Pitt was now to inhabit the Pay Office, and he gave notice to Ann,
without any previous quarrel so far as we know, that they would
henceforth live apart. In any case, Pitt's accession to office thus
enabled him to put a convenient period to what had probably become a
fretting and irksome arrangement; but Walpole notes at this time that
there is gossip about 'the new Paymaster's menage,' possibly Grattan's
tradition of 'This House to Let.' This sort of chit-chat is, however,
the inevitable accompaniment of a man in Pitt's position and need not
again be dwelt upon. Two of his early patrons also quarrelled with him:
the Prince of Wales and Cobham. But Pitt, for the moment at any rate,
could afford to do without either. A more delicate question required his
attention. There were habitual practices in the Pay Office which brought
in immense profits to the Paymaster. It was the custom of that official
to take poundage on all subsidies paid to foreign princes, and to use
the great balances at his credit for his own purposes of speculation. As
to this second method Pitt had no doubts, and rejected the idea. As to
the first he seems, on entering upon office, to have consulted
Pelham.[179] Pelham replied that Winnington had taken these perquisites,
but that he himself when Paymaster had not; Pitt could do as he chose.
'Such a manner of stating it left scarce an option in any but the basest
of mankind,' remarks Camelford with characteristic bitterness. Pitt at
any rate did not hesitate, and refused to take a farthing beyond his
salary, which, in truth, was splendid enough. But the indirect profits
of the Paymastership, which earlier in the century had founded the
dukedom of Chandos and the palace of Canons, and which later endowed the
peerage of Henry Fox and the glories of his exquisite residence at
Kensington, besides furnishing great fortunes for his graceless sons to
squander at the gaming-table, were, as Dr. Johnson would have said,
beyond the dreams of avarice. It was held in that day of loose political
morality to be noble, if not unique, for a man with a patrimony of a
hundred a year and a legacy of ten thousand pounds to refuse to receive
such profits.[180]
Lord Camelford's statement may be taken in the main to be correct
without adopting the sour inference which he draws. Pitt may well have
asked Pelham as to the practice of the office and Pelham have replied in
the sense indicated. If so, it was nearly as creditable to Pelham as to
Pitt, for one was scarcely less needy than the other. Pelham was a
gambler, and so wanted all the money he could get. He was a politician,
and politicians in those days required money for their purposes almost
as much as gamblers. Lord Camelford implies that had Pelham not answered
as he did, Pitt would have taken the percentages and the balances. This
is mere surmise. But, had he done so, he could not have been blamed.
These perquisites were regarded as legitimate by the practice and
opinion of the day; the balances were matters of public account. They
made the Paymaster's office a great prize, a recognised source of
immense profits. The fact remains that Pitt, or Pitt and Pelham, thought
them improper, and refused to take them.
One signal difference must however be observed. Pelham abstained
silently, the abstinence of Pitt was widely known. This notoriety may
have been partly due to the fact that the King of Sardinia, having heard
of Pitt's refusal to deduct the percentage on the Sardinian subsidy,
sent to offer him a large present, which Pitt unhesitatingly declined.
But there was another reason, which colours Pitt's whole life, and which
may therefore well be noted here. His light was never hid under any sort
of bushel, and he did not intend that it should be. He already saw that
his power lay with the people, and that it was based not merely on his
genius and eloquence, but on a faith in his public spirit and scrupulous
integrity. His virtues were his credentials, and it was necessary that
they should be conspicuous. Pulteney and St. John had wielded greater
Parliamentary power, yet Pulteney and St. John had perished from want of
character. Character he saw was the one necessary thing, but character
must be known to be appreciated. Pitt was perhaps the first of those
statesmen who sedulously imbue the public with a knowledge of their
merit. He can scarcely be called an advertiser, but he was the ancestor
of advertisers. Other statesmen no doubt had paid their pamphleteers.
Pitt paid nobody, but he inspired; he had hangers-on who clung to the
skirts of his growing fortune. This is not to imply that he had not a
genuine scorn of meanness and corruption and the baser arts of
politics. He had to use them through others; he had to ally himself with
Newcastle and his gang; he could not govern otherwise. But he was
anxious that the public should know that he was something apart from and
above these politicians. His was a real but not a retiring purity; a
white column rather than a snowdrop. This was all part of his
essentially theatrical character, which he had found successful in
Parliament, and which gradually absorbed him, with unhappy results.
But there was another reason why it was necessary that Pitt should
advertise his virtue on this occasion. He was a patriot joining the
Court party, a member of the Opposition accepting a place, which, with
all deductions, had a fixed and ample salary. It was not possible for
him, though his friends were already established in office, to join them
without some loss of popularity. It was difficult for him to keep his
shield untarnished in the royal armoury. The morose Glover states that
he brought himself to the level of Lord Bath in public disfavour by his
acceptance of office. Pitt himself, at the time of his bitter
mortification in 1754, writes to Lord Hardwicke of his 'bearing long a
load of obloquy for supporting the King's measures,' without the
smallest abatement of the King's hostility, and about the same time
describes himself as having parted with that weight in the country which
arose from his independent opposition to the measures of the Government.
