But national calamity was now to lend irresistible force to his attacks.
It had been known for some time that France was meditating an attack on
Gibraltar or Minorca, and in the beginning of March it became certain
that Minorca was to be the object.[323] During the first week of May the
Government received the news that the French had actually landed on the
island. War was formally and not prematurely declared on May 18. Six
weeks earlier the ill-fated Byng had sailed with a fleet to relieve the
fortress. The country waited for news with bated breath. The King
declared that he could neither eat nor sleep. Saunders, afterwards to be
Pitt's First Lord of the Admiralty, reassured his Sovereign by saying
that they should screw his heart out if Byng were not at that moment
(June 7) in the harbour of Mahon.[324] Then came the news that Byng,
after an indecisive engagement with the French fleet, had sailed back to
Gibraltar and left Minorca to its fate. Still the nation, though raging
against Byng, hoped against hope, till on July 14 the news came that
Fort St. Philip, the British fort, had surrendered after a gallant
defence on June 28, and that Minorca was in the hands of the French. The
long-compressed anxiety exploded in a terrible outburst of wrath against
Byng. Addresses poured in from every part of England demanding vengeance
upon him. The unhappy Admiral was brought back to Greenwich Hospital as
a prisoner to await a court-martial. But, the nation had already turned
its thumb downwards. Perhaps the best idea of the popular sentiment is
conveyed by the fact that Byng's brother, who went to meet the Admiral,
was stricken to death by the popular fury wherever he passed; so that he
fell ill at the first sight of the prisoner, and died next day in
convulsions. There was no chance of a fair trial for the unhappy man. To
the merchants of London bringing one of the addresses for his exemplary
punishment Newcastle, not sorry to have a scapegoat, had blurted out,
'Oh! indeed he shall be tried immediately: he shall be hanged directly.'
And executed he was, after an agony of eight months, in spite of
justice, in spite of Pitt, who had the fine courage to support him, in
deference to the nation and the King who were bent on his death.
Voltaire, who had tried with real humanity to save him, sardonically
described the execution in Candide, 'Dans ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer
de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres,' a phrase which
he appears to have borrowed from the Knights of Malta.[325]
Something less, much less than Nelson, might have saved Minorca. The
truth seems to be that Byng, who was personally brave, sailed from
Gibraltar with the preconceived impression that Minorca was lost, and
acted throughout under this conviction, without energy or resource. So
far as his countrymen, or rather, their rulers, were concerned, they had
long done their best to lose it. They had, in spite of constant appeals,
starved and neglected it. But there was worse than this. On one side of
the mouth of the harbour of Mahon is a site easily rendered impregnable,
on the other a plain which nothing can secure. John Duke of Argyle had
begun a fort on the first site, but Lord Cadogan out of hatred to him,
it was said, destroyed it and built Fort St. Philip at a vast expense on
the second. The thing is incredible to the traveller who sees the place.
If the story be true (Horace Walpole is the authority), it is on the
head of Cadogan and not of Byng that should be laid the loss of Minorca,
a loss which can neither be forgotten nor forgiven.
This tragic incident only touches Pitt's life in so far as it
precipitated the disgrace of Newcastle. The Duke was indeed getting
deeper and deeper. In May he declared that no one blamed him, for every
one knew that the sea was not his province, and Fox had replied that as
to public censure, his information was exactly the reverse. In September
he could scarcely conceal from himself that he was being mobbed and
pelted in his coach, and that his coachman was urged by the shouting
crowd to drive his Grace straight to the Tower. Ballads swarmed of which
the burden was, 'To the block with Newcastle and to the yard-arm with
Byng.' Even the docile allegiance of the House of Commons can scarcely
have allayed the veteran's rising anxiety. 'This was the year of the
worst administration that I have seen in England,' says Walpole, though
he was the close friend of Fox, 'for now Newcastle's incapacity was
allowed full play.' Fox indeed found that he was not admitted to real
confidence or to the counsels of Newcastle and Hardwicke. He was
therefore in a state of swelling discontent, ready to break away at the
first opportunity. He declared that he had urged that a strong squadron
should be sent for the relief of the fortress during the first week of
March, but was overruled. The fall of Minorca and the storm of national
fury which followed increased his anxiety to be out of this disastrous
Ministry. He was, we suspect, already determined not to meet Parliament
again as Newcastle's talking puppet, possibly his scapegoat.
The House had risen on May 27. Two days earlier occurred an event which
was to remove one of the three intellects of the Government, Fox and
Hardwicke, of course, being the other two. Ryder, the Chief Justice of
the King's Bench, died, and Murray at once laid claim to the succession.
This demand drove Newcastle to despair. He offered Murray exorbitant and
increasing terms to remain, for he regarded Murray as his sole protector
in the House of Commons against his doubtful friend, Fox, and his open
enemy, Pitt. But offers of the Duchy of Lancaster for life with a
pension of 2000_l._ a year, with permission to remain Attorney-General
at a salary of 7000_l._ a year, and a reversion of one of the Golden
Tellerships of the Exchequer for his nephew Stormont, left Murray
unmoved. For months the game of temptation was played. At the beginning
of October the Prime Minister had raised the proposed pension to
6000_l._ a year. Murray remained firm. He stipulated, indeed, for more
than the Chief Justiceship; he demanded a peerage as well; he would not
take the one without the other; and in no case would he remain
Attorney-General. We can imagine Newcastle's tears and caresses; they
were in vain. Vain, too, was his attempt to fob off his rebellious
subordinate with the reluctance of the King. Murray, indeed, hinted that
when he became a private member of the House of Commons he might go into
Opposition. We may be sure, at any rate, that he had no intention of
facing an angry nation and Parliament in defence of Newcastle and the
loss of Minorca. This hint probably clinched the matter. Newcastle
capitulated; though, said Fox, from 'wilful trifling,' he deferred the
performance of his promise as long as possible.[326] It was not till the
eve of the Duke's fall that, on November 8, Murray was sworn in as Chief
Justice and created a Peer as Lord Mansfield.
[Sidenote: 1756.]
