made in the English Parliament by the late Lord Fitzwilliam. This
assertion is false. We defy M. Hippolyte Carnot to state the date and
terms of the motion of which he speaks. We do not accuse him of
intentional misrepresentation; but we confidently accuse him of extreme
ignorance and temerity. Our readers will be amused to learn on what
authority he has ventured to publish such a fable. He quotes, not the
Journals of the Lords, not the Parliamentary Debates, but a ranting
message of the Executive Directory to the Five Hundred, a message, too,
the whole meaning of which he has utterly misunderstood.
THE EARL OF CHATHAM[21]
_The Edinburgh Review_, October, 1844
More than ten years ago we commenced a sketch of the political life of
the great Lord Chatham. We then stopped at the death of George the
Second, with the intention of speedily resuming our task. Circumstances,
which it would be tedious to explain, long prevented us from carrying
this intention into effect. Nor can we regret the delay. For the
materials which were within our reach in 1834 were scanty and
unsatisfactory when compared with those which we at present possess.
Even now, though we have had access to some valuable sources of
information which have not yet been opened to the public, we cannot but
feel that the history of the first ten years of the reign of George the
Third is but imperfectly known to us. Nevertheless, we are inclined to
think that we are in a condition to lay before our readers a narrative
neither uninstructive nor uninteresting. We therefore return with
pleasure to our long interrupted labor.
We left Pitt in the zenith of prosperity and glory, the idol of England,
the terror of France, the admiration of the whole civilized world. The
wind, from whatever quarter it blew, carried to England tidings of
battles won, fortresses taken, provinces added to the empire. At home,
factions had sunk into a lethargy, such as had never been known since
the great religious schism of the sixteenth century had roused the
public mind from repose.
In order that the events which we have to relate may be clearly
understood, it may be desirable that we should advert to the causes
which had for a time suspended the animation of both the great English
parties.
If, rejecting all that is merely accidental, we look at the essential
characteristics of the Whig and the Tory, we may consider each of them
as the representative of a great principle, essential to the welfare of
nations. One is, in an especial manner, the guardian of liberty, and the
other, of order. One is the moving power, and the other the steadying
power of the state. One is the sail, without which society would make no
progress; the other the ballast, without which there would be small
safety in a tempest. But, during the forty-six years which followed the
accession of the House of Hanover, these distinctive peculiarities
seemed to be effaced. The Whig conceived that he could not better serve
the cause of civil and religious freedom than by strenuously supporting
the Protestant dynasty. The Tory conceived that he could not better
prove his hatred of revolutions than by attacking a government to which
a revolution had given birth. Both came by degrees to attach more
importance to the means than to the end. Both were thrown into unnatural
situations; and both, like animals transported to an uncongenial
climate, languished and degenerated. The Tory, removed from the sunshine
of the court, was as a camel in the snows of Lapland. The Whig, basking
in the rays of royal favor, was as a reindeer in the sands of Arabia.
Dante tells us that he saw, in Malebolge, a strange encounter between a
human form and a serpent. The enemies, after cruel wounds inflicted,
stood for a time glaring on each other. A great cloud surrounded them,
and then a wonderful metamorphosis began. Each creature was transfigured
into the likeness of its antagonist. The serpent's tail divided itself
into two legs; the man's legs intertwined themselves into a tail. The
body of the serpent put forth arms; the arms of the man shrank into his
body. At length the serpent stood up a man and spake; the man sank down
a serpent, and glided hissing away. Something like this was the
transformation which, during the reign of George the First, befell the
two English parties. Each gradually took the shape and color of its foe,
till at length the Tory rose up erect the zealot of freedom, and the
Whig crawled and licked the dust at the feet of power.