He must indeed have counted the cost. It seemed obvious and in the
nature of things that Lytteltons, Grenvilles, and Cobhams should follow
the other patriots into office when opportunity offered; they had no
doubt barked loudly at ministers, but they belonged to the families
which always governed the country, and it was proper, indeed inevitable,
that they should take up their predestined positions on the Treasury
Bench. But Pitt had stood on a different pedestal. He had been marked
out by Walpole for punishment and by the King for exclusion. He had
thundered against the King and the King's trusted Ministers, the
Walpoles and the Carterets, with a voice that overbore all others, and
which apparently could not be silenced. The people seemed at last to
have found an incorruptible champion. Then suddenly he was muzzled with
a sinecure. Had he insisted on the Secretaryship of War and wrenched it
from the reluctant sovereign, the position would have been totally
different. But to pass into the sleek silence of the Vice Treasurership,
and almost to disappear from sight or hearing for eight years, seemed a
moral collapse. It is not one of the least remarkable features of Pitt's
career that he should have survived this lucrative obscurity.
It is indeed difficult to understand how so fierce and restless a spirit
could have endured the passive existence to which he had restrained
himself by the acceptance of office. We seem to hear a growl but a few
months after he had become Paymaster. 'In the gloomy scene which, I
fear, is opening in public affairs for this disgraced country,' he
writes to George Grenville in October 1746; not a cheerful tone for a
young minister, but one not unfamiliar among those in subordinate
positions. Still he could afford to wait. He probably contented himself
with the reflection that King George could not last for ever, and
flattered himself with an easy entrance to the councils of King
Frederick. He could watch, too, with silent scorn, the miscarriages of
his official superiors, confident that high office must come to him, as
it were, of its own accord. Still, he had to wait long, and the death of
Frederick as well as the longevity of the monarch were little less than
disastrous to his calculations. It would have been better, of course,
for his historical position had he refrained from taking a subordinate
office, which restrained his independence, and deprived him of the
peculiar lustre of his lonely power. In these days we ask ourselves what
temptation could induce him to accept a post which seemed to offer
nothing but salary in exchange for the exceptional splendour of his
independent position? How was it worth his while to become
Vice-Treasurer of Ireland? It cannot have been for money. He was
notoriously indifferent to money (though his nephew casts doubts even on
this), and he was better off as to money than he had ever been before,
owing to the Marlborough legacy. It may have been that as his political
associates had all joined the administration, he thought that his
loneliness impaired his power, and he must certainly have felt that it
was impossible for him to continue in active and effective opposition to
a Government which included his closest friends. That would seem to be
the chief and conspicuous reason. But there was another, as one may well
suppose, which was not less potent. Office is the natural, legitimate
and honourable object of all politicians who feel capable of doing good
work as ministers, and even of some who do not. The instances to the
contrary are so few as to prove the rule. Wilberforce and Burdett,
Ashley (for Ashley, though not literally outside the category of
officials, cannot be considered as one), and Cobden are the names that
obviously present themselves. But Ashley and Wilberforce had
consecrated themselves to a high career of philanthropy which was
incompatible with the bond of ministry. Burdett, long a popular idol and
an orator of great power, a country gentleman of the best type, and
personally agreeable even to those who differed from him, was probably
held to be too advanced a demagogue to be even considered for an
appointment. Cobden refused office at least twice; yet had he lived he
could not have kept out of it. Bright, his illustrious political twin,
the Castor to his Pollux, took it and liked it. In the eighteenth
century we can think of no one but Pulteney. He, indeed, strictly
speaking, is no exception, for as a youth he held a subordinate post.
And though in the maturity of his powers he refused the first place when
apparently he might have had it, he also solicited it when it was out of
his reach.
Althorp too, in the last century, is a singular example. He led the
House of Commons for four years as Chancellor of the Exchequer, when his
popularity and ascendancy made him the real pivot of the Government. But
he hated office with so deadly a hatred that he had the pistols removed
from his room lest he should end his official career with them. He
really comes in the list of exceptions to the rule that office is the
goal of all capable politicians.
But Pitt had nothing in common with these men. He wished to be in
office, and he knew that he would be a better minister than any there,
even though he may not have felt already the confidence which he
afterwards expressed that he alone could save England. How then was he
to obtain a foothold in the ministry? The just repugance of the King
was, he knew, insurmountable, so long as he remained outside. But if
admitted to office he might well hope much from his power of
fascination, which was almost famous. The King was not an easy person
for any man to charm; but Pitt no doubt felt that if he could once be
placed in contact with His Majesty, he might be able to remove the royal
prejudice; though in that he seems to have been wrong. He tried his hand
on Lady Yarmouth, with whom at a later period he seems to have been on a
familiar footing; but it is doubtful if she ever dispelled, though she
may have mitigated, the King's hatred of Pitt.
