The bombardment of the new Ministry continued without intermission, for
Pitt was determined to wreak his vengeance on Newcastle and Fox. We may,
moreover, presume that, seeing the critical condition of affairs and the
incompetence of the Ministry to wrestle with them, he, conscious of
great powers, was determined to become a directing Minister. He was now
forty-seven, in the full ripeness of character and intellect. Neither he
nor the country could afford to wait.
[Sidenote: Dec. 2, 1755.]
Ten days after the last debate, Lord Pulteney, the sole and short-lived
hope of his famous father, introduced a Bill to give the prizes captured
before a declaration of war to the seamen who had captured them, should
war be afterwards declared. Pitt and his section intervened, and the
engagement developed from a skirmish into a battle. The debate turned
largely on pressing; that practice having brought great complaints from
Scotland, where 'mobs are more dangerous and more mischievous than our
mobs in England, not contenting themselves with clubs and bludgeons, but
possessing themselves of as many firearms and other mortal weapons as
they can possibly come at.' This perhaps was not wonderful, when it was
admitted that a gang had surrounded a church, and pressed part of the
congregation as it came out. But it soon soared from that point to the
question of our relations with France.
Fox opposed the Bill, which he said would be considered as a veiled
declaration of war. France was patient because she wished to persuade
her allies that we were the aggressors, and so induce them to join her.
The passing of the Bill would furnish the very proof she required. The
whole gist of the matter lay in the word 'now,' 'the hinge,' he said
with a painful confusion of metaphor, 'upon which the very marrow of
this debate must turn.' Were peace hopeless such a Bill might be
necessary; now it could only do harm. Pitt followed Fox and made play
with the word 'now,' for as Murray said in reply: 'He has the happy
faculty of being able to turn the most important word, the most serious
argument, into ridicule.' He pointed out from examples in the reign of
Elizabeth and Charles II. that we might be at war for many years without
declaring war, and supported the Bill; as did Richard Lyttelton (though
the House, says Rigby, can no longer be brought to hear a word from
him), and George Grenville. The most piquant part of the speeches of
both Pitt and Fox related to Walpole, who had now from a bugbear become
a fetish. Fox pronounced a high eulogy upon him, but denied that his
parliaments had been venal. Pitt said that he himself had always opposed
Walpole when in power, but after resignation had always 'spoken well of
him as a man.' Here there was a laugh, which Pitt angrily rebuked. Was
it not more honourable to respect a man when his power had come to an
end than before? Walpole had no doubt 'for many years an amazing
influence in this House, and the enquiry, stifled as it was, made it
pretty evident from whence that influence proceeded!' Legge swelled the
chorus of devotion to a Minister who had scarce a friend at his fall,
by declaring that 'he was an honour to human nature and the peculiar
friend to Great Britain!' Death, in British politics, magnanimously
closes most accounts with a credit balance.[310]
[Sidenote: Dec. 5, 1755.]
Three days afterwards, Barrington, the new Secretary at War, moved the
Army Estimates. Here we are again thrown upon Walpole, whose records,
precious as they are, are the notes of an amateur, jotted down at the
time with the idea of subsequent expansion, but not subsequently
expanded. Indeed, when he came to use them, his memory, it is probable,
no longer availed for the purpose. But from the account of the last
debate on December 2, 1755, the Parliamentary history, incredible as it
may seem, records no speech of Pitt's till the last month of 1761, and
then only a formal reply.
Pitt, 'in one of his finest florid declamations,' seconded the motion
for an army of 34,263 men, which was an augmentation of 15,000 men. He
would have moved for a larger number, had not Barrington promised to
move for more men when he brought in a Bill for the better recruiting of
the army, a pledge which seemed to meet the general anxiety of the
House. Rigby, who gives us this information, says that Pitt's speech was
most violent and abusive, but admits that it was a very fine piece of
declamation.[311] Both Walpole and Rigby, it will be observed, use this
vigorous substantive to characterise the speech.
Pitt again used the language of tenderness and devotion to the King,
deplored to see him in his old age, and his kingdom exposed to attack;
and even his amiable posterity, _born among us_, sacrificed by unskilful
Ministers.
The innuendo at the King's foreign birth betrays the sarcasm underlying
Pitt's effusive loyalty. One cannot also but suspect that his constant
allusions to the venerable age of George II. were not intended to be
wholly agreeable to a King who piqued himself on being gay and
libertine. 'He then drew a striking and masterly picture of a French
invasion reaching London, and of the horror ensuing while there was a
formidable enemy within the capital itself, as full of weakness as full
of multitude; a flagitious rabble, ready for every nefarious action; of
the consternation in the City, where the noble, artificial, yet
vulnerable fabric of public credit should crumble in their hands. How
would Ministers be able to meet the aspect of so many citizens dismayed?
How could men so guilty meet their countrymen?'