What glimpses are there meanwhile of Pitt? He had just got possession of
Hayes, and was there in May, building and improving, as usual, but
speaking brilliantly on the Militia Bill in the House, so brilliantly as
to earn a patronising note of approval from Bute, beginning 'My worthy
friend'; an indication that the bond between Pitt and the young Court
was now close. Indeed, Pitt seems now to have been the principal adviser
of that increasingly powerful connection.
Potter, whom Pitt had come to describe as 'one of the best friends I
have in the world,' wrote to Pitt, ten days after Ryder's death,
conveying the news from an inspired source that if Murray went on the
bench Newcastle would invite Pitt to join the Government, for he could
repair the loss in no other way. But he adds, shrewdly enough, that the
Duke was evidently ignorant of his own strength, for if he had to rely
on Lyttelton and Dupplin (then Joint Paymaster of the Forces) alone,
though the debates would no doubt be shorter, he would not, such was the
temper of the House, lose a single vote. He added that, in his judgment,
the Opposition had not made themselves popular by their conduct, because
of the fear of invasion. Hanover treaties and Hanover troops had become
popular; opposition to them must be wrong 'when we are ready to be eat
up by the French.'[327]
But these anticipations were premature, for the struggle with Murray
lasted, as we have seen, from May till November. So that Pitt had
leisure to squander on his improvements and to receive his eldest son
John on John's entrance into the world. But his eye was vigilantly fixed
on the distresses of the country. 'Quae regio in terris nostri non plena
laboris?' he writes to George Grenville (June 5, 1756). 'It is an
inadequate and a selfish consolation, but it is a sensible one, to think
that we share only in the common ruin, and not in the guilt of having
left us exposed to the natural and necessary consequences of
administration without ability or virtue.' Grenville, determined not to
be undone, replies in a letter stuffed with Latin quotation. 'Distress,'
rejoins Pitt (June 16, 1756), 'infinite distress seems to hem us in on
all quarters. I am in most anxious impatience to have the affair in the
Mediterranean cleared up. As yet nothing is clear but that the French
are masters there, and that probably many an innocent and gallant man's
honour and fortune is to be offered up as a scapegoat for the sins of
the Administration.' In July he paid a visit at Stowe, and in August he
was laid up at Hayes with 'a very awkward, uneasy, but not hurtful'
malady.
He must have seen with poignant interest Frederick's fierce irruption
into Saxony, but all seems absorbed in his anxiety for his wife and his
overflowing delight at the birth of his son. This event occurred on
October 10, at a moment when the ministerial crisis had become acute.
No one in fact was willing to face even an abject House of Commons with
the loss of Minorca on his back. Newcastle was near the end of his
tether. Murray had gone. Whether Chief Justice or not, he was determined
to be out of the Ministry; and if disappointed of his just claim to the
Bench he was not likely to face a storm on behalf of the Minister who
had refused it. Murray had gone, Fox was going; for his chagrin was
patent, and Newcastle 'treated him rather like an enemy whom he feared
than as a minister whom he had chosen for his assistant.' He was no
better used by the King. The Duke, moreover, was at war with the waxing
power of Leicester House. With this Court indeed he managed to patch up
a hollow peace at the expense of Fox; offending one Court and not
appeasing the other. But that did not help him to an agent in the House
of Commons.
And worse was still to come, disaster followed on disaster. To a nation
freshly smarting with the fall of Minorca there came tidings of
catastrophe from the East and the West. In June Calcutta had been
captured by Surajah Dowlah, followed by the horrors of the Black Hole,
which still linger in the proverbial dialect of this country. Then in
August fell Oswego, the most important British fortress in North
America. Situated on Lake Ontario it was a permanent menace to the
French, for British command of that lake would mean the separation of
Canada from Louisiana. Montcalm, a general of high merit, who has had
the singular good fortune to leave a name consecrated by the common
veneration of friend and foe, had arrived to take the command of the
French forces in Canada. Two months after landing he marched on Oswego,
and, investing it with a greatly superior force, soon compelled it to
capitulate. Its garrison of 1400 men surrendered as prisoners of
war.[328] A hundred pieces of artillery and great stores of ammunition
fell into the hands of the French. The forts, three in number, and the
vessels were burned. It was a real triumph for the French, and a
proportionate disaster for their foes. 'Such a shocking affair has never
found a place in English annals,' wrote one American officer. 'The loss
is beyond account; but the dishonour done his Majesty's arms is
infinitely greater.' 'Oswego,' wrote Horace Walpole, 'is of ten times
more importance even than Minorca.'
Scarcely less consternation was caused in England, where the news
arrived on September 30. People there were getting dazed with disaster,
and the men who ruled became more and more abhorrent. Already, on
September 2, Newcastle had written to the Chancellor that people were
becoming outrageous in the North of England, and that a petition was
being largely signed in Surrey demanding 'justice against persons
however highly dignified or distinguished.' This, he adds drily, may
mean you or me, or 'perhaps somebody more highly dignified and
distinguished than either of us.'[329] Who could be found to bear such a
burden of shame and ignominy, and affront the storm that threatened to
burst at once in overwhelming popular fury?
Not Fox, undaunted though he might be. Like the condottiere that he was,
he did not heed hard knocks provided the pay were good. But here he was
defrauded of his deserts, of the promised confidence of the King and his
Minister. For Newcastle had betrayed him to the last; the magpie cunning
of that old caitiff paralysed every arm that might have defended him.
