the hostility of
these statesmen had arisen, not from difference of principles, but from
the divergent interests of party groups. It had, however, been inflamed
by Pitt’s acceptance of office in circumstances that were especially
odious to Fox; and the Whig leader, in his speech of 26th January,
pointedly declared that, while admitting the urgent need of union and
conciliation, he must insist on the vindication of the honour of the
House by the resignation of the present unconstitutional Ministry. A
similar declaration was sent on the same day by the Duke of Portland to
the committee of the St. Albans Tavern meeting.
Such a beginning was far from promising. Clearly an understanding
existed between the nominal and real chiefs of the Whig party with a
view to forcing on a dissolution. This implied that the conciliators
were appealing to party-leaders to act as arbiters, and that they
at once passed judgement against the Pitt Ministry. Matters were
not improved during a debate in the House on the need of forming an
extended Administration (2nd February). Fox, while disclaiming any
personal hostility to Pitt, insisted on the resignation of Ministers
as the first step towards the formation of a wider Administration.
On his side Pitt once more declared that any union between them must
be formed in an honourable way, and that it would be paltry for him
to resign merely in order to treat for re-admission to office. The
original motion having passed unanimously, a hostile resolution was
then brought forward substantiating Fox’s declaration. Whereupon Pitt,
nettled by these insidious tactics, declared that he would never change
his armour and beg to be received as a volunteer among the forces of
the enemy. Never, he exclaimed, would he consent to resign before the
terms of such a union were arranged. If the House desired to drive the
Ministry from office there were two ways open--either to petition the
King for their removal, or to impeach them. At present their remaining
in office was not unconstitutional. The hostile motion, however, passed
by a majority of nineteen; and by a slightly larger majority the House
resolved to lay its decision before the King.
That day was perhaps the most critical of Pitt’s parliamentary career.
The feeling of the House seemed to be turning against him; and the
negotiations at the St. Albans Tavern (which went on intermittently
until 1st March) were far from favourable to his interests. Both sides
agreed as to the goal to be reached, but each threw on the other the
responsibility of taking the first step, which that other declined
on points of honour. At the outset the Duke of Portland declined to
see Pitt with respect to a union until he had resigned. Then, on 31st
January, he hinted, obscurely enough, that the Minister might find a
middle way; and when Pitt requested an explanation, he referred him to
recent precedents, which were in effect resignations.
The good sense which rarely deserts the House of Commons for long
reappeared on 11th February. Fox then professed not only his readiness
to serve with Pitt, when he had complied with the terms of the
constitution, but also his desire to meet him half-way as to the
details of a new India Bill of which he had given notice. Pitt replied
in a similar spirit, but declared that there were some men with whom he
could not serve. Thereupon Lord North, at whom this shaft was levelled,
declared his willingness to stand aside if the voice of the country
demanded it. No act in his career did him more credit, and the incident
aroused a general hope that Pitt would now feel himself able with
honour to resign.
He refused, however, to take that step, probably because of the
continued obduracy of the Duke of Portland. The St. Albans Tavern
Committee had besought the King to intervene in order to facilitate
an interview between Pitt and the Duke. Accordingly on Sunday, 16th
February, the King rather reluctantly urged the Duke to meet the Prime
Minister, but signified privately to Pitt his resolve never to apply
to His Grace again if he still declined.[210] Nevertheless the Duke
refused to unbend.
The last stage of the negotiations illustrates the niggling methods
of partisanship prevalent in those times. In answer to a final appeal
from the committee, Pitt and his colleagues urged the King to make
one more effort to bring the Duke of Portland to an accommodation.
The reply of the King on 26th February shows that, in spite of his
strong objections, he made that effort, but with the stipulation that
the Duke should have “no right to anything above an equal share to
others in the new administration, not to be the head of it, whatever
employment he may hold.” Pitt amplified this statement by declaring
that the new Ministry would be formed “on a wide basis, and on fair
and equal terms.” Obviously this implied the entry of the followers
of Portland and Fox on equal terms with those of Pitt; but the Duke,
while approving the word “fair,” required to know the meaning of the
word “equal”; and when Pitt replied that this could be best explained
in their interview, the Duke refused to come unless the meaning of the
word were first made clear.[211] This straining at gnats put an end to
the negotiations. It is now abundantly clear that Pitt went as far as
could be expected, and that the continuation of the deadlock resulted
from the captiousness of the Duke of Portland.