The King's Speech of last year, he continued, had been calculated to
lull the country into repose. Had His Majesty's Ministers not sufficient
understanding, or foresight, or virtue, he repeated the words that they
might not again be misquoted, to lay before him the real danger?
Elsewhere, where the King himself had the slightest suspicion even of a
fancied danger, we knew what vast preparations had been made. Did the
subjects of his kingdom lack that prudent foresight which his subjects
of the electorate possessed in so eminent a degree? Alas! that he should
live to see a British Parliament so unequal to its duties. There were
but ten thousand men left in England. Not half that number would be
available to defend the royal family and the metropolis. 'Half security
is full danger.'
'Accursed be the man,' he continued, 'who will not do all he can to
strengthen the King's hands, and he will indeed receive the malediction.
Strengthen the Sovereign by laying bare the weakness of his Councils:
urge him to substitute reality to incapacity, futility, and the petty
love of power. It is the little spirit of domination, the ambition of
being the only figure among cyphers, which has caused the decay of this
country. The ignominious indulgence of patronage, the poor desire to
dispose of places, should be left for times of relaxation: rough times
such as these require wisdom. The cost of the augmentation proposed
to-day, two hundred and eighty thousand pounds, would last year have
given us security. Yet the danger was last year as visible as now to the
eye of foresight. The first attribute of a wise Minister is to leave as
little as possible exposed to contingencies. Now, for want of that
foresight, stocks will fall, and hurry along with them the ruin of the
City, vulnerable in proportion to its opulence. In other countries the
treasure remains in a city which is not sacked. But paper credit like
ours may be wounded even in Kent. It is like the sensitive plant, it
need not be cropped; extend but your hand, it withers and dies.'
Barrington, the orator continued, had cited the Romans. He need not go
so far afield, our own days had produced as great examples. In 1746,
thirteen regiments had been raised by noblemen who, though they had not
like the Romans left their ploughs, had left their palaces to save their
country. With what scorn, depression, and cruelty, so far as contempt is
cruelty, had they been treated!
He wished the country gentry encouraged to raise a militia, for he was
anxious to call the country out of that enervated condition that the
menace of twenty thousand men from France could shake it. It was our
Government that was degenerate, not our people. He wished the breed
restored that had formerly carried our glory so high. What did those
Ministers deserve, and again he insinuated mysterious hints of
connivance and collusion, what did those Ministers deserve, who, after
Washington had been defeated and our forts taken, advised his Majesty to
trust to so slender a force as had been sent. He was for no vindictive
proceedings against them; they erred from the weakness of their heads
rather than their hearts. But a sagacity something less than that of a
Richelieu or a Burleigh could have foreseen what would happen.
Fox replied with urbanity and compliment, for there was at this time a
marked courtesy in the language of the two protagonists, as of men who
did not know how soon they might be allies. Pitt denounced Newcastle,
and Fox did not defend him. This, too, must be noticed. Why, Fox now
asked, had Pitt not made this noble speech sooner, when we were indeed
asleep, before the French had wakened us. 'If he had made it,' said Fox,
'I am sure I should have remembered it: I am not apt to forget his
speeches.' Let Pitt himself take in hand a Militia Bill. It was
evidently Fox whom Pitt had described as treating the thirteen regiments
with contempt, at least Fox now fitted the cap on himself. He said that
he thought obloquy too harsh a term to apply to his language on that
occasion; nevertheless, he should not disown anything he had said. But
he must make a clear distinction between these noble persons. He thanked
God there was one noble duke, able and willing to save his country, who
went to the King, and offered to go and try if, with his lowlanders, he
was not a match for any highlanders. This was an elaborate compliment to
Bedford, whose political lowlanders were now at the service of the
Government, though not the Chief himself. Fox at the same time made an
invidious comparison to the detriment of the Duke of Montagu, and was on
the point of saying that he must discriminate between dukes, for though
some deserved everything from their country for the part they took, yet
he should not be for trusting others to raise a regiment who could not
raise half a crown. There was evidently money to be made out of these
patriotic impulses.[312]
Pitt excused himself for not having sooner raised the cry of danger on
the ground that he had been lulled into composure by the previous Speech
from the Throne. When he became alarmed he made representations in
private, so long as he was allowed to do so. But now the alarm must be
sounded in Parliament itself, for we have invited into our bowels a war
that was the child of ignorance and connivance. If there be justice in
Heaven, Ministers must some day answer for this.
Nugent, an Irish adventurer of the type known to comedy, paid his court
to Newcastle by a burlesque attack on Pitt. And even Robinson appeared
once more on the scene with a panegyric on himself, which, though
ridiculous to his audience, was by no means superfluous. The other
notable speeches, delivered by Charles Townshend, Sackville, and
Beckford, do not affect our subject.[313]
[Sidenote: Dec. 8, 1755.]