When it came to the point he could not bring himself to part with his
monopoly of patronage, and of power as he understood power. He was like
a drowning miser with his treasure on him, who will not part with his
gold to save his life. So the Duke preferred to sink with all his
influence rather than take the chance of floating without it. First he
set the King against Fox. The Duke had tried to appease Leicester House
by getting the appointment of Groom of the Stole for Bute. The King,
suspecting Bute's intimacy with the Princess, detested that fascinating
courtier. So Newcastle, to divert from himself the King's wrath at
having to make this nomination, told His Majesty that Fox made Bute's
appointment a condition of his retaining the seals; and then without
telling Fox that his name had thus been mentioned to the Sovereign,
informed him that the King was exasperated against him.[330]
Then there arose the eternal question of patronage. Fox had been
promised by the King himself that on becoming Secretary of State he
should have the conduct of the House of Commons with all that that
involved. But Newcastle could not bring himself to fulfil the royal
pledges or his own. When the list of the Prince of Wales's household was
published, Fox saw in it the names of eight or ten members of Parliament
as to whom he had never been even consulted. Newcastle moreover, as Fox
asserted, broke a solemn promise that Fox's nephew, Lord Digby, should
be included. A still greater affront was that he told Fox that he
destined a vacant seat at the Board of Trade for a person whom he was
not at liberty to mention. More than this, he took occasion to remind
Fox of a former offer to make way for Pitt if it were for the King's
service, and Fox again readily agreed. All this took place on September
30.[331] Such an insulting and accumulated want of confidence between
the leaders of the two Houses was not to be tolerated, and Fox wrote at
once to Bubb that things were going ill. The final explosion was caused
by the exclusion of Digby, which was notified to Fox on October 5. The
King, said the Duke, refused this nomination peremptorily and bitterly,
but had said that, if the Duke himself pressed it, he would yield to
oblige the Duke. On receiving this letter, Fox wrote a furious letter
to Stone, Newcastle's secretary. The draft of a letter commonly reveals
much more of the writer's mind than the letter itself, and the draft of
this is fortunately preserved.[332] 'I do not know,' wrote Fox, 'whether
I am to imagine from hence that the negotiation with Mr. Pitt is far
advanced, but I am told it is not begun. In these circumstances, dear
Sir, I must beg you to stop it. I retract all good-humoured dealing. I
may be turned out, and I suppose shall. But I will not be used like a
dog without having given the least provocation (suppose I should say
with the utmost merit to those who use me so) and be like that dog a
spaniel. I do not consent that Mr. Pitt should have my place, and
promise to be in good humour or even on any terms with those who give it
him.'[333] Fox was in a blind fury, but sensibly expunged all this from
the letter he sent. To Welbore Ellis, his confidant, he wrote: 'The King
has carried his displeasure to me beyond common bounds, and I vow to God
I don't guess the reason. The Duke of Newcastle, instead of growing
better, has outdone himself, and show'd me the Prince's establishment on
which eight members of the House of Commons are plac'd whose names he
never mention'd to me, and he had the assurance to make a merit of
shewing me the List after it was _fix'd_ with the King. He has been Fool
enough to ask my consent, and to intend to offer my place to Mr. Pitt
without (as I believe) trying whether or no he will accept it. This
makes it necessary for me to take a step in which my view is to get out
of court and never come into it again.... If you think it worth while to
get up very early to-morrow morning you may be at Holland House before
I go to Lady Yarmouth, to desire and humbly advise H.M. to conclude the
Treaty with Mr. Pitt, promising my assistance in a subaltern employment,
and shewing the impossibility of my appearing and my determination not
to appear in the H. of Commons as Secy. of State.'[334] While he was
writing this, Newcastle was despatching a note giving way as to Digby's
nomination,[335] with much the same effect as a cup of cold water poured
with the best intentions on a burning city.
Whether with or without the companionship of Ellis, Fox went straight to
Lady Yarmouth. She was out. Newcastle had already sent her a note
enclosing Fox's resignation, and assuring her that Fox was bringing it
to her for transmission to the King.[336] When Fox found her, later in
the day, and handed her his paper, she denied any idea of Pitt ever
having been suggested to the King, but besought him to reconsider his
determination. 'Monsieur Fox, vous etes trop honnete homme pour quitter
a present. S'il y avait quatre ou cinq mois avant que le Parlement
s'assemble; a la fin de la session vous ferez ce que vous voudrez, mais
a present de jeter tout en confusion! Regardez a la position des
affaires. Non, je n'excuse pas le Duc de Newcastle; c'est dur, c'est
penible, mais quand vous aurez pense un peu au Roi, a la patrie, vous
continuerez cette session,' perhaps the only articulate utterance of
Lady Yarmouth that we possess.[337] Failing in this, she begged at least
that Granville might hand the resignation to the King instead of
herself. Fox agreed to this.[338]
Fox's note to Newcastle was terse and sombre:
'My Lord, I return Your Grace many thanks for the letter which, not
being at home, I did not receive till late last night, and I am much
obliged to you for the contents of it.
'The step I am going to take is not only necessary but innocent. It
shall be accompany'd with no complaint. It shall be follow'd by no
resentment. I have no resentment. But it is not the less true that my
situation is impracticable.'
To the King he sent a formal paper of grievance and resignation, which
has already been printed and need not be repeated here. He took great
pains over it, as the drafts testify. The substance of it was that he
had been loyal to Newcastle, but that he had not received support in
return, and so could not carry on the business of Government in the
House of Commons as it should be carried on. But he would gladly serve
the King outside the Cabinet. This meant that he would gladly exchange
offices with Pitt. At the same time he told Cumberland and wrote to
Devonshire that if Newcastle had been such a fool as to offer the seals
to Pitt without knowing whether he would take them, he (Fox), to prevent
the general confusion that would ensue, would continue for another
session. No notice was taken of this offer.[339] It does not seem
certain that it ever reached either Newcastle or the King.
Granville found the King prepared for the resignation, and very angry
with Fox for deserting him. 'Would you advise me to take Pitt?' he
asked. 'Well, Sir!' replied Granville, 'you must take somebody.' 'Ah!
but,' said the monarch, pensively, 'I am sure Pitt will not do my
business.' The business to which the Sovereign referred was, of course,
electoral. He considered that he had in various ways shown Fox great
favour, and that Fox had acted ill in throwing up his office when the
meeting of Parliament was near at hand.
Newcastle received Fox's resignation at the Treasury. Though he was
planning to discard Fox for Pitt, he was thunderstruck at finding that
Fox had anticipated him. He hurried to Court, and found the King in good
humour except with the resigning Secretary. His Majesty gave Newcastle
the paper which he had received from Granville, having underlined the
passage which had mainly offended him: 'for want of support, and think
it impracticable for me to carry on His Majesty's affairs as they ought
to be carried on;' and then recited, with the aid of Newcastle as
prompter, all the favours shown to Fox. But the more urgent and
practical question was not the ingratitude of Fox, but what was to be
done now that he had gone. The King, with that shrewd and redeeming
touch of humour which we constantly discern in him, said that a sensible
courtier, Lord Hyde, had told him that there were but three things to
do. The King recited them thus: 'to call in Pitt, to make up with my own
family, and, my lord, I have forgot the third.' The third probably
related to Newcastle himself, and may therefore have been difficult of
repetition to the Duke. But without hesitation the King empowered
Newcastle to approach Pitt, and to tell him that if he would take
office he should have a good reception. Pitt was also to be offered the
seals, but not at first, on the fatuous principle on which all
Newcastle's negotiations were conducted; to hope against hope that the
object he coveted could be got for much less than its value.