It is true that, when these degenerate politicians discussed questions
merely speculative, and, above all, when they discussed questions
relating to the conduct of their own grandfathers, they still seemed to
differ as their grandfathers had differed. The Whig who, during three
Parliaments, had never given one vote against the court, and who was
ready to sell his soul for the Comptroller's staff or for the Great
Wardrobe, still professed to draw his political doctrines from Locke and
Milton, still worshipped the memory of Pym and Hampden, and would still,
on the thirtieth of January, take his glass, first to the man in the
masque, and then to the man who would do it without a masque. The Tory,
on the other hand, while he reviled the mild and temperate Walpole as a
deadly enemy of liberty, could see nothing to reprobate in the iron
tyranny of Strafford and Laud. But, whatever judgment the Whig or the
Tory of that age might pronounce on transactions long past, there can be
no doubt that, as respected the practical questions then pending, the
Tory was a reformer, and indeed an intemperate and indiscreet reformer,
while the Whig was conservative even to bigotry. We have ourselves seen
similar effects produced in a neighboring country by similar causes. Who
would have believed, fifteen years ago, that M. Guizot and M. Villemain
would have to defend property and social order against the attacks of
such enemies as M. Genoude and M. de la Roche Jaquelin?
Thus the successors of the old Cavaliers had turned demagogues; the
successors of the old Roundheads had turned courtiers. Yet was it long
before their mutual animosity began to abate; for it is the nature of
parties to retain their original enmities far more firmly than their
original principles. During many years, a generation of Whigs, whom
Sidney would have spurned as slaves, continued to wage deadly war with a
generation of Tories whom Jeffreys would have hanged for republicans.
Through the whole reign of George the First, and through nearly half of
the reign of George the Second, a Tory was regarded as an enemy of the
reigning house, and was excluded from all the favors of the crown.
Though most of the country gentlemen were Tories, none but Whigs were
created peers and baronets. Though most of the clergy were Tories, none
but Whigs were appointed deans and bishops. In every county, opulent and
well-descended Tory squires complained that their names were left out of
the commission of the peace, while men of small estate and mean birth,
who were for toleration and excise, septennial Parliaments and standing
armies, presided at quarter sessions, and became deputy lieutenants.
By degrees some approaches were made towards a reconciliation. While
Walpole was at the head of affairs, enmity to his power induced a large
and powerful body of Whigs, headed by the heir apparent of the throne,
to make an alliance with the Tories, and a truce even with the
Jacobites. After Sir Robert's fall, the ban which lay on the Tory party
was taken off. The chief places in the administration continued to be
filled by Whigs, and, indeed, could scarcely have been filled otherwise;
for the Tory nobility and gentry, though strong in numbers and in
property, had among them scarcely a single man distinguished by talents,
either for business or for debate. A few of them, however were admitted
to subordinate offices; and this indulgence produced a softening effect
on the temper of the whole body. The first levee of George the Second
after Walpole's resignation was a remarkable spectacle. Mingled with the
constant supporters of the House of Brunswick, with the Russells, the
Cavendishes, and the Pelhams, appeared a crowd of faces utterly unknown
to the pages and gentlemen ushers, lords of rural manors, whose ale and
foxhounds were renowned in the neighborhood of the Mendip hills, or
round the Wrekin, but who had never crossed the threshold of the palace
since the days when Oxford, with the white staff in his hand, stood
behind Queen Anne.
During the eighteen years which followed this day, both factions were
gradually sinking deeper and deeper into repose. The apathy of the
public mind is partly to be ascribed to the unjust violence with which
the administration of Walpole had been assailed. In the body politic, as
in the natural body, morbid languor generally succeeds morbid
excitement. The people had been maddened by sophistry, by calumny, by
rhetoric, by stimulants applied to the national pride. In the fulness of
bread, they had raved as if famine had been in the land. While enjoying
such a measure of civil and religious freedom as, till then, no great
society had ever known, they had cried out for a Timoleon or a Brutus to
stab their oppressor to the heart. They were in this frame of mind when
the change of administration took place; and they soon found that there
was to be no change whatever in the system of government. The natural
consequences followed. To frantic zeal succeeded sullen indifference.