Five days later, George, who was afterwards Marquis, Townshend, brought
forward a Militia Bill. Pitt took this occasion of responding to Fox's
challenge by unfolding a plan of his own. No scheme, he said, could be
carried out without the co-operation of the Government, the Army, the
Law, and the country gentry. But he unfortunately came under none of
these descriptions. He knew no secrets of Government; he had too early
been driven from the profession of arms; he had never studied the law;
he was no country gentleman.
His plan was made the groundwork of a Bill, which occupied much time in
the Commons, but was lost in the Lords.
It provided for an infantry militia of fifty or sixty thousand men, to
be summoned compulsorily by the civil power: to be exercised twice a
week, one of these days to be Sunday, if the clergy did not raise too
much objection. It was to have the same pay as the infantry, but plain
clothing, 'not pretending to all the lustre of the army.' The
non-commissioned officers were to be private soldiers, not fewer than
four to every eighty men.
What millions, he said, would have been saved by such a force during the
last thirty years! And what an inglorious picture for this country, to
figure gentlemen driven by an invasion like a flock of sheep, and forced
to send money abroad to buy courage and defence! If this scheme should
prove oppressive, provincially or parochially, he was willing to give it
up. But surely it was preferable to waiting to see if the wind would
blow you subsidiary troops. These, always an eyesore, you would never
want again if this Bill were passed. This speech marked another step
forward in Pitt's career; for he opened his plan with a plain precision,
a mastery of detail, and a business-like clearness the House had not
expected from him. 'He had never shone in this light before.'[314]
[Sidenote: Dec. 10, 1755.]
Two days later, again the treaties were discussed in both Houses.
The debate in the Lords does not concern us. It was spirited and bitter.
Temple raised the storm, while the future George III. sate and took
notes. In the Commons there was a new feature. Newcastle, doubtful of
the zeal of Fox and Murray on his behalf, had retained for his defence
Hume Campbell, the brother of Marchmont; with the Paymastership as a
retaining fee, had not Fox, who always had his eye on this lucrative
place, vetoed the appointment.[315] Walpole describes the new gladiator
as eloquent, acute, abusive, corrupt, insatiable. To this accumulation
of epithets we need and can add nothing. He had been in opposition with
Pitt, and had had a brush with him already, but had almost given up
attendance in Parliament.
Hume Campbell, raised to this bad eminence, seems to have acquitted
himself ably in his opening attack, and to have delivered a masterly
speech. He could see no reason, he said, why gentlemen were suffered to
come every day to the House merely to threaten and arraign the conduct
of their superiors. Such behaviour was unparliamentary and
unprecedented. 'Let the House punish,' he said, 'these eternal
invectives.' Pitt angrily called him to order for so describing the
debates of that House. Horace Walpole, the elder, said, with some
reason, that Pitt ought to be the last man in the House to complain of
irregularity. Pitt declared that Campbell's words struck directly at the
liberty of debate; that he had a mind to move to have the words taken
down, but would refrain till the orator had explained himself. Campbell
then proceeded with his discourse. He was followed by other speakers,
Murray delivering a fine argument in defence of the treaties. Pitt,
meanwhile, contrary to his habit, possessed himself in silence,
collecting all his powers for his reply. When he arose he delivered one
that was memorable and overwhelming. 'You never heard such a philippic
as Pitt returned. Hume Campbell was annihilated. Pitt, like an angry
wasp, seems to have left his sting in the wound, and has since assumed a
style of delicate ridicule and repartee. But think how charming a
ridicule must be that lasts and rises, flash after flash, for an hour
and a half! Some day perhaps you will see some of the glittering
splinters that I gathered up.'
So wrote Horace Walpole in the first enthusiasm produced by this effort.
But the more deliberate record in his memoirs reveals few of the
flashing splinters that he thought to have garnered. Luckily, Sir
William Meredith has left a very brief account[316] of the tilt between
Campbell and Pitt, which we can collate with Walpole's.
So slight had been the defence, said Pitt, that he did not know how to
deal with it; only little shifts or evasions worthy of a pie-poudre
court, but not of Parliament. As for Hume Campbell, he had him in his
power, he could bring him to his knees at the bar of the House as a
delinquent for such an assault on the privileges of Parliament. If
members were to be threatened for speaking with freedom of Ministers,
all liberty of debate would be at an end. As he revered the profession
of the law, so he grieved to hear it dishonoured by language that fixed
an indelible blot on him that spoke it. 'Superior' was a word that he
disdained. That hon. gentleman might indeed have his superiors. But he
knew that when sitting, speaking, and voting in his legislative capacity
the King himself was not his superior. And he could assure the hon.
gentleman that such freedom in speaking of ministers was neither
unparliamentary nor unprecedented. For even in the profligate
prerogative reign of James I., when a great duke, as now, monopolised
power, the House of Commons possessed an honest member who dared to call
that duke _stellionatus_, a beast of most hideous deformity, covered
with blurs and blotches and filth, an ideal monster, fouler than exists
in nature. Yet a grave and venerable member of parliament thought this
no unfit comparison for that great duke, who no doubt had his slaves all
about him who called him Superior, yet durst not bring such language
into the House of Commons. And we had then a wretched King who would
have been glad of the assistance of a great lawyer, could he have one to
have threatened a member of parliament for exposing the arbitrary and
pernicious designs that he was carrying on by his ministers against his
people. Thank God! we had no such King. If we had, he would not want a
slavish lawyer to abet the worst measures that can be devised to ruin
and enslave this country.