Ten years were to elapse before the Portland Whigs came in to
strengthen Pitt’s hands, and their accession amid the storms of the
French Revolution involved the break up of the Whig party. In February
1784 there was a chance that the whole party would form a working
alliance with Pitt and the Chathamites. Such a union would have formed
a phalanx strong enough to renovate the life of Great Britain and to
prepare her better to stand the strain of the coming crises. It was not
to be. Obviously no union could be lasting where the party knocking for
admission insisted on dictating its terms and gaining admission to the
citadel.
There is, indeed, an air of unreality about these negotiations,
probably due to the fact that each party was intent on the state of
public opinion and the chances of a dissolution. The same fact probably
explains the action of Fox in the House. Time after time he carried
motions of censure against Pitt, though by wavering majorities. He and
his followers hindered the apportionment of the supplies, threatened
to block the annual Mutiny Bill, and went so far as to hold the menace
of impeachment over the heads of Ministers. When the Lords by a large
majority reprobated the actions of the Commons and begged the King to
continue his Ministers in office, the intervention of the Upper House
was strongly resented by the Coalition majority.[212]
Yet Fox never pressed his attacks home. The threats of impeachment
remained mere stage thunder, probably because he doubted his power to
launch the bolt. There was, indeed, much truth in Pitt’s description of
him as “the champion of a small majority of this House against the loud
and decided voice of this people.” Hatred of the unnatural Coalition,
far from declining, was intensified by Pitt’s manly and consistent
conduct. The popular imagination thrilled at the sight of the young
Premier braving the clamour of Foxites and Northites in reliance upon
the final verdict of the nation. According to all the constitutional
text-books, the Whig leader spoke sound doctrine when he declaimed
against Pitt’s tenure of office in the teeth of the repeated censures
of the House; but men discerned the weakness of the Opposition; they
weighed it rather than counted heads; and in the balances of common
sense the Fox-North majority kicked the beam. Westminster and Banbury,
the very places which had returned Fox and North, now sent up addresses
of thanks to the King for dismissing them from office. Middlesex,
Edinburgh, York, Worcester, Exeter, and Southwark, besides many smaller
places, sent in addresses to the same effect, thereby in some cases
dishonouring the parliamentary drafts of their members. The City of
London, the home of blatant Whiggism at the time of the Wilkes affair,
now thanked Pitt for his services and voted him its freedom, with the
accompaniment of a gold box. His ride into the city on 28th February
to receive this honour resembled a royal progress, and Wilkes was the
man who welcomed him to the Hall of the Grocers’ Company, where he was
entertained at a great banquet.
Nor was his popularity lessened by an incident that attended his
return to his brother’s residence in Berkeley Square. His carriage,
drawn along by a cheering crowd, was passing the chief social centre
of the Foxites, Brooks’s Club, when a sudden rush was made at it by a
body of stalwart ruffians armed with sticks and the broken poles of
sedan-chairs. So fierce was the onset that the carriage doors crashed
in, and Lord Chatham with difficulty parried the blows aimed at his
brother. For some moments they were in serious danger, but, aided by
their partisans, they succeeded in escaping to White’s Club, hard by.
Fox was loudly accused of being the author of this outrage. But, of
course, it would be foolish to lay this brutal attack to his charge.
It seems probable, however, that hangers-on of the party paid some
scoundrels to incapacitate Pitt for the rest of the parliamentary
strifes. He, and he alone, could make headway against the storm; and
his removal even for a week would have led to the triumph of Fox and
North. We may note here that Pitt did not resign his membership of
Brooks’s Club on account of this outrage--a proof that he was far above
all thoughts of revenge or rancour.