But then the King asked 'the great question ... which,' says Newcastle,
'I own I could not answer: what shall we do if Pitt will not come? Fox
will then be worse.' Then the King, with still increasing acuteness,
asked, 'Suppose Pitt will not serve with you?' 'Then, Sir, I must go.'
And so it was to end. But Newcastle would not without a struggle
renounce the deleterious habit of office. He summoned Hardwicke to town
for the purpose of approaching Pitt. He hurried to Lady Yarmouth and
took counsel with her. All agreed that the only resource was Pitt, and
that Hardwicke alone could sound him. Pitt was at Hayes, but leaving
immediately for Bath. Time was short, the crisis acute, so Newcastle
wrote, 'don't boggle at it.'[340]
There was no boggling or hesitation on the part of the Chancellor: he
hurried to London and saw Pitt on Tuesday, October 19. The interview
lasted three hours and a half. When it was over, Hardwicke despatched a
despairing note to Newcastle: 'I am just come from my conference, which
lasted full 3-1/2 hours. His answer is an absolute final negative
without any reserve for further deliberation. In short there never was a
more unsuccessful negotiator.'[341] In a longer letter to his son Lord
Royston, Hardwicke added but little more. On the main point Pitt was
inexorable; he would have nothing to do with Newcastle. Hardwicke could
not move him an inch. He was obdurate on 'men and measures.'[342] But
'men and measures' only meant Newcastle. Pitt had been repeatedly
tricked by him; he had seen Fox repeatedly tricked by him when the
meanest self-interest dictated honesty; he would not fall into the trap
into which Fox had fallen; to join Newcastle now would be to be a
willing dupe, and he was determined to govern if he was to govern,
without this perpetual ambush at his side. Nor would he have any
dealings with Fox. He thought, truly or untruly, that Fox had betrayed
him, and he intended to try and do without treachery. He wished to enter
on power clear of all suspicious connections, and indeed with little but
the influence of his wife's family. So he resolved to see nothing even
of Bute before meeting Hardwicke, and he summoned the Grenvilles to
receive his report immediately after seeing Hardwicke.[343]
Pitt, however, having no access to the King and being anxious to
communicate with him directly, made overtures elsewhere. On October 21,
the palace was disturbed by an unwonted agitation. Pages and lackeys
were seen in sudden perturbation calling to each other that Mr. Pitt had
arrived to see my Lady Yarmouth. Lady Yarmouth's position was singular
enough. She had once been the declared mistress of George the Second;
'My lady Yarmouth the comforter,' wrote a ribald wit.[344] She still
lived under his roof, when it was her business to keep him amused, if
possible, during the long dull evenings. But from being a favourite, she
had developed into an institution. Her apartment, immediately below the
King's, was little less than an office. There, it was said, peerages or
bishoprics might sometimes be bought, and some patronage was perhaps
facilitated or dispensed. On the other hand, Lord Walpole declared at an
earlier period that she asked for nothing, and that one of her principal
charms with the King was that she did not importune him for favours. At
any rate, persons wanting anything did well to write to her. Thither,
too, a circumstance of much significance, Ministers repaired before or
after their audience with the King, to anticipate the royal disposition
or to report the royal utterances. 'I went below stairs,' was the
phrase. They took close counsel with the lady, she told them her
impressions of the King's real views, and usually added some shrewd
observations of her own. Her action seems to have been wholly
beneficial; she appeased jealousies, conciliated animosities,
administered common sense, spoke ill of nobody, and, so far as we can
judge, was eminently good natured in the best sense of that tortured
epithet. Perhaps her most useful function was that of acting as a
conciliatory channel for those who had something to say to the King
which they could not say themselves. Both Fox and Newcastle had at once
hurried to her, as we have seen, when the crisis took place. And so Pitt
now found it necessary to pay his first visit to her.
He had heard perhaps that the King had said, 'I am sure Pitt will not do
my business,' and had come to give soothing insinuations. But he also
entertained a well-founded doubt as to whether he had fair play with
the King, and whether he could trust Newcastle and Hardwicke to
represent him fairly to the Sovereign.[345] So he came to Lady Yarmouth
as his only means of direct communication with the Closet, and stated
his real terms, handing her a written list of the men he proposed for
office, a list which still exists.[346] He would not serve with
Newcastle, but the King might find in getting rid of Newcastle that
Hanover had other unsuspected friends.[347] But he also 'sent,' says
Fox, 'the terms of a madman to the King.' They do not seem very mad to
us: Ireland for Temple, the Exchequer for Legge, the Paymastership for
George Grenville, the Irish Secretaryship for James Grenville, the
Treasury for Devonshire. Townshend was to be Treasurer of the Chambers,
Dr. Hay a Lord of the Admiralty, and places were to be found for George
Townshend, Erskine, Lord Pomfret, and Sir Richard Lyttelton. For his
colleague in the Secretaryship of State he proposed, most marvellous of
all, Sir Thomas Robinson! The overture, however, irritated the King,
partly from the demands, partly because it showed that people thought
that he was influenced by Lady Yarmouth. 'Mr Pitt,' he said,'shall not
go to that channel any more. She does not meddle and shall not
meddle.'[348] Nevertheless the hint dropped by Pitt was probably useful
and fruitful. Pitt himself said afterwards that this interview put an
end to the indecision of the King, who had remained sullen and
passive.[349]
The next point to be noted is Pitt's second interview with Hardwicke.
And though the minute of Hardwicke's conversation with Pitt on October
19 appears to be lost, we have his record[350] of this second meeting
between them on October 24, which he read to the King on October 26, and
which contains the main points at issue.