'But I will not dress up this image under a third person,' he exclaimed,
turning full round and facing Hume Campbell, 'I apply it to him; his is
the servile doctrine; he is the slave; and the shame of his doctrine
will stick to him as long as his gown sticks to his back. After all, his
trade is words; they were not provoked by me, but they have no terrors
for me, they provoke only my ridicule and contempt.'
Then turning to Murray, he denounced the treaties as a violation of the
Act of Settlement. The article to which, it may be presumed, he referred
was as follows:
'That in case the Crown and Imperial Dignity of this realm shall
hereafter come to any person, not being a native of this Kingdom of
England, this nation be not obliged to engage in any war for the defence
of any dominions or territories which do not belong to the Crown of
England without the consent of Parliament.'
It cannot be said that this enactment had been specially present to the
mind of George II. at any period of his reign. Murray had defended the
treaties thinly against the charge of infringement by declaring that if
this treaty violated the Act of Settlement all our defensive treaties
had done the same, and had ended by the quaint and almost cynical remark
that 'we could not enjoy the blessing of the present Royal Family
without the inconveniences.'
Pitt can have had, and in fact had, but little difficulty in dealing
with Murray. 'It is difficult to know where to pull the first thread
from a piece so finely spun. Constructions ought never to condemn a
great minister, but I think this crime of violating the Act of
Settlement is within the letter. If the dangerous illegality of this is
to be inquired into, it should be referred to a committee of the whole
House, not to a Committee of Supply. Inquired into it must be, for I
will not suffer an audacious minister to escape the judgment of
Parliament. For if a Cabinet have taken upon them to conclude treaties
of subsidy without the consent of Parliament, shall they not answer for
their action?'
He derided Murray's precedents. For in 1717 or 1718 Ministers stated
that there was danger to be apprehended from Sweden, and then asked for
money. Would any lawyer plead that when his Britannic Majesty speaks of
dominions in a treaty, he can mean any but his British dominions? We
were not to be explained out of our liberties.
He then criticised the conduct of the Hessians in the last war; except
on one occasion, when they were forced at Munich, they had not behaved
well.
There Horace Walpole's notes branch off into a tangle of headings and
exclamations which it is difficult and unnecessary to unravel. Pitt
emphatically denied that the Crown had a power of concluding treaties of
subsidy that led to war. He was sorry to hear it avowed that Hanover was
concerned in all the treaties which had been cited. It was clearly a
time to make a stand, now that we had arrived at that pitch of adulation
that we were ready to declare openly that Hanover was at the back of
all. He wished that the circumstances of this country would enable us to
extend this protecting care to Hanover, but they would not. For no
consideration would he have set his hand to these treaties.
Fox in reply defended Hume Campbell with spirit, and made ironical
retorts to Pitt, some of them now obscure, none of them now pertinent to
this narrative. Such speeches become trivial within forty-eight hours of
their delivery. The bones of Pitt's preserved by Walpole scarcely claim
any better right of survival. To tell the bare truth, what survives of
these debates is incomparably tedious and confused. But it is evident
that Pitt had amazed the House by disclosing a new weapon, the power of
ridicule. 'His antagonists endeavoured to disarm him. But as fast as
they deprive him of one weapon, he finds a better. I never suspected him
of such an universal armoury; I knew he had a Gorgon's head, composed of
bayonets and pistols, but little thought that he could tickle to death
with a feather.'
Whatever the relative arguments may have been, the legions were
faithful, and voted the treaties by 318 to 126.
[Sidenote: 1755.]
On December 12 the general engagement on the treaties was renewed, when
Barrington brought them forward in Committee, and Charles Townshend
distinguished himself by a speech which, Pitt declared, displayed such
abilities as had not appeared since that House was a House. He himself
spoke at length, but poorly and languidly, not deigning to answer Hume
Campbell, who once more appeared, with manner and matter both 'flat and
mean.'
Pitt said, in the few sentences into which Walpole condenses his speech,
that he did not pretend to eloquence, but owed all his credit to the
indulgence of the House. He looked with respect on the King's
prejudices, he added with the finesse of a courtier or the irony of a
foe, and with contempt on those who encouraged them. Was everything to
be called invective that had not the smoothness of a court compliment?