The prospects of the Opposition were somewhat marred by the events
of 28th February. Everything tended to hamper the actions of that
ill-assorted couple, North and Fox. True, on 1st March they carried by
twelve votes an address to the King for the removal of Ministers; but
George III acted not only with firmness but with dignity. He replied,
as he had before replied to a similar address, that he deplored the
failure of the efforts to form an extended Administration on _fair
and equal terms_, but saw in that failure no reason for dismissing
Ministers who appeared to have the confidence of the country, and
against whom no specific charges were urged. These skilful retorts
struck home; and a long and reproachful representation to the King,
said to have been drawn up by Burke, was carried by a majority of only
one. Pitt looked on this as tantamount to a triumph; for two days later
he wrote to the Duke of Rutland that he was “tired to death even with
victory; for I think our present state is entitled to that name.”[213]
His forecast was correct. In face of these dwindling numbers, Fox and
North did not venture to oppose the passing of the Mutiny Bill, which,
since the beginning of William III’s reign, has year by year legalized
the existence of a standing army.[214]
To allow this measure to pass, after threatening to obstruct the work
of Government, was a virtual confession of failure; and not only the
House but the country took it as such. The inner weakness of the
Coalition now became daily more evident. Discontents that were hidden
during the months of seeming triumph broke forth as the prospect of
defeat loomed large ahead. The tension of the past two months now gave
way to a strange slackness, resulting doubtless from the uncertainties
of the situation. Fox relapsed into silence. Pitt rarely spoke and
scarcely vouchsafed a reply to the smaller men who kept up the aimless
strife. In truth, the heavy-laden air at St. Stephen’s gave premonitory
signs of that portent in nature when songsters become mute and animals
creep about with anxious restlessness under the shadow of an oncoming
eclipse.
* * * * *
The nation was now to give its verdict. On 24th March the King
dissolved Parliament. The Great Seal disappeared from the house of the
Lord Chancellor on that very morning; but by great efforts another was
ready by noon of the 25th. For some weeks the land had simmered with
suspense. “Even ladies,” wrote Horace Walpole on 12th March, “talk of
nothing but politics.” In truth, a time of new political fashions was
at hand. The old having been discarded, very much depended on a decided
lead given by some of the leading constituencies.
For various reasons men looked eagerly to the example set by Yorkshire
and Westminster. Both had recently led the way in the agitation
for Economic and Parliamentary Reform and were strongholds of
Whiggism; yet both the county and the city had recently acclaimed
the conduct of Pitt. Canon Mason, a well-known poet of those days,
who, with the reforming parson, Wyvill, had fathered the Yorkshire
Reform Association, was now working hard on behalf of George III and
Pitt--a fact which spoke volumes. Yet, despite the strength of the
Association, and the ardent Toryism of most of the clothing towns of
the West Riding, the influence of the great Whig Houses, especially
the Cavendishes in Wharfedale, the Fitzwilliams at Wentworth, and the
Earl of Carlisle at Castle Howard, was so strong as to make the issue
doubtful.
The feeling of the county was tested first at a great meeting of its
freeholders held in the yard of the Castle at York on Lady Day. Despite
driving hail-storms and a bitter wind, thousands of sturdy yeomen,
together with throngs of clothiers from the towns of the West Riding,
poured into that historic space. Then came the magnates of the county,
driving up in their coaches-and-six. In good old English style the
two sides of the case were set forth on the hustings in fair and open
rivalry by the best speakers of both parties. The large towns and the
yeomen evidently favoured the royal prerogative upheld by Pitt, while
the claims of the Whigs and of North’s followers were championed by
the great lords and their tenantry, by sticklers for constitutional
precedents, and all who hoped to benefit by a change of Ministry.
The issues at stake being as obscure as the cleavage between parties
was zigzag, the speeches for the most part fell ineffectively. What
with the sleet and the confusion of parties the meeting seemed about
to break up in disorder, when there appeared on the daïs a figure
so slim and weak as to quail before the blasts. But the first few
sentences of that silvery voice penetrated the storm and dominated the
swaying crowd. It was the voice of Wilberforce, who once more showed
the influence of clearness of thought and beauty of utterance over a
confused throng. Boswell, describing the whole incident to Dundas,
said: “I saw what seemed a mere shrimp mount upon the table; but, as I
listened he grew and grew until the shrimp became a whale.”