Even failing the mollification of the King, he felt that by taking
office he would have entered the official caste, and he would have
placed his foot on one rung of the ladder of greatness. In accepting the
Vice-Treasurership he had doubtless been promised the next post that was
vacant, and was, as has been seen, given the Paymastership. He was thus
reunited to all his political friends, and would form with them a solid
proportion of the garrison of Downing Street, a proportion to be
reckoned with. It would be strange indeed if in such a position and with
such feeble superiors he did not make his way to some position of real
business and power.
It must be remembered, too, that the state of affairs as regards office
in the eighteenth century was very different from the present. Now, if a
man be a bold and popular speaker, both in Parliament and on the
platform, but more especially on the platform, he leaps into the Cabinet
at once; he disdains anything else; a Vice-Treasurership such as Pitt
accepted he would regard as an insult. But in the middle of the
eighteenth century there was nothing of this. There was no such thing as
platform speaking outside the religious movement. A man made himself
prominent and formidable in Parliament, but that was a small part of the
necessary qualifications for office. The Sovereign then exercised a
control, not indeed absolute, but efficacious and material, on the
selection of ministers. The great posts were mainly given to peers;
while a peerage is now as regards office in the nature of an impediment,
if not a disqualification. In those days an industrious duke, or even
one like Grafton who was not industrious, could have almost what he
chose. But most of the great potentates preferred to brood over affairs
in company with hangers-on who brought them the news, or with their
feudal members of parliament. Still they formed a vital element in the
governments of that time. Pelham's administration at this very time
contained five dukes: he himself was the only commoner in it, and he was
a duke's brother. It was necessary to have a Chancellor of the Exchequer
in the House of Commons, but all the other high offices could be held
preferably by peers. The two Secretaries of State were both dukes. A
brilliant commoner without family connection or great fortune was an
efficient gladiator to be employed in the service of these princes, but
he was not allowed to rise beyond a fixed line. The peers lived, as it
were, in the steward's room, and the commoners in the servants' hall; in
some parlour, high above all, sate the King.
Pitt, according to the practice of the twentieth century, would have
received at least the highest office outside or, more probably, office
within the Cabinet on the fall of Walpole, and he certainly would have
been a Secretary of State or the equivalent before 1746. As it was, in
that year he had to climb on hands and knees into a subordinate
position. It had been difficult for him to get even that far at the cost
of a ministerial crisis of capital importance. The veto of the King had
certainly been the principal obstacle. But the iron rules of caste
forbade any idea of office for Pitt at all commensurate with his
importance. He had under the system in force to get in as he could, and
into much the same sort of office as his inferior but more influentially
connected colleagues, the Grenvilles, the Lytteltons, and the like.
There was another weighty consideration which pointed to prompt
acceptance. Pitt had no time to spare. He was no longer in his first
youth, he was approaching middle age. When he accepted this subordinate
post he was thirty-eight; and thirty-eight, it may be said, when the
lives of statesmen were comparatively short, was a more mature period in
a career than it would be considered now. At the age when Pitt became
Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, North was already Prime Minister. Pitt was
now seven years older than Grafton when he became Prime Minister, and
fifteen years older than his own son when he first led the House of
Commons as Chancellor of the Exchequer; both, of course, under
circumstances abnormally propitious. These figures show sufficiently not
merely that Pitt's career was, so to speak, in arrear, but that the
youthfulness of ministers in those days, under the favouring breezes of
birth and connection, affords no standard of comparison for the
possibilities of a poor country gentleman with no such advantages. Pitt
was, indeed, rather old than young of his age. His sickly youth and his
habitual infirmities had aged him beyond his years. But it must be
noted in passing that, in spite of the dire impetuosity of his
character, all his steps in life, except his entry into Parliament, were
tardy and delayed. He was forty-six when he married, and forty-eight
when he first entered the Cabinet; he was thirty-eight when he first
obtained office. He moved slowly, but not patiently. His glowing nature,
thrown back on itself, exacerbated by rebuffs and neglect, all fused
into a fierce scorn, the _saeva indignatio_ of Swift, gathered strength
and intensity in its restrained progress, until it developed into a
spirit not indeed amiable or attractive, but of indomitable and
superhuman force. That was the process which was at work in the shade of
subordinate office.