Old Horace Walpole had said that if one spoke against Hanover it might
cause a rebellion. That was the chatter of a boarding-school miss. Lord
Townshend and Sir Robert Walpole had withstood Hanover. 'Sir Robert
thought well of me, died in peace with me. He was a truly English
minister, and kept a strict hand on the Closet; when he was removed the
door was flung open (to dangerous advisers?). His friends and followers
had then transferred themselves to that minister, Lord Granville, who
transplanted (_sic_) that English minister. Even Sir Robert's own
reverend brother has gone over to the Hanoverian party!'
Fox merely tried in reply to keep Pitt at bay, so he said little of the
treaties, but seems to have attacked his rival with some acrimony. He
recalled all the treasonable songs and pamphlets of the former
Opposition, all directed by Pitt, no doubt for the good of the country!
But he could never forgive any man who had the heart to conceive, the
head to contrive, and the hand to execute so much mischief. 'The right
honourable gentleman professes pride at acting with some here; I am
proud of acting with so many! But because he wishes that Hanover should
be separated from England, is it wise to act as if it were already
separated?'
The legions once more prevailed, and approved both treaties by 289 to
121.
[Sidenote: Dec. 15, 1755.]
If Pitt was held to have been below himself in this debate, he was
considered to have surpassed himself, when the treaties came up on
report three days afterwards, in a speech 'of most admirable and ready
wit that flashed from him for the space of an hour and a half,
accompanied with action that would have added reputation to Garrick.' He
denounced Murray for attempting to hide the points at issue in a cloud
of words. But in fact these treaties from simple questions had become
all things to all men, as a conjuror plays with a pack of cards,
passing them in turn to each spectator, receiving and keeping the money
of all. Then he turned to Russia. 'Let us consider this Northern Star,
that will not shine with any light of its own, but requires to be rubbed
up into lustre; for could Russia, without our assistance, support her
own troops? She will not prove a Star of the Wise Men, yet they must
approach her with presents. The real Wise Man "Quae desperat tractata
nitescere posse relinquit."
'By this measure you are throwing Prussia into the arms of France. What
can Frederick answer if France proposes to march an army into Germany?
If he refuses to join her will she not threaten to leave him at the
mercy of Russia? This is one of the effects of our sage
negotiations--not to mention that we have wasted ten or eleven millions
in subsidies.
'Shall we not set the impossibility of our carrying on so extensive a
war against the contention that his Majesty's honour is engaged? Our
Ministers foresaw our ill-success at sea, and prudently laid a nest-egg
for a war on the Continent. We have as an inducement to engage in this
war been referred to the examples of Greece and Carthage. These ancient
histories, no doubt, furnish ample matter for declamation. It is long
since I read them, but I think I recollect enough to show how
inapplicable they are to our present circumstances. Suppose Thebes and
Sparta and the other Greek Commonwealths fallen from their former power,
would Athens have gone on alone and paid all the rest? No, Athens put
herself on board her fleet to fight where she could be superior, and so
recovered her land.'
'Not giving succour to Hannibal was indeed wrong, because he was already
on land and was successful, and might have done something of the kind
that Prince Eugene proposed, and marched with a torch to Versailles. But
another poet says, I recollect a good deal of poetry to-day, another
poet says, "Expende Hannibalem," "weigh him, weigh him." I have weighed
him. What good did his glory procure to his country? Remember what the
same poet says: "I, demens, curre per Alpes, ut pueris placeas et
declamatio fias."'
This flight, it may be surmised, was aimed at Cumberland.
He once more expressed his dutiful feelings to the King, and
acknowledged how difficult it was for Ministers to be honest with him.
But yet the resistance to these treaties might save us from a
Continental war. In any case, speaking for himself, he would never again
give his confidence in the nation's advisers or adopters of this
measure. He could only hope that our perverted Ministers might yet yield
to conviction and save us, and that a British spirit might influence
British councils.
In the division which followed, the Hessian treaty appeared somewhat
less acceptable than the Russian. The former was voted by 259 to 72 and
the latter by 263 to 69. This was the net result. Yet, as Horace Walpole
wrote at the time, 'Pitt had ridden in the whirlwind and directed the
storm with abilities beyond the common reach of the genii of the
tempest.' Eloquence, reason, and argument avail little against a compact
parliamentary majority.[317]
The reader will scarcely regret that an adjournment for Christmas
followed this debate, for nothing is so tantalising as these barren
husks of great speeches. The Minister employed his holiday appropriately
in distributing gifts of office to his friends, and the reconstruction
of the Government was completed. No part of it directly touches our
story, but some features are of interest. The Dukes of Newcastle and
Bedford, the Chancellor and Fox were each allowed to nominate a member
of the Board of Trade. But Newcastle would not allow Fox a single voice
in the appointment of the Lords of the Treasury; for he guarded that
department with the jealousy of a Turk. The other point of interest was
the cost to the public of these manipulations. To get rid of Sir Thomas
Robinson it had been necessary to settle a pension on him of 2000_l._ a
year for thirty-one years. To make a place for Lord Hillsborough, Mr.