Hardwicke began by telling Pitt that he had sent for him at the King's
command; that he had on October 20 faithfully narrated to the King all
that had passed at the interview of October 19, and that the King had
summoned him on October 23, the day previous to the present meeting, in
order to send the following message--
'The King is of opinion that what has been suggested is not for his and
the public service.'
Pitt thereupon bowed and said that His Majesty did him the greatest
honour in condescending to return any answer to anything that came from
him. He then repeated the message word for word, and desired Hardwicke
to bear in mind that all that he _had suggested_ was by way of
objection; that he had not suggested anything _affirmative_ as to
measures of any kind. Hardwicke replied that he had repeated to the King
exactly what had passed, and recapitulated the five heads under which
Pitt had summed up the previous conversation.
'1. That it was impossible for him to serve with the Duke of Newcastle.
'2. That he thought enquiries into the past measures absolutely
necessary, that he thought it his duty to take a considerable share in
them, and could not lay himself under any obligation to depart from
that.
'To this I said that the King was not against a fair and impartial
enquiry.
'3. That he thought his duty to support a Militia Bill, and particularly
that of the last session.
'I told him that the King and his ministers were not against _a_ Militia
Bill.
'4. That the affair of the Hanoverian soldier[351] he thought of great
importance; that what had been done ought to be examined, and, he
thought, censured.
'5. That if he came into His Majesty's service, he thought it necessary,
in order to serve him, and to support his affairs, to have such powers
as belonged to his station, to be in the first concert and concoction of
measures, and to be at liberty to propose to His Majesty himself
anything that occurred to him for his service, originally, and without
going through any other minister.'
Pitt, who was evidently disappointed, acknowledged the accuracy of
Hardwicke's recital, and desired to know if the message from the King
was _an answer to the whole_. Hardwicke replied that it was the King's
answer in the King's own words,[352] and that he could not take on
himself to explain it; but that he understood it as _an answer to
everything that had been conveyed by Mr. Pitt to the King_.
To this Pitt rejoined with thanks for the King's condescension that he
would say to Hardwicke, '_as from one private gentleman to another_,'
that he would not come into the service, in the present circumstances of
affairs, upon any other terms for the whole world.
'I then,' continues the Chancellor, 'said that undoubtedly He must judge
for himself; But I would also say to Him, _as from Lord Hardwicke only
to Mr. Pitt_--
'That, as He professed great Duty to the King & Zeal for his Service, &
I dared to say had it; That as He had expressed an Inclination to come
into his Majesty's service, in order _really_ to assist in the support
of his Government;
'That as He was a Man of Abilities & knowledge of the World; That, as
Men of Sense, who wish the End, must naturally wish the means; why would
He at the same time make _the thing_ impracticable?
'To This He answered that he would say to me _in the same private
manner_ That he was surprized that it should be thought possible for Him
to come into an Employment to serve with the D. of Newcastle, under
whose Administration the things he had so much blamed had happened, &
against which the Sense of the Nation so strongly appeared; & I think
he added,--which Administration could not possibly have lasted, if he
had accepted.
'In answer to That I said some general things in the same sense with
what I had mentioned on that head on Tuesday last.
'He then rose up & we parted with great personal Civility on both
sides.'
Meanwhile Newcastle, proscribed by Pitt and spurned by Fox, knew not
whither to turn. He broke out in a wail against them to the Chancellor,
the keeper of his conscience even more than of the King's. 'My dearest
Lord,' he writes (October 20, 1756), 'tho' a consciousness of my own
innocence and an indifference as to my own situation may, and I hope in
God will, support me against all the wickedness and ingratitude which I
meet with, yet your Lordship cannot think that I am unmindful of or
senseless to the great indignity put upon me by these two gentlemen.'
Newcastle in the character of a Christian martyr, the prey of heathen
raging furiously, has something humorous and incongruous about it, were
the attitude less abject. But in a sentence or two he returns to a more
familiar character. 'Allow me only to suggest to your Lordship the
necessity of making the King see that the whole is a concert between Mr.
Pitt and Mr. Fox. The news and principles upon which they act are the
same, viz., to make themselves necessary, and masters of the King ...
that the only thing Mr. Pitt alledges against me is the _conduct of the
war_.' ... 'Quit before the Birthday I must and will.' He goes on to
consult the Chancellor as to whether he shall ask any favours for his
relations.[353]
So the falling Minister in his straits tried to play upon the King's two
strongest passions, fear of being dominated and fear for Hanover. How
wise Pitt was to go straight to Lady Yarmouth! But Newcastle had tried
other measures as well after Fox's resignation. The very day he received
it he had hurried to his old enemy Granville, now comfortably ensconced
in the Presidency of the Council, and offered to exchange offices with
him, giving him his friend Fox as Chancellor of the Exchequer.[354]
Granville, he remembered, had once been willing to face far greater
hazards with Pulteney. But Granville was ten years older; he had, to use
his own expression, put on his nightcap; and he laughed the suppliant
Duke out of the room. 'I will be hanged a little before I take your
place,' he said, not perhaps without some relish for his chief's terror
and distress, 'rather than a little after.' But he added more gravely
that '_we_ must determine either to give Mr. Fox what he wants, or to
take in Mr. Pitt; who,' Newcastle adds piteously, 'will not come.'[355]
Then Newcastle tried Egmont and Halifax. Egmont was willing to take the
seals with a British peerage. But it was in the House of Commons that
strength was wanted. No such strength was to be found without Pitt or
Fox. Dupplin, one of the Paymasters, an able man of business and much in
Newcastle's confidence, said broadly and truly, 'Fox and Pitt need only
sit still and laugh, and we must walk out of the House!' And yet the
House of Commons was almost unanimous in devotion to the Minister. Was
there ever so strange a situation?
In view of this last fact Hardwicke urged Newcastle to hold on; and
Lyttelton, to inspirit him, offered to accept any office. This
well-intentioned proposal failed to animate the Duke, though it was
gratefully recognised. There was nothing left but the rank and file;
ardent supporters with nothing to support. The Government was doomed.