The victory of mind over matter was decisive. His arraignment of the
Coalition and defence of Pitt carried the meeting with him; and a great
shout arose: “We’ll have this man as our county member.” The instinct
of the meeting was sound. The tact of Wilberforce in uniting all Whigs
and Tories who were not committed to the Coalition or bound by the
magnates greatly furthered his cause; so that finally an election which
had of late always been decided by the three great Houses named above,
resulted in the triumphant return of Wilberforce and Duncombe. The show
of hands was so overwhelmingly in their favour that the Whigs accepted
the verdict and did not demand a poll. The victory was not only a
severe blow to the county families and an assertion of the growing
independence of the middle classes and yeomen; it was also a gain for
the cause of purity, the total expenses of the successful candidates
being less than £5,000.
The example set in Yorkshire was followed in most parts of Great
Britain. The supporters of the Coalition were smitten hip and thigh;
as many as 160 members of the Opposition were thrown out, and by a
very obvious joke they were termed Fox’s Martyrs, the details of their
deaths being recorded with tragi-comic solemnity.[215] The strength
and universality of the popular impulse surprised even Pitt.[216]
He was carried in triumphantly by 334 votes for the University of
Cambridge, his friend, Lord Euston, gaining 288, while their opponents,
Townshend and Mansfield, polled only 267 and 181 respectively.[217]
Wilkes swept Middlesex by a large majority--for the Crown. Skilful
speakers like Erskine, county magnates like Earl Verney and Thomas
Grenville, were thrust aside for the crime of supporting the Coalition;
and in certain boroughs, where no one had been sent down to oppose
that hated union, travellers who declaimed against it were forcibly
detained and returned as members of Parliament. Never, we are assured
by Wraxall, was there less bribery used in the interests of the
Crown; for, as he naively asserts, “corruption for once became almost
unnecessary.”[218]
The reasons of this extraordinary overthrow of the Coalition are not
far to seek. Tories felt far more regard for the royal prerogative
than for Lord North, now that he had gone over to the King’s enemies;
and independent Whigs refused to follow Fox in his ex-centric march
towards the Northites. Thus the Coalition was in reality defeated
by--the Coalition. That jaundiced old Whig, Horace Walpole, might
abjure his friendship with Mason for heading “the pert and ignorant
cabal at York”; he might declare that the nation must be intoxicated to
applaud the use of the royal prerogative against “the Palladium of the
people” (the House of Commons). “Junius” might raise his once dreaded
voice to assure his countrymen that the victory of Pitt would put an
end to their boasted liberties. It was useless. The nation’s instinct
bade it break with the past and start afresh on a path that promised
steady progress. That instinct now swept aside the old party lines and
organizations in a way that had not been seen since the advent of the
Georges.
Only at one place was the rout of the Whigs stayed; and the doubtful
issue of the conflict at Westminster attested the wondrous personal
powers of Fox. A union of strength with geniality, of eloquence with
frankness, which appeals to Englishmen, was seen in him in all its
potency. The “magician” (to use Pitt’s phrase about his rival) waved
his wand with startling effect. A few days of platform speaking
sufficed to restore his earlier popularity. Despite the utmost efforts
of the Court and Government on behalf of their candidates, Admiral
Hood and Sir Cecil Wray, the Whig totals crept up day by day, so as to
threaten the seat of the latter, which at one time seemed assured.[219]
George III followed the course of the Westminster election with an
eager interest that reveals his hatred of the Whig leader. This is
seen in his suggestion on 13th April to Pitt that bad votes should be
fabricated at Westminster to counterbalance those which must have been
trumped up for Fox; or again (1st May) that the _Quackers_ [_sic_]
might perhaps be induced to come to the poll in the interests of the
Government.
All was of no avail. The arts of Windsor were foiled by the charms
of Devonshire House. Georgiana, the beauteous duchess, used her
allurements to rally voters to the Whig cause, and is said to have
carried her complaisance so far as to kiss a butcher for a promise
of his vote. Certain it is that she and her sister, the Viscountess
Duncannon, conveyed artisans from the outlying districts to the poll
in their own chariots. The Countesses of Carlisle and Derby, Lady
Beauchamp, and Mrs. Crewe, also used their charms on behalf of the Whig
cause, so that a favouring rhymester could write:
Sure Heaven approves of Fox’s cause
(Though slaves at Court abhor him),
To vote for Fox, then, who can pause
Since _Angels_ canvass for him?[220]
In vain did the Court put forward the Countess of Salisbury to keep
waverers steadfast. The Countess possessed beauty, but tempered by
age and discretion. Thanks to the exertions of Georgiana, and to the
influence of the Prince of Wales and of the Dukes of Portland and
Devonshire, Fox, at the end of an exciting contest of forty days,
headed Sir Cecil Wray by 236 votes, though he still fell 460 votes
below Lord Hood. The Prince of Wales celebrated this triumph by a great
reception in the grounds of Carlton House at the very time when the
King was passing outside to open Parliament.