Arundel had a pension of 2000_l._ in exchange for the sinecure office of
Treasurer of the Chamber. Lord Lothian had 1200_l._ a year to vacate the
Clerk Registership of Scotland for Hume Campbell. Lord Cholmondeley, who
held the Vice-Treasurership of Ireland with one colleague, had 600_l._ a
year to induce him to accept a third partner of the office. Sir Conyers
Darcy had 1600_l._ a year for vacating the Comptrollership of the
Household. In all a burden of 7400_l._ a year was settled on the public
to patch up a feeble and odious Ministry for ten months.
While the gentle showers of office and pensions were descending on
parched politicians, Pitt wended his valetudinarian way, as usual, to
Bath. But when Parliament met in January, he was in his place, alert and
thirsting for combat.
[Sidenote: 1756.]
We first catch a glimpse of him, on January 23, paying great court to
Beckford; with conspicuous success as it happened, for Beckford
hereafter was to be his devoted follower, and his invaluable agent in
the City of London. On the same day the new Chancellor of the Exchequer
unfolded his Budget, better than was expected, but bewildered with the
figures. 'He stumbled over millions, and dwelt pompously over
farthings.' His Budget dealt with figures enviably small; duties on
plate, calculated to produce 30,000_l._ a year, which produced
18,000_l._; on bricks and tiles which were to produce 30,000_l._ a year,
and on cards and dice which were to produce 17,000_l._ Bricks and tiles
failed the Government; the tax was too unpopular; so, it is scarcely
necessary to state, it was moved on to ale-houses. A generation, which
passes tens of millions of expenditure without breaking silence, looks
back with awe on that which deployed the full splendour of eloquence on
taxes which altogether were not to produce 80,000_l._ a year. Pitt, who
was almost as ignorant of finance as the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
attacked him with vigour, but Lyttelton replied effectively. In speaking
he mentioned Pitt as his friend, but corrected it to 'the gentleman.'
This raised a laugh, when Lyttelton remarked, not without pathos, 'If he
is not my friend, it is not my fault,' and the contest, after lasting
some time, mellowed into good humour.
[Sidenote: Jan. 28, 1756.]
A few days later Pitt broke out again and declared that the Ministry was
disjointed, and united only in corrupt and arbitrary measures. Fox
denied this publicly and privately; publicly sneering at Pitt's family
connection, privately assuring Pitt that, so far from there being any
disunion between Newcastle and himself, the two Townshends had offered
to join the Duke if he would give up Fox, and that the Minister had
refused them.
[Sidenote: Feb. 9, 1756.]
[Sidenote: Feb. 10, 1756.]
The next battle was on a proposal to raise four Swiss battalions to be
employed in America, when Pitt, as usual, censured the dilatoriness of
the Government and flouted their 'paper' forces. Lord Loudoun commanded
only a scroll, he said; the suggested battalions were only adding paper
to paper; and so forth. Next day he diverted the debate from its tedious
course by accusing the Government of having cashiered a brave officer,
Sir Henry Erskine, a friend of Bute's by the by, on account of his vote
in Parliament. But this ended in nothing.
[Sidenote: Feb. 20, 1756.]
At a later stage, Pitt ironically described the plan for the Swiss
auxiliaries as a fortuitous blessing, for had not Prevot, the adventurer
who was to command the battalions, been taken prisoner by the French and
found his way from Brest hither, and had he not then taken it into his
head that he would like to command a regiment, nothing would have been
heard of it. He hoped this Ulysses-like wanderer might be as wise as his
prototype and so forth; one can imagine the sort of pleasantry. But it
was Charles Townshend who, 'content with promoting confusion,' chiefly
shone at this time. On the other hand, one of Pitt's speeches, urging
that the Colonies should be heard on this Swiss scheme, is described as
lasting an hour and a half without fire or force. Indeed, Walpole writes
of this debate that 'the opposition neither increase in numbers or
eloquence; the want of the former seems to have damped the fire of the
latter,' and that 'the House of Commons has dwindled into a very
dialogue between Pitt and Fox ... in which, though Pitt has attacked,
Fox has generally had the better.' Pitt seemed to be becoming dull and
diffuse. 'Mr. Pitt talks by Shrewsbury clock, and is grown almost as
little heard as that is at Westminster.' Still one wishes that the
chronicler had reported the speeches of either as faithfully as he
reports his own.