This consideration leads us to what is the best, and probably the true,
explanation of this voluntary eclipse: that in taking office he was
taking leave of his youth and of his past, and embarking on a new phase
of his career. Up to this time he had, like a predatory animal, lived
wholly on attack, and had given no thought to consistency, and little to
his future. He had only been a rattling politician, determined to make
his way, thinking only of the game, and of how to develop and display
his powers of oratory. He had been content to adopt Cobham's enemies as
his own, and had tried on them the temper of his virgin sword, without
much caring who they were or why he attacked them, so long as they were
sufficiently prominent to give notoriety to their assailant. His course
had been one of brilliant recklessness and of striking eloquence; but at
bottom it had been nothing but faction. There have been many such
swashbucklers in our history, and there will be many more. But it is
rare that, as in Pitt's case, they develop into something supreme. With
Pitt these extravagancies had only been the frolics of genius. By
burying himself in the sedateness and reticence of office, Pitt sought
to break with his dazzling indiscretions, and mature himself for
statesmanship. He retired behind a screen in order to change his dress.
That, one may infer, was his design; that, certainly, was the effect.
To make an end of this topic, one may ask why Pitt, so fertile of
invective himself, was not the subject of execration when he joined the
Court. Great men no doubt may commit faults, even crimes, with impunity,
for the lustre of their achievements throws a shadow over their errors.
In such men it is recognised that all is usually on a colossal scale,
deeds and misdeeds alike. As they are capable of gigantic successes,
they are also capable of stupendous blunders. This is true of Pitt's
whole career, but it does not explain the facility with which he was now
able, before he had his famous administration to his credit, to subside
into an easy placeman and vindicate the measures which he had previously
denounced. A few lampoons were of course launched at so tempting an
object, but he was not made a conspicuous butt. Nor does he seem to have
lost, or if he did he soon regained, the ear and confidence of the
people. He had at all periods rare powers of recovery. But in this case
the fact is not difficult to explain. In the first place it must be
borne in mind that what he did was the ordinary thing to do. Again, his
personal friends, and even those who had intercourse with him, were
impressed by his character and believed in his integrity. Then the
refusal of the indirect profits counted for much, it gave an air of
austere virtue to a proceeding otherwise questionable. Again, there was
no particular object to be gained by attacking him. Who indeed was there
to attack him? No one thought it worth their while to subsidise Grub
Street for the purpose of throwing dirt on a silent Paymaster, and few
dared attack him to his face. He had already inspired the House of
Commons with that awe of him which subsisted and increased so long as he
remained there. To deliver a philippic against Pitt was no joking
matter; it required a man with iron nerves who was reckless of
retribution. Lee, as we have seen, had attempted one, but, in spite of
Horace Walpole's eulogy, he does not seem to have repeated the
experiment. Hampden also attacked him, as we shall see, in terms which
would have led to a duel had not the Speaker interposed his authority.
Fox and Grenville withstood him doggedly in after years. Barre, when an
obscure Irish adventurer, tried an attack not altogether without
success, but did not care to renew the attempt, and became, in fact,
Pitt's devoted follower. But these instances must be considered as
singularly rare when it is remembered how tempting a mark was presented
by Pitt's career, how frank and direct was the language of Parliament,
and how generous the potations which flushed its debates. Murray, Pitt's
contemporary and his equal in sheer ability, cowered before him; cowered
with loathing, but cowered.[181] Pitt was already surrounded, and as
years went on completely encompassed, with an armour and atmosphere of
terror which rendered him almost impregnable to personal collisions
throughout his career in the House of Commons. Some who had nothing to
lose and everything to gain baited him from time to time, but they were
always tossed back with damage. Such persistent assailants as he had,
and they only appeared in force long afterwards, were mainly anonymous.
Whatever the cause may have been, Pitt, from his accession to office in
1746, remains in obscurity and almost in silence (so far as the records
testify, though it is evident that these are extremely imperfect) for
eight long years, at the potent period of life which ranges from
thirty-eight to forty-six, the age at which Napoleon closed his career,
but which was yet two years earlier than the commencement of Pitt's.
During this long eclipse of ambition and stormy vigour he gives but few
signs of life for the most diligent chronicler to note. But he had no
sooner been appointed Paymaster than an incident took place which seemed
to point to a sudden dawn of royal favour. The Duke of Cumberland's
achievements in Scotland were to be rewarded by a pension of 40,000_l._
a year, and the King expressed a wish that the motion to this effect
should be made by Pitt. It is, however, evident that this was not a mark
of royal affection, but rather of a royal desire to utilise the new
acquisition to the Government, and in a way so little congenial as to
make Pitt feel the collar on his neck. The King may have wished to
display his captive in chains. But Cumberland, who did not love Pitt,
declined this mark of regard, and Pelham fulfilled the honorary duty.
Cumberland had earned this grant, as well as his name of 'the Butcher,'
by his victory at Culloden, and the barbarity with which he had followed
up his success. Fortunately for him, it never occurred to a grateful
country to draw up a debtor and creditor account as between the nation
and the Duke. Had it done so, there would have been no grant; for his
defeats, both in number and in importance, represented something much
more considerable than this easy and solitary triumph, which would have
been amply compensated by Swift's 'frankincense and earthern pots to
burn it in' at 4_l._ 10_s._, with 'a bull for sacrifice' at 8_l._
However, mingling vengeance with gratitude, Parliament now plunged
itself with zest into the horrors of the trials of some adventurous or
bankrupt gentlemen who had followed Charles Edward, so that Pitt, even
had he so desired, had no opportunity of breaking silence. No speech of
his is recorded, indeed, till 1748.