Instructions from counties and boroughs were coming up as in the days of
the impeachment of Walpole. Addresses were presented to the Throne. The
country was thoroughly roused. And its hopes and gaze were fixed solely
on Pitt, a private member, untried in affairs, with scarce a follower in
Parliament. He, at any rate, had not failed, a negative merit indeed,
but one which he alone of the leading statesmen of the time could claim.
Newcastle was left alone with Hardwicke. Around them that desert had
begun to form which portends the fall of a Ministry; though their
faithful Commons still awaited their bidding in silence. And at last the
old Duke realised that he must resign, but determined that Hardwicke
should resign too, perhaps to make his own resignation regretted,
perhaps because he would not leave behind him an asset of such value.
'My dearest, dearest Lord,' he wrote, 'you know how cruelly I am treated
and indeed persecuted by all those who now surround the King.'
Hardwicke's friendship, he said, was now his only comfort, Hardwicke's
resignation would be his honour, glory, and security. 'But, my dearest
Lord, it would hurt me extremely if yours should be long delayed.' And
indeed, Hardwicke, to the regret of all, consented to leave the woolsack
and follow his friend. Newcastle was shrewd enough to know that under
the existing conditions in Parliament he could scarcely fail soon to
return to office. But Hardwicke did not return.
[Sidenote: Oct. 28, 1756.]
When the King was sure that Newcastle was really going, he sent for Fox
and bade him try if Pitt would join him. 'The Duke of Newcastle whom you
hate will retire,' said the Sovereign; 'try your hand and see what you
can do with Pitt.'[356] Next day Fox went to the Prince's levee at
Saville House, and engaged Pitt in close and animated conversation for
some twenty minutes. 'Mr. Pitt exceeding grave, Mr. Fox very warm. They
did not seem to part amicably.'[357] Of this talk a famous fragment
survives, characteristic of political language in those days. 'Are you
going to Stowe?' asked Fox. 'I ask because I believe you will have a
message of consequence from people of consequence.' 'You surprise me,'
answered Pitt, 'are you to be of the number?' 'I don't know,' said Fox,
taken aback. 'One likes to say things to a man of sense,' rejoined Pitt,
'and to men of your great sense, rather than to others. And yet it is
difficult even to you.' Fox caught his hint at once. 'What! You mean
that you will not act with me as Minister.' 'I do,' replied Pitt. But a
moment after he felt that he had been too abrupt, and expressed a
courteous hope that Fox would take an active part, which his own health
would not permit him to do.[358]
Was Pitt right in refusing the concurrence of Fox? On that question we
must allow him to be the best judge, as it is obvious that he did not
act in heat or passion, and that we cannot know the situation as he
did. To us now, viewing the poverty of his following and the useful
abilities of Fox, it would seem that he made a palpable mistake. Fox
would have taken the second place; as a matter of fact he was content to
subside into the gilded subordination of the Paymastership. His talents
as a debater were second only to Pitt's with the possible exception of
Charles Townshend's; but Townshend was only a shooting star, and did
not, like Fox, represent the important influence of Cumberland. Fox
would have fought stolidly for the side he espoused; he had a leaning to
Pitt, and shared Pitt's detestation of Newcastle, who was the common
enemy. But Pitt evidently had determined that he must sever himself
entirely from Newcastle and Newcastle's Minister in the House of
Commons. On both these rested the taint of corruption and national
disaster. He must, if he was to keep the confidence of the country, cut
himself clear from these personalities and their traditions. He could
estimate the weight of odium which rested upon them, which we cannot. He
had all the facts of the case before him, which we have not. He knew,
what we do not know for certain but cannot doubt, that Leicester House
made the exclusion of Fox or of Cumberland in any form a condition of
cordial support. He realised the weakness of his own parliamentary
position, he well understood the value of Fox's co-operation, but he
also knew the temper of the nation, and so we cannot doubt that he came
to the right decision.
In any case Fox was not to blame. He offered, and we think cordially
offered, to co-operate with Pitt, and, indeed, serve under Pitt. Public
spirit perhaps was not his main motive. He did not, he confessed, feel
equal to the principal place. He had written in July: 'Though I see how
fatally things are going, as I don't know how to mend them, I am not
unreasonable enough to wish for what I could not conduct.'[359] And
things were much worse now. Moreover, he saw, as others saw, that it was
only the combination of himself with Pitt that could keep out Newcastle.
But in public affairs the best and fairest course is not to analyse
motives. He made the offer, he made it sincerely, and must have the
credit of it.
But Pitt was inflexible. Those who had made him feel the weight of their
proscription should feel the weight of his. Fox would have liked to be
Paymaster. In that subordinate but opulent post he would have been
content to give support. But Pitt would have none of him. He refused him
this slight favour on the mysterious ground that it 'would be too like
Mr. Pelham in 1742.'[360] He would not touch Fox or Newcastle.
The day after Fox's conversation with Pitt at the levee, the King sent
for Devonshire, and bade him form a Ministry. This Duke was now Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland and Fox's closest friend. The King probably hoped
in this way to bring about the union between Pitt and Fox, which almost
every one desired, save Pitt himself. Pitt himself had nominated
Devonshire, but without consulting him, in the interviews with
Hardwicke. Devonshire had written to Fox in approval of the resignation
as soon as he had heard of it. Five days afterwards he wrote again: 'If
my friendship or assistance can be of any use you can command me,' and
went on to say, 'Nothing has hurt Mr. Pitt so much as his having shown
the world that in order to gratify his resentment and satisfy his
ambition he did not value the confusion or distress that he might throw
this country into. This I own has in some degree altered the good
opinion I had of him.'[361] Devonshire therefore did not seem a
propitious Prime Minister for Pitt. But dukes counted for much in those
days. No one can read the history of those times without seeing the vast
importance attributed to forgotten princes like Marlborough, Bedford,
and Devonshire.
Fox soon quarrelled with Devonshire. He considered that Devonshire had
abandoned him. The Duke had been his confidential friend, and had left
him to help Pitt, and act as Pitt's figurehead. At first he affected to
approve. But his wrath only smouldered. On one of the eternal questions
of patronage it broke out. Fox wrote to him a note of real dignity and
pathos. 'The Duke of Bedford has just now told me that Mr. John Pitt is
to kiss hands to-morrow for Mr. Phillipson's place;' (promised,
according to Fox, to his friend Hamilton). 'Consider, my Lord,
everything that has pass'd, and do not drive me from you. I neither mean
to do you harm, nor can do you harm if you think. But Your Grace's own
reflections will not please you when you have done so.'[362] Devonshire
was a weak man, but he was unconscious of blame and was deeply hurt.