The apprehension of a French invasion, which had been present for
months, became acute in March and April (1756). The Government asked for
the troops which Holland was, it was held, bound to furnish, and they
were refused. Thereupon Lord George Sackville, probably by concert with
the Court or to gain its favour, suggested a preference for Hanoverians,
whose soldierlike qualities he commended. The hint was acted upon with
suspicious promptitude; and on March 29, Fox formally moved to address
the King to send for his Electoral troops.[318]
Pitt, swathed as an invalid, opposed the motion in a long speech. He
alleged his respect for the King as the ground of his opposition. For
this address would be advice to the King in his Electoral capacity which
we had no claim to offer, and which, moreover, might involve his
Electorate in a peril equal to our own. He seems to have argued against
any fear of invasion, on the ground that in the Dutch war, with a
suspected King, we had coped with Holland and France; that in 1690, when
the French had beaten our fleet at Beachy Head and had an army actually
in Ireland, we had surmounted that danger; and that de Witt, the
greatest man since the men of Plutarch, had proposed an invasion to
d'Estrades, who had treated it as a chimerical suggestion. In any case
the natural force of the nation was sufficient to repel any attack of
the enemy. That state alone is a sovereign state 'qui suis stat viribus,
non alieno pendet arbitrio,' which subsists by its own strength, not by
the courtesy of its neighbours:[319] words which may have inspired Lord
Lyndhurst, a century afterwards, with his famous phrase with regard to a
State existing on sufferance. He would vote, Pitt proceeded, for raising
any numbers of British troops. The late war had formed many great
officers, and he would not interpose foreigners to hinder their
promotion; nor would he force this vote on the King when he might send
for his troops without.[320] The motion was agreed to by 259 to 92. Bubb
comically commented on the readiness of the King, who had then amassed,
it was believed, an immense treasure in Hanover, to make the nation pay
for this defence of himself, by declaring that 'His Majesty would not
for the world lend himself a farthing.' Not less humorous is the story
preserved by Horace Walpole that the night the Hanoverian troops were
voted, he summoned his German cook and ordered himself an exceptionally
good supper. 'Get me all de varieties,' said the homely monarch, 'I
don't mind expense.' A lampoon in the form of an anecdote, it is to be
supposed.
[Sidenote: March 30, 1756.]
Next day Pitt had another opportunity for attack on the charge involved
by the employment of Hessian troops, who, he declared, would cost
400,000_l._ more than the same number of British troops. But, a few days
afterwards, there was a still better occasion, when Barrington brought
forward the estimate for the Hanoverian troops, and commended it as a
better bargain than the Hessian, which had been passed, and was
therefore secure. Pitt at once harped on the same strain, and, lauding
the Hanoverian estimate, fell still more vehemently on the Hessian. No
one could find fault with the Hanoverian, that we owed to His Majesty;
but the subsidiary juggle with Hesse was the work of his Ministers.
'Nothing but good flows from the King; nothing but ruin from his
servants. I choose that they shall fall by a friendly hand, and that the
condemnation of his patrons should come from the noble lord himself
(Barrington). But must we engage mercenaries because France does? She
engages them,' he said, with one of his phrases of picturesque energy,
'because she has not blood enough in her own veins for the purpose of
universal monarchy.' He despaired of preserving Minorca, he continued
with gloomy prescience, yet the waste on these Hessians would have saved
that island, would have conquered America. He broke out bitterly against
the departmental character of the Government. 'I don't call this an
administration, it is so unsteady. One is at the head of the Treasury;
one, Chancellor; one, head of the Navy; one great person, of the Army.
But is that an administration? They shift and shuffle the charge from
one to another. One says, "I am not the General;" the Treasury says, "I
am not the Admiral;" the Admiralty says, "I am not the Minister." From
such an unaccording assemblage of separate and distinct powers with no
system, a nullity results. One, two, three, four, five lords meet. If
they cannot agree, "Oh, we will meet again on Saturday!" "Oh," but says
one of them, "I am to go out of town." Alas! when no parties survive to
thwart them, what an aggravation it is that no good comes from such
unanimity!'
Fox, in reply, asked if Pitt wished to see a sole Minister, a question
that suggests that there was already an impression abroad that Pitt was
aiming at the dictatorship which he afterwards received, or else that
Pitt, if he obtained office, would be so overbearing as to become the
sole Minister.
Pitt, at any rate, did not accept the allusion as to himself. He said
that he did not wish to see a single Minister, but system and decision.
Indeed, he gracefully added, were Fox sole Minister there would be
decision enough.[321]
On May 11 (1756) a royal message apprised Parliament of the treaty
concluded with Prussia (the Convention of Westminster, signed January
1756), and asking his faithful Commons for supplies.
The House promptly voted a million on account, but Pitt as usual uttered
eloquent lamentations on the incapacity of Ministers and the calamitous
situation of affairs. What was this vote of credit for? Was it to raise
more men? We had already 40,000 British and 14,000 foreign troops. Was
it for the purpose of marine treaties? Then he would joyfully vote it.