[Sidenote: Nov. 20, 1747.]
In the meantime he had been compelled to exchange Old Sarum for the
ministerial borough of Seaford, one of the Cinque Ports; for Old Sarum
was no longer tenable. The lord of Old Sarum, his brother Thomas, was a
liege servant of the Prince of Wales, who was now once more in violent
opposition, and who indeed ran two candidates, Lord Middlesex, a member
of his household, and Mr. Gage, the sitting member, at Seaford in
opposition to the ministerial men, William Pitt and William Hay. This
proceeding sufficiently indicates the violence and completeness of the
rupture between Pitt and his former master, brought about by acceptance
of office. So tense indeed was the contest that Newcastle posted down to
Seaford in person, held a levee of the voters whom he wooed with copious
solicitation and refreshment, and during the poll sat by the returning
officer to overawe the corrupt and limited constituency. He was
victorious; Lord Middlesex exchanging seats with Pitt, for after this
his defeat he was brought in by Thomas Pitt for Old Sarum. Newcastle's
proceedings furnished matter for a petition to the House of Commons.
This Pitt treated with contempt and 'turned into a mere jest,'[182] but
Potter, son of the Primate, a clever scapegrace, of whom we shall hear
again, spoke vigorously in support of the petition. This, however, had
little chance against the argument of a compact parliamentary majority,
which rejected it by 247 to 96. But it is strange to find Pitt treating
purity of election with ridicule: all the more strange when we remember
that seven years afterwards he delivered one of his most famous speeches
in awful rebuke of the same levity on the same subject. 'Was the dignity
of the House of Commons on so sure foundations that they might venture
themselves to shake it by jokes on electoral bribery?' It was thus that
the House might dwindle into a little assembly serving only 'to register
the arbitrary edicts of one too powerful a subject.' It was the
arbitrary interference of the same too powerful subject in a
parliamentary election that Pitt was now screening with jesting scorn.
But Pitt thought little of consistency, and he might well have forgotten
for the moment his earlier performance, when seeing and seizing the
opportunity for a speech which placed him on a moral elevation above the
House of Commons.
In 1748 we find him intervening comically enough in an affair,
suspiciously like a local job, which affected his friends, the
Grenvilles, and which proved the bitter and jealous animosity with which
they were regarded.
Hitherto the summer assizes for Buckinghamshire had been held at
Buckingham, and the winter at Aylesbury; but suddenly the summer assizes
had also been transferred to Aylesbury. The reason seems to have been
simple enough; for the gaol being at Aylesbury, prisoners had to be
transferred thence and back again when the assizes were at Buckingham.
Richard Grenville (afterwards Lord Temple), however, for obvious
reasons, took up the cudgels for Buckingham, which was the close
neighbour and borough of Stowe, and brought in a Bill to enact that the
summer assizes should be held at that town. All Bucks rushed into the
conflict, and as is generally the case in a local affair, the debate was
extraordinarily diverting. Richard Grenville, Sir William Stanhope of
Eythrope, the brother of Chesterfield, and afterwards a brother of the
famous or infamous Medmenham fraternity, Potter again, who had now
become secretary to the Prince of Wales, who was soon to be member for
Aylesbury, probably for his services on this occasion, and also a future
monk of Medmenham, George Grenville, the solemn figure of Pitt, Robert
Nugent (whose daughter married George Grenville's son), Lee of Hartwell,
were all visible and ardent in the thick of the battle. Henry Fox, then
a friend of Pitt, was the only outside member who intervened, and then
with a sort of puzzled surprise at the fury of the combatants. Sir
William Stanhope, who led the attack on Buckingham, made a speech which
was specially piquant. He began: 'Sir, if I did not think I could prove
that this Bill is the arrantest job that ever was brought to Parliament,
I should not give the House the trouble of hearing me.' He attributed
the Bill to the fact that the County of Bucks had not elected two
Grenvilles as their members. 'Here let me condole with that unhappy,
rather that blinded, county who neglected to choose two gentlemen of
such power and interest that I am persuaded they will have more votes
in this House to-day than they would have had at the General Election in
the whole county in question if they had done it the honour to offer
themselves for representatives.' After this bitter exordium he
proceeded: 'It is the power and interest of these gentlemen that I am
afraid of, not of their arguments;' with good reason, for though to
posterity the claim of Aylesbury with its gaol will seem conclusive, the
Bill was triumphantly carried. But Stanhope proceeded with an invective
against Cobham's young patriots, so violent as to be checked by the
Speaker. It is noteworthy as showing the jealousy and hostility with
which their rise and power were regarded in the House, and so merits
quotation:--
And to shew you, Sir, how sensible they are of the frivolousness of
the latter, I could recapitulate such instances of intriguing for
votes, as no man would believe who does not know those gentlemen.