Political friendships, when paths diverge, are more difficult to
maintain than men themselves realise at the moment of separation.
[Sidenote: Oct. 31, 1756.]
Devonshire was now sent to Pitt in the country,[363] but found that his
terms were such as the King could not be brought to accept. He
positively declined association with Fox in any shape, but deigned to
apologise to the Duke for having nominated him without previous
consultation. It was necessary, he said, to place some great lord there
to whom the Whigs would look up, and his partiality had made him presume
to suggest his Grace.[364]
Then the King, refusing Pitt's terms, and aware that he had been
misinformed as to Fox's language about Bute, sent for Fox and offered
him the government. 'I was never dishonest, rash, or mad enough for half
an hour to think of undertaking it,' says Fox.[365] And again, 'I am not
capable of it,' and goes on to give the reason. 'Richelieu, were he
alive, could not guide the councils of a nation, if (which would be my
case) he could not from November to April have above two hours in the
four-and-twenty to think of anything but the House of Commons.'[366] If
that were Fox's need in 1756, it is difficult to imagine the kind of
physical and intellectual combination that he would have thought
adequate to the stress of affairs in the twentieth century. But in spite
of Fox's private opinion thus expressed, his friend Walpole records that
he offered at the worst to take the Treasury and go to the Tower if it
would save his Sovereign from having 'his head shaved.' 'Ah!' replied
the King with his usual shrewdness, 'if you go to the Tower I shall not
be long behind you.'[367]
Then the distracted monarch, at the instigation of Fox, tried the fatal
expedient of an Assembly of Notables, and summoned all the leading
nobles and commoners who were at hand to meet at Devonshire House.[368]
But this meeting never took place, for Devonshire postponed or got rid
of it. It was to have recommended that Devonshire should have the
Treasury, Fox the Exchequer, and Legge be content with a peerage. Pitt
himself was to have the seals, with _carte blanche_ for his other
friends and dependents. Temple was to be First Lord of the
Admiralty.[369]
Fox declares that Devonshire put an end to this plan by positively
refusing the Treasury.[370] Holdernesse sent word to Newcastle that _les
Renardins_ (the followers of Fox) were less sanguine.[371] And indeed,
on November 4, the day after that fixed for the assembly, Devonshire
went in to the King and came out from his audience having accepted the
Treasury. Bubb says that he stipulated for Fox as Chancellor of the
Exchequer.[372] This is at least doubtful. 'This question,' Fox
afterwards wrote, 'I beg may be asked: whether at the time his Grace did
take it with Legge I was not pressing him strongly to another thing,
viz., to offer to take it with me. I pressed this even to ill-humour at
his own house with Grenville at night. He refused absolutely, and the
next morning what he would not take with me he took with Legge.'[373]
This would seem conclusive, were it not that Bubb evidently had his
information from Fox at the time; but politicians are prone to illusions
on the subject of office. In any case, Devonshire left the Closet First
Lord of the Treasury with Legge as Chancellor of the Exchequer; the man
with whom two days before he had refused under any circumstances to
serve,[374] and whom the King had absolutely refused to take. Fox and
Bedford were in the anteroom as he came out, and were thunderstruck.
Bedford broke into passionate expostulation; Fox scented an intrigue.
However, the deed was done.[375]
Fox says that Devonshire offered him, and he refused, the Pay
Office.[376] This is difficult to believe, and does not accord with his
other statements that he had offered to serve in a subordinate capacity
and been refused. Moreover, it was the office for which he always
hankered, with its vast profits and safe obscurity, as compared with the
Spartan frugality and dangerous prominence of the Secretaryship of
State.[377]
As to the intrigue, Fox's instinct did not deceive him. The fact was
that Horace Walpole, having heard of the scheme of the Notables, saw at
once that it must put an end to the new arrangement, as it was one that
Pitt could not accept. Walpole feared no doubt that, in case of failure,
Newcastle, the object of his special detestation, might return to
office. So he sent his cousin Conway to alarm the Duke of Devonshire,
who consequently suppressed the meeting, and who went himself, as we
have seen, to the King to accept office.[378] Horace might well pique
himself on his powers of intrigue or duplicity, for a week before he had
spontaneously written to Fox to say that he heard that the King and Lady
Yarmouth were persuaded that Fox would not take the Treasury, but he
hoped they were wrong.[379]
The new First Lord of the Treasury may have resisted having Legge as his
Chancellor of the Exchequer, but was easily overborne. What is more
difficult to understand is the King's nominating Legge, whom he
detested. It was a rude shock for Fox, who had planned the meeting of
Notables and framed the scheme it was to advise. Henceforth he
controlled himself no more, and became the sleepless enemy of the new
administration, which can be no matter of surprise. Pitt had made his
total exclusion as absolute a condition as that of Newcastle, and Fox
after his warm offers of co-operation and assistance could not but be
bitterly mortified. He believed, perhaps justly, that the proscription
laid on him proceeded from Leicester House.[380] Henceforth during the
short life of the new government he plotted and planned against it,
inspiring 'The Test,' a new paper under an old designation, with
venomous articles, and ready to form alternative administrations at a
moment's notice.[381]
One great difficulty, the King's repugnance to Legge, had been
surmounted one does not know how; but there were still minor obstacles.
The whole arrangement was odious to the Sovereign: he could not bear
even to turn the first page of Devonshire's appointments. Pitt, who was
to succeed Newcastle in the Southern department, wished to exchange this
for the Northern. The King objected, for the Northern department
included Hanover, and Pitt eventually yielded. The new Secretary, as we
have seen, wished for Sir Thomas Robinson, his old butt, as a colleague,
on the singular ground that he knew nothing of the office he was
undertaking, and required Sir Thomas's guidance.[382] Pitt had compared
Robinson to a jack-boot; but personal opinions vary according to points
of view; Sir Thomas might be contemptible as a leader, but useful as a
dry-nurse. Holdernesse however remained. Then over every petty office,
coffererships, masterships of the Wardrobe, keeperships of the jewels,
treasurerships of the Household, there was snarling and struggling as of
dogs over bones. Bedford was secured as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland,
mainly, it would appear, through the agency of Fox, who wished to secure
as many ministerial posts as possible for his friends, and who was in
hopes that the Duke would traverse Pitt. Bedford cared little for
office; perhaps not much for Fox. His political passions were inspired
by his personal hatreds, of Newcastle now, as later of Pitt.[383] But
Fox, aided by the Duchess's ambition, prevailed. Amid these changes one
provokes a smile; Bubb was as usual dismissed.