But the local success of the Whigs was not yet complete. Many
suspicious facts during the election seemed to discredit the result;
and when Sir Cecil Wray demanded a scrutiny, the High Bailiff of
Westminster not only granted the request, but refused to make any
return for Westminster, thus invalidating the election of Fox and even
of Hood until an inquiry was held.[221] Fox entered Parliament, but it
was through the kindness and foresight of Sir Thomas Dundas, who had
procured his election for the Orkney and Shetland Islands. At once he
attacked the High Bailiff as well as the Government, which he accused
of influencing the action of that official. The matter is too involved
and technical to enter upon here. Its chief interest lies in the manly
and massive oration which Fox flung against Pitt on 8th June. The Prime
Minister evaded the missile with much dexterity; and a large majority
insisted on the scrutiny. After nine months of inquiry the position
of the candidates was virtually unchanged. The Government’s following
strongly desired to end this expensive and fruitless inquiry; but Pitt
opposed the motions to this effect, and early in the session of 1785
found himself abandoned by his majority.
The motives which prompted his action on this affair will be considered
in Chapter XII; but we may here note that it certainly lessened his
personal influence in the critical session of 1785. His own position
had hitherto been so well assured that generous behaviour towards
one of the most affable and open-handed men of his time would have
been both natural and becoming. As it was, many of his friends were
disgusted, and some thought his conduct would fatally prejudice his
future. Thus, on 10th February 1785 Daniel Pulteney wrote as follows:
“Contrary to the wish of all his real friends, and only supported by
Dundas, Lord Mulgrave, and Bearcroft, Pitt persevered in this cursed
business.... The consequence of this will be trifling if Pitt will
_now_ recede and agree to order the return, but ... many will form a
very different idea of the Administration if such an odious business is
forced down by a small majority.”[222] Fortunately Pitt’s own friends
abandoned him before matters went too far. The affair unsteadied his
followers for a time; and the impression was spread abroad that he had
all the qualifications for winning a decisive victory, but none of the
graces that add lustre to its laurels. Apart from this personal detail,
which influenced public opinion more than far wider questions, Pitt’s
triumph in and after 1784 was so complete as to usher in a new era in
British politics. We may therefore pause to review both its causes and
its significance.
* * * * *
Besides the irremediable blunder committed by Fox in framing the
Coalition with Lord North, he made several mistakes during the early
weeks of 1784. It was in the highest degree unwise to stake everything
on the cohesion of his majority in the Commons, and to seek to avert a
dissolution. Judging by his motions in the House, it was the worst of
crimes for Pitt to advise the King to appeal to the nation. But surely
that was the natural and almost inevitable step, seeing that Parliament
had sat for four years, and the opponents were very nearly matched.
Yet, while hindering the course of public business by the postponement
of votes for the public service, Fox claimed to be acting with a single
eye to the public welfare. Such conduct evinced no insight into the
essentials of the problem before him. For surely, if Ministers were
acting as illegally as he averred, it was his duty to impeach them. If
their offence was more venial, the verdict of the people would suffice.
The question could be decided only in one of two ways--either by an
impeachment or a dissolution. He decided in neither way, but allowed
the tangle to grow worse, until men came to believe that his sole aims
were to shirk any appeal, either to the laws of England or to the
hustings, and to force his way once more to power along with Lord North
by means of their large but unstable majority. This was the suspicion
which thinned their following at St. Stephen’s and ruined them at the
polls.
Pitt, on the other hand, showed great tactical skill in working his way
out from an apparently hopeless position. Admitting that his tenure
of office was irregular, he justified it by the unanswerable retort
that the Opposition could not govern. Accepting their decision, that
supplies should be postponed so as to prevent a dissolution, he made it
clear whose was the responsibility for the resulting disorganization.
Finally, when the inability of his opponents to block the Mutiny Bill
had set free the administrative machine, he appealed to the country.