Conscious of the badness of their cause, they have employed every
bad art to support it, and have retained so much of their former
patriotism, as consisted in blackening their adversaries and
acquiring auxiliaries. They have propagated such tales, that men
have overlooked the improbabilities, while they wondered at the
foolishness of them; and they have solicited the attendance of their
friends, and of their friends' friends, with as much importunity as
if their power itself was tottering, not the wanton exercise of it
opposed: the only aid they have failed to call in was reason, the
natural but baffled enemy of their family: a family, Sir, possessed
of every honour they formerly decried, fallen from every honour they
formerly acquired: a family, Sir, who coloured over ambition with
patriotism, disguised emptiness by noise, and disgraced every virtue
by wearing them only for mercenary purposes: a family, Sir, who from
being the most clamorous incendiaries against power and places, are
possessed of more employments than the most comprehensive
place-bill that ever was brought into parliament would include; and
who, to every indignity offered to their royal master, have added
that greatest of all, intrusion of themselves into his presence and
councils; and who shew him what he has still farther to expect, by
their scandalous ingratitude to his son; a family, Sir, raised from
obscurity by the petulance of the times, drawn up higher by the
insolence of their bribing kinsman, and supported by the timidity of
two ministers, who, to secure their own persons from abuse have
sacrificed their own party to this all-grasping family, the elder
ones of which riot in the spoils of their treachery and places, and
the younger....
At this point he was, not prematurely, called to order. Stanhope brought
up Pitt, portentous but unconvincing, with perhaps a unique expression,
for he addressed the Speaker as 'dear Sir.' 'They (the Grenvilles)
desire the assizes may be sometimes held at Buckingham; the point he
(Stanhope) espouses is that they should be always held at Aylesbury.
Which, dear Sir, looks most like a monopoly?' Then he proceeds to defend
the Grenvilles.
After so happy a beginning, he falls into a torrent of violent abuse
on a whole family, founded on no reason in the world, but because
that family is distinguished by the just rewards of their services
to their king and country; and, in the heat of his resentment, he
throws out things that are as unpardonably seditious as they are
palpably absurd. He takes it for granted that men force themselves
into a presence and into councils to which they have the honour to
be called, and into which our Constitution renders it impossible for
any to intrude. In the same breath he makes entering into a father's
service an act of ingratitude to a son; and, without so much as
pretending to assign either facts or reasons, he bestows the most
low and infamous epithets upon characters that all other men mention
with esteem. In a word, he forgot himself to such a degree that he
pointed out men of birth and fortune, and in high stations, as if
they were the most abandoned and profligate creatures in the
universe, without parts, without morals, without shame, and who, if
his description had in it the least tittle of truth, instead of
being Members of Parliament, or admitted to the Privy Council, were
fit only to be members of a society once famous by the name of the
Hell-fire Club.[183]
It is not worth while to follow this local squabble further, except to
notice the singular atmosphere of jobbery with which it was surrounded.
By a job, it was alleged, Lord Chief Justice Baldwin, having purchased
the manor of Aylesbury in the reign of Henry VIII., had transferred the
assizes from Buckingham to Aylesbury. By another job a judge who was a
native of Buckingham had managed that the summer assizes should be
always held at Buckingham while he lived. 'The arrantest job,' cried
Stanhope. 'One of the worst sort of jobs,' echoed Potter, who divided
jobs into two species, one laudable and the other infamous, declaring
this to be one of the latter kind. Lee also called it a private job of
the most infamous kind. Articulate Buckinghamshire was indeed unanimous
against the Bill. But the Grenvilles were now powerful with all the
insolence of power, and the Government smiled silently on their
enterprise; though Nugent said they could only have done so from
weariness of political serenity, and the wish to invite catastrophe. So
the Bill was carried, and the job, whatever its exact denomination may
have been, lasted for nearly a century.[184] But the debate, as will be
seen, is significant because it shows the resentment which had long
been growing, but which was now openly displayed against Cobham's
aggressive and ambitious group.