But the greatest and most grotesque disability lay with Pitt himself.
After all his struggles to be in the position of forming a Ministry, he
had no Ministry to produce. He could not fill a fraction of the offices.
His personal followers, all told, hardly exceeded a dozen. When he had
provided for the Grenvilles, Potter, and Legge, he had scarcely any one
to name. So this Ministry was doomed from the beginning. Pamphleteers
could not fail to observe Pitt's predicament. One lampoon, in the form
of a royal degree, 'Given at our imperial seat at Hayes,' and
countersigned 'John Thistle,' (a premature allusion to Bute), sets
forth: 'We will that you give lucrative employments to all Our Brethren,
uncles, cousins, relations and namesakes.'[384] Outside this category
Pitt's subordinates were mostly the friends of Newcastle or Fox, and so
his secret enemies, or waiters upon Providence who were not sufficiently
sure of his stability to call themselves his friends. Holdernesse,
Pitt's colleague in the Secretaryship of State, and Barrington,
Secretary for War, kept Newcastle fully informed of all that went on in
the administration and of all that they knew. Holdernesse also sent
abstracts of the despatches that came from abroad.[385] So that Pitt was
betrayed from the first. Ministries formed by one man seldom last long
under another. But Ministries which pass between two declared enemies
have not from the beginning any chance of life. This one was stillborn.
Pitt himself lay ill with the gout at Hayes; so he had to leave his
affairs to be managed by a little clique in London, of which Temple of
course was the chief, and which was in close communion with Leicester
House. For every day Leicester House waxed and Kensington Palace waned
in importance, as the King advanced in years. Nothing in the history of
those days is more difficult to trace and yet nothing is more
significant than this invisible Court of the Heir-Apparent, which was
felt rather than seen, but towards which courtiers kept one anxious eye
during their dutiful attendance on the King. All felt that the centre of
power was shifting thither, and the uneasiness of those who wished to be
well with both Courts was manifest and irrepressible. The constant
anxiety of Fox to be Paymaster was largely due to his desire to be
sheltered from the hatred of the young Court in the reign that seemed
imminent. All this could not but increase the jealousy and irritability
of the old Sovereign, at a time when he was undergoing a new Ministry
most repulsive to him. Distasteful as it was in almost every respect,
what was perhaps most abhorrent was the consciousness that it was
imposed upon him by his daughter-in-law and her favourite, that it
rested on their support, and was indeed the Ministry of George III.
rather than of George II.
Bute was the object of the King's chief detestation, a righteous
aversion if his suspicions were well founded; and Bute was now
undisguisedly prominent in the negotiations for the new Government. The
King treated Temple and his friends so ill at the levee, that the
injured nobleman went to Devonshire to say that he feared he could not
proceed a step further in the negotiations. On this mission he was
accompanied by Bute, for the purpose, apparently, of making the world
realise that Leicester House and all its influence were behind Pitt.
And Bute availed himself of this opportunity to make use of 'expressions
so transcendently obliging to us,' writes Temple, 'and so decisive of
the determined purposes of Leicester House towards us in the present or
any future day, that your lively imagination cannot suggest to you a
wish beyond them.' By Temple, too, he sent word to Pitt that he could
not advise, that he left all to Pitt, determined to support and approve
whatever Pitt decided.[386] This was the one element of strength to the
new Government, besides Pitt himself. And yet, so elusive was this
mysterious Court, that in September the town had been ringing with the
coolness of Pitt's reception at Leicester House, more especially by
Bute.[387] The fact is that there had evidently been a coldness, but
that the fall of Newcastle had brought the two together again.[388]
[Sidenote: Dec. 4, 1756.]
After Devonshire had kissed hands on November 4 there were however few
difficulties. Temple's cold reception at Court, on the very day of
Newcastle's resignation, which had made him declare with his usual
arrogance to Devonshire that all was over, was only a passing incident,
due to the fact that the King could not abide the very sight of Temple.
Pitt no doubt counselled moderation from Hayes, not desiring to lose the
fruit of so many years for a slight to his relative. And so, a week
after Temple's fiery declaration to Devonshire, the new Board of
Admiralty was gazetted with Temple at its head. Three days before, the
Board of Treasury had been declared with Devonshire and Legge as its
chiefs. One Grenville was included in this. For George Grenville and
Potter treasurerships and paymasterships were found. There were indeed
but few traces of Pitt's small connection in the Government. He, still
an invalid, received his seals a little later. He had also to change his
seat. He could not condescend to be re-elected for Newcastle's borough
of Aldborough; indeed, he had held it too long. Nor indeed would
Newcastle nominate him.[389] So now he accepted an olive branch from
Lyttelton, who shared the control of Okehampton with the Duke of
Bedford, and generously named his old friend and recent foe.[390] It may
have been that Pitt was desirous of cutting the last link with Newcastle
before entering upon office, and had deferred receiving the seals till
he was independent. Be that as it may, he was only to hold them four
months. During most of that time he was ill, during all of it he was
surrounded by conspiracies, and he was soon intrigued out of office,
though he never actually vacated it. But his short term had taught him
one priceless lesson; that genius and public spirit were not enough,
that a practical and even sordid leaven was required, and that if he
would not do the necessary work of political adjustment himself, he must
find somebody to do it for him, or give up all idea of being a powerful
Minister.
It has been thought well to narrate at length the circumstances of the
final breakdown of the King's veto on Pitt's accession to office and the
struggle which preceded it; partly because some of the documents are
new, partly because it is a curious picture of character and intrigue,
partly because it is the fifth and culminating act of this long drama.