For a naval war we could and ought to support, but a Continental war on
the present system we could not. Regard should no doubt be had to
Hanover, but a secondary regard. For if Hanover was to be our first
object it would lead us to bankruptcy. It was impossible to defend
Hanover by subsidies. How could an open country be defended against an
enemy who could march 150,000 men into it, and if necessary reinforce
them by as many more? Should Hanover suffer by her connection with Great
Britain, we ought not to make peace without exacting full and ample
compensation for all the damage and injury she might have sustained. But
the idea of defending Hanover by subsidies was preposterous, absurd, and
impracticable. Then, excited by this favourite theme beyond the limits
he had imposed on himself, he struck home at the King and his darling
patrimony. This system, he said, would in a few years, cost us more
money than the fee simple of the electorate was worth, a place which
after all could not be found in the map. He ardently wished us to break
those fetters which chained us like Prometheus to that barren rock. (The
metaphor which made a rock of Hanover does not strike one as one of his
happiest efforts).
If Lyttelton could not state the purpose for which this credit was
designed, perhaps he could say for what it was not designed. Still, Pitt
added sardonically, he was of so compounding a temper that he should
assent to it.
Ministers bragged of their unanimity and spirit. But what had all this
army of councils and talents, this universal aye, produced? Were we
safe? Had we inflicted any damage on the enemy? If so, when and where?
He had no particular pleasure in thus speaking. He did not wish to load
the unhappy men who had undone their country, most unhappy if they did
not realise it. And our activity! Philosophers indeed had a phrase _vis
inertiae_ by which they denoted the inactivity of action (_sic_). Was it
by that that we were to be saved?
His charge against the Government was this: that we had provoked before
we could defend, and neglected after provocation; that we were left
inferior to France in every quarter; that the vote of credit had been
misapplied to secure Hanover; and that we had bought a treaty with
Prussia by sacrificing our rights. He would not have signed such a
treaty to have the five great places of those who had signed it. Yet if
this treaty were restrained to the defence of the King's dominions he
should not know how to oppose it.
He had no feeling of resentment against the Government, no one had
injured him. Yet he could not but think ill of their capacity and their
measures. Could he, then, every day, arraign their policy and feel
confidence in them? Pelham indeed had intended economy, but he was
dragged into this foreign policy by his brother, now at the head of the
Treasury. And if he, Pitt, saw Newcastle like a child driving a go-cart
with that precious freight of an old King and his family on to a
precipice, was he not bound to try and take the reins from his hands?
And with a gloomy foreboding which must have chilled the anxious House,
he solemnly prayed that the King might not have Minorca written on his
heart, as Calais had been, in the dying declaration of Mary, engraved on
hers.
The debate ended with a bitter rally between Pitt and Lyttelton, the
fiercer for their former friendship. Lyttelton had sneered at his
epithets. This came well, said Pitt, from Lyttelton, whose own character
was a composition of epithets. He himself had used no epithets that day,
so Lyttelton had chosen ill the occasion for his taunt. But in any case
the House was not an academy for the exchange of compliments. And when
Lyttelton disclaimed any share in framing the motion, it was obvious
that he was not at liberty to change it. If Lyttelton would declare that
he had no more resources, he would only say that Lyttelton was
incapable.
The new Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose heart was still warm with his
old affection, was hurt by this attack, but he maintained his ground.
'He says I am but a thing made up of epithets. Is not this the language
of Billingsgate? The world is complaining that the House was turned into
a bear garden. I do not envy my friend the glory of being the Figg or
Broughton of it.' Pitt retorted that Lyttelton was a very pretty poet,
and that there was no one whom he more respected pen in hand. 'But it is
hard that my friend, with whom I have taken sweet counsel in epithets,
should now reproach me with using them.' Lyttelton replied once more
that it was not his fault if he and Pitt were not still friends.[322]
[Sidenote: May 14, 1756.]
A day or two later Lyttelton unfolded to the House the provisions of the
Treaty of Westminster. It had cleared up some small pecuniary claims on
both sides, so much to Frederick for losses from British privateers, so
much from Frederick for arrears of interest on the Silesian loan, a
balance of 40,000_l._ due on the whole to Great Britain. On this, Pitt,
inveterate against the Ministry, fulminated once more. He declared that
by payment, even of a small sum, we had conceded the principle of our
Empire over the sea, and went off into the usual rhetoric. 'For himself
he should affect no superiority but what was common to him with the
twelve millions of his countrymen, innocence of his country's ruin, the
superiority of the undone over the undoers.'
All that is notable in these crumbs of debate is the strategy of Pitt;
to hammer at the enemy without ceasing, not to allow him a moment to
breathe or recover, but to display him to the country day and night
pummelled, bewildered and helpless, until he should succumb from
exhaustion; when the country should insist on the removal of the
defeated combatant, and the substitution of his conqueror. Pitt was
openly set on the destruction of the Newcastle Government for more
reasons than one. He was vindictive and had been slighted; he was
profoundly anxious about the position of the country, and convinced of
the incapacity of Newcastle to govern; he wished to try his own hand at
the game, believing that he could do better, convinced that he could do
no worse, than the Ministers whom he had seen at work.