We do not again hear Pitt's voice till 1749, when he vindicated the
proposal of the Government to pay to Glasgow ten thousand pounds to
reimburse the city in some degree for what the occupation of the
Jacobites had cost it. This of course was an official speech and of no
permanent interest.[185] He had to prove that the case of Glasgow stood
by itself, and that there was no analogy between this and those of other
towns which made the same claim. Two of his points are incidentally
worthy of remark. The first is that it was the whole tenor of Glasgow's
conduct since the Reformation which had drawn upon it the resentment of
the Jacobites; the second, that if this payment were not made, and made
promptly, Glasgow must be ruined. He told, too, a story which merits
preservation. When there were rumours in 1688 of the coming of William
III. with 30,000 men, an adherent of James II. made light of the matter;
when it was said that the prince was coming with 20,000 he began to be
alarmed; but when he heard that the expeditionary force numbered only
14,000 he cried, 'We are undone: an army of 30,000 men could not conquer
England. But no man would come here with only 14,000 unless he were sure
of finding a great many traitors among ourselves.'[186]
In 1750 there is a faint echo of Pitt's voice in a discussion on the
annual Mutiny Bill, at least the only echo in the recorded debates, for
we learn from two letters of Pitt's to George Grenville that there had
been other long and troublesome discussions in which he had had
officially to bear much of the burden.[187] Colonel Townshend brought
forward the case of non-commissioned officers who had been broke or
reduced to the ranks without any cause assigned. Some of these, he said,
were waiting at the bar as he spoke. He proposed a clause for preventing
this abuse, and forbidding these punishments except under sentence of a
court-martial. Pitt took the line, truly enough, that if soldiers were
on every occasion to bring their complaints against their officers to
the House for redress there would be an end to all discipline; and
proceeded in the tone of a Paymaster-General to declare that the
business of the House was to consider the requisite number of the forces
and to grant money for their payment, but that the conduct of the army
or complaints against one another were solely within the province of the
King or those commissioned by His Majesty.[188] This need not detain us.
About the same time, Lord Egmont, who now represented the Prince of
Wales in the House of Commons, an able man not without incredible
absurdities, brought forward a mischievous motion with regard to
Dunkirk. The question which he raised was whether the French had
demolished the fortifications erected during the late war, as by the
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle they were bound to do; but he diverged into a
general attack upon the provisions of that Treaty. Pelham answered him
in a speech of remarkable candour. Lord Strange followed and brought up
Pitt. He defended the peace, which indeed was not difficult, in a
speech eminently discreet, ministerial, and conciliatory. No one could
discover in it any germ of the policy he was destined afterwards to
pursue with such triumphant success. But he cast an interesting light on
the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. 'If there be any secret in the late
affairs of Europe,' he said, 'it is in the question how it was possible
for our ministers to obtain so good a peace as they did. For I must
confess that when the French laid siege to Maestricht in the beginning
of 1748, I had such a gloomy prospect of affairs that I thought it next
to impossible to preserve our friends the Dutch from the imminent ruin
they were then threatened with, or to maintain the present Emperor upon
the imperial throne.'[189] Though he had thus already spoken, he wound
up the debate for the Ministry, and did so with equal discretion.
[Sidenote: Aug. 3-14, 1750.]
This was in February 1750. He seems to have spoken no more that session,
but in August Pelham wrote to his brother: 'I think him the most able
and useful man we have among us, truly honourable and strictly honest.
He is as firm a friend to us as we can wish for, and a more useful one
does not exist.'[190] Such an eulogy, offered in confidence by a Prime
Minister, a reticent, unemotional man, seems to us a great mark and
epoch in Pitt's career. Not 'the most brilliant,' not 'the most
eloquent,' not 'the most intrepid,' as we should have expected, but 'the
most useful, able, and strictly honest.'
Pitt had earned this praise by exertions which were not visible to the
outer world. It often happens that there is a member of Government whose
merits do not appeal to the public, who is no orator, who passes no
measures, whose conversation does not attract, and whose position in an
administration is a puzzle to the outer world. And yet perhaps his
colleagues regard him as invaluable. He is probably the peacemaker, the
man who walks about dropping oil into the machinery, and preventing
injurious friction. This had recently been Pitt's position. He had been
diligently and unobtrusively trying to keep the Government together.
This was not so easy as it would seem; for though the brothers Pelham
had arranged it to their will when they ejected Carteret, the morbid and
intolerable jealousies of Newcastle prevented any ease. Did other
subjects of intrigue and irritation fail he would quarrel with his
brother, for when all else was serene it would secretly chafe him that
his junior should be in the first place and he only in the second. Henry
himself, it may be noted, seems to have been both blameless and placable
on these occasions, but naturally bored. The elder brother would begin
whimpering and whining to Hardwicke, his prop and confidant. Hardwicke
would soothe him as a sick baby is soothed, eventually his tears would
be dried, and he would begin burrowing and intriguing in some other
direction.