Men were quick to see which side had best consulted the interests of
the State. Over against the impotently factious conduct of Fox stood
the patriotic good sense of his rival in disregarding the wavering
censures of a discredited House in order on the fitting occasion to
consult the will of the nation.
So soon as the essential facts of that unparalleled situation are
fully grasped, the diatribes against Pitt for making an illegal use
of the royal prerogative for selfish purposes are seen to be mere
verbiage. Equally futile is it to inquire, with Lord John Russell, why
the constitution was not afterwards altered in favour of the Crown,
and why the Court did not gain more advantage by its triumph in the
General Election of 1784.[223] The fact is that Pitt had never intended
to govern as a Court minion, or to subject the constitution to the
royal will. It was not merely that his pride revolted against any such
degradation; but his principles, no less than the tough consistency of
his nature, forbade it. Because he insisted on maintaining the King’s
prerogative at one point, namely, that Ministers were dismissed by him
and not by the House of Commons, he was far from supporting it at all
points. Even in that particular, he admitted that Government could not
be carried on by Ministers who had not the confidence of the House of
Commons, but he asserted, and triumphantly proved, that that House had
not the confidence of the nation. For the long delay in putting the
matter to the test, Fox, not he, was responsible.
In reality, then, there was no violation of the constitution, and
no change in Pitt’s relations to the Crown. True, he had sought to
reconcile its prerogatives with the functions of Parliament; but his
attitude towards George III was still marked by a proud independence,
which often caused annoyance.[224] He brought forward measures which
the King disapproved; and in all important matters he had his way
down to the spring of 1801, when George III demurred on conscientious
grounds. The shelving of the cause of Parliamentary Reform by Pitt
after the year 1785 resulted from the utter indifference of the nation,
not from any bargain that he had corruptly struck with the King.
But if the memorable contest of 1784 has not the significance sometimes
ascribed to it in partisan narratives, it is of great moment in
regard to the monarchy, the Cabinet, and the course of events at St.
Stephen’s. George III came forth victorious from his long struggle with
the Whig Houses; but the magnitude of the peril had taught him prudence
and self-restraint; and, while keeping a tight hand on patronage, he
was thenceforth content, in the more important sphere of legislation,
to leave a free hand to the Minister who had saved him from the
open conflict with the Commons which Fox had sought to precipitate.
The relations between the King and Prime Minister therefore came to
resemble those which had subsisted between the first two Georges and
Walpole.
Consequently, the growth in the powers of the Cabinet, which had been
interrupted since the fall of that Minister, now proceeded normally.
During the seventeen years of Pitt’s supremacy the principle became
firmly established that the chief Minister of the Crown was the centre
of authority, and that, while holding that authority nominally from
the King, he exercised it by virtue of a mandate from the people.
George, therefore, had escaped from the thraldom of the Coalition only
in order to bow before an authority which was at once constitutional
and irresistible. He no longer had to do with the nominee of a dozen
great families, but with a man who had the clearly expressed confidence
of the nation. The same fact tended to make the Cabinet of the future
more and more a homogeneous and well disciplined Council, obeying the
impulsion of the first Minister, and adding force to his declarations
of policy. No longer was it possible, as in Lord North’s decade of
office, for the Ministers to act singly and at the behests of the
sovereign. George III’s policy of _divide et impera_ might succeed with
North; it could not but fail before the iron resolution of Pitt. The
King’s acquiescence in the new order of things enabled him to regain
much of the ground which he had earlier lost by his masterful efforts
to govern as well as reign. Well was it for the British monarchy that
those disputes were settled before the storms of the French Revolution
beat upon that ancient fabric.
Finally, we may note that Pitt was far more than a second Walpole. The
sturdy Norfolk squire wielded power, as a nominee of the Whig Houses;
but Pitt was established in office by a wider and grander mandate. The
General Election of 1784 ended the existing party system and shattered
the rule of the Whig families who had hitherto dominated the Georgian
Era. The somnolent acquiescence of the populace in that headship now
gave way to a more critical spirit, to a sense that the traditional
parties must readjust themselves under a new leader. Chatham’s
conception of a union which should absorb the best elements of both
Whigs and Tories received a startlingly complete fulfilment; for the
greatest of the results of the election of 1784 was the emergence of a
party which may be termed national.