On this occasion the trouble arose over Bedford. Bedford had become
Joint Secretary of State with Newcastle on the resignation of
Chesterfield. Sandwich, a clever scapegrace, and Bedford's henchman, had
been Newcastle's candidate for the office, while Henry Fox had been
strongly supported by Pitt and others. Before offering it to Sandwich,
it was thought well to make an honorary tender of the post to Bedford,
in the belief that he would refuse it. Bedford, as sometimes happens on
such occasions, had promptly accepted it; for six months as he said,
but, as also happens, for as long as he could keep it, which was more
than three years. The appointment was thus distasteful in its origin to
Newcastle and became more irksome with experience. Bedford as a minister
was indolent, and as a man was obstinate and unamiable to a singular
degree. But it was not these drawbacks which attracted the malevolent
attention of Newcastle. Bedford, no doubt, was difficult to work with,
and Newcastle soon wished to be rid of him. But it was when Bedford
became well with the Court, with the King and with Princess Amelia, for
whom Newcastle had once affected to feel something more tender than
friendship, with the Duke of Cumberland and Lady Yarmouth, that
Newcastle's hatred passed the bounds of moderation and almost of sanity.
Pelham, who knew the parliamentary power of Bedford and who was anxious
not to alienate it, was reluctant to take up his brother's dispute; so
Newcastle promptly quarrelled with him. Pitt intervened. Had he been
blindly ambitious, he would have welcomed a schism which might have
produced a much greater position for himself. But he saw that a quarrel
between the brethren would break up the Ministry; and that such a
destruction would involve grave consequences, difficult to calculate,
and possibly the resuscitation of Carteret in the first place. Moreover,
though on the whole he sided with Newcastle, as Fox sided with Pelham,
he could not but be aware of the priceless merits of Pelham as a party
manager, as one who allayed animosities, and as one who kept the peace.
Pelham, in writing to Newcastle, affects to diminish the value of Pitt's
intervention, as he wishes to attribute the renewal of harmony to
'natural affection.' But an impartial judgment comes to a different
conclusion. Natural affection had not prevented discord, and was
insufficient to produce reconciliation. It is at all times an
indifferent political cement. But the exertions of an independent
colleague such as Pitt could not be overestimated. There exists a long
and earnest letter of July 13, 1750, from Pitt to Newcastle, too long
and too tedious to quote, but which is both tactful and energetic,
though in his worst style of winding verbosity. 'I don't hazard much,'
he wrote, 'in venturing to prophesy that two brothers who love one
another, and two ministers essentially necessary to each other, will
never suffer themselves to be divided further than the nearest friends
by difference of opinion or even little ruffles of temper may
occasionally be. Give me leave,' he continues, 'to suggest a doubt. May
not frequent reproaches upon one subject gall and irritate a mind not
conscious, intentionally at least, of giving cause?' and so forth.[191]
He concludes all this with warm eulogies on Newcastle's conduct of
foreign affairs, and soothes and flatters the fretful duke with
something like sympathetic regard. He or 'natural affection' is
successful, for, a week afterwards, he writes a brief note on
another subject, which ends thus: 'I am glad to note that the
understanding between you and Mr. Pelham, for which I had fears, is
re-established.'[192] It is pleasant thus to catch a glimpse of Pitt as
a loyal colleague, strenuously patching up differences; not less
pleasant to see him pushing the claims of his rival, Fox, to be
Secretary of State. This is a new human, and attractive aspect.
The termination of the Bedford transaction is worth noticing for more
reasons than one. The King, though he was at least indifferent to
Bedford, declined to remove him at the instance of Newcastle, and was
probably pleased to have the opportunity of thwarting the tiresome
minister who had been the inseparable bane and necessity of his life.
Pelham would not intervene directly for other reasons. A characteristic
and tortuous method was therefore adopted. The King cared nothing for
Sandwich, who was necessary to Bedford. So the brothers suggested the
removal of Sandwich, to which the King promptly acceded, and Bedford, as
they had foreseen, instantly resigned.
Two points are notable with regard to the vacancy thus caused. The Prime
Minister announced that the nomination of Bedford's successor must be
left to the sole nomination of the King, with which he would not
interfere in any way, but insisted that he must be a peer.[193] The main
reason for this strange limitation seems to have been that there were
fierce but dormant rivalries in the House of Commons, and that an
appointment of one of the aspirants would call uncontrollable passions
into activity. Both Secretaries of State must therefore be peers, a
principle which seems strange to a later generation. The King,
therefore, nominated Lord Holdernesse, of whom the Prime Minister merely
observes, 'I cannot possibly see him in the light of Secretary of
State.'[194] Holdernesse however is appointed, and reappears more than
once in this accidental character.
But Pelham, though he tried to take this affair easily, was near the
end of his patience. He was worn out by the perpetual exigencies and
caprice of his brother and colleague, for Newcastle was in truth his
partner in the Premiership, as well as by the explosive rivalries of
Pitt and Fox, which any spark might ignite. Chained to an intolerable
nincompoop, with two such subordinates ready to fly at each other's
throats or his, and conscious of failing health, he began to long for
liberty and repose. At the end of March 1751 died the second Earl of
Orford, and thus vacated the rich sinecure office of Auditor of the
Exchequer, worth at least eight thousand a year. Pelham, it is said,
intimated his wish to retire from active business with this noble
provision, but the King would not let him go.