The cant of patriotism had not merely ceased to charm the public ear,
but had become as nauseous as the cant of Puritanism after the downfall
of the Rump. The hot fit was over; the cold fit had begun; and it was
long before seditious arts, or even real grievances, could bring back
the fiery paroxysm which had run its course and reached its termination.
Two attempts were made to disturb this tranquillity. The banished heir
of the House of Stuart headed a rebellion; the discontented heir of the
House of Brunswick headed an opposition. Both the rebellion and the
opposition came to nothing. The battle of Culloden annihilated the
Jacobite party. The death of Prince Frederic dissolved the faction
which, under his guidance, had feebly striven to annoy his father's
government. His chief followers hastened to make their peace with the
ministry; and the political torpor became complete.
Five years after the death of Prince Frederic, the public mind was for a
time violently excited. But this excitement had nothing to do with the
old disputes between Whigs and Tories. England was at war with France.
The war had been feebly conducted. Minorca had been torn from us. Our
fleet had retired before the white flag of the House of Bourbon. A
bitter sense of humiliation, new to the proudest and bravest of nations,
superseded every other feeling. The cry of all the counties and great
towns of the realm was for a government which would retrieve the honor
of the English arms. The two most powerful men in the country were the
Duke of Newcastle and Pitt. Alternate victories and defeats had made
them sensible that neither of them could stand alone. The interest of
the state and the interest of their own ambition impelled them to
coalesce. By their coalition was formed the ministry which was in power
when George the Third ascended the throne.
The more carefully the structure of this celebrated ministry is
examined, the more shall we see reason to marvel at the skill or the
luck which had combined in one harmonious whole such various and, as it
seemed, incompatible elements of force. The influence which is derived
from stainless integrity, the influence which is derived from the vilest
arts of corruption, the strength of aristocratical connection, the
strength of democratical enthusiasm, all these things were for the first
time found together. Newcastle brought to the coalition a vast mass of
power, which had descended to him from Walpole and Pelham. The public
offices, the church, the courts of law, the army, the navy, the
diplomatic service, swarmed with his creatures. The boroughs, which long
afterwards made up the memorable schedules A and B, were represented by
his nominees. The great Whig families, which, during several
generations, had been trained in the discipline of party warfare, and
were accustomed to stand together in a firm phalanx, acknowledged him as
their captain. Pitt, on the other hand, had what Newcastle wanted, an
eloquence which stirred the passions and charmed the imagination, a high
reputation for purity, and the confidence and ardent love of millions.
The partition which the two ministers made of the powers of government
was singularly happy. Each occupied a province for which he was well
qualified; and neither had any inclination to intrude himself into the
province of the other. Newcastle took the treasury, the civil and
ecclesiastical patronage, and the disposal of that part of the secret
service money which was then employed in bribing members of Parliament.
Pitt was Secretary of State, with the direction of the war and of
foreign affairs. Thus the filth of all the noisome and pestilential
sewers of government was poured into one channel. Through the other
passed only what was bright and stainless. Mean and selfish politicians,
pining for commissionerships, gold sticks, and ribbons, flocked to the
great house at the corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields. There, at every
levee, appeared eighteen or twenty pair of lawn sleeves; for there was
not, it was said, a single Prelate who had not owed either his first
elevation or some subsequent translation to Newcastle. There appeared
those members of the House of Commons in whose silent votes the main
strength of the government lay. One wanted a place in the excise for his
butler. Another came about a prebend for his son. A third whispered that
he had always stood by his Grace and the Protestant succession; that
his last election had been very expensive; that potwallopers had now no
conscience; that he had been forced to take up money on mortgage; and
that he hardly knew where to turn for five hundred pounds. The Duke
pressed all their hands, passed his arms round all their shoulders,
patted all their backs, and sent away some with wages, and some with
promises. From this traffic Pitt stood haughtily aloof. Not only was he
himself incorruptible, but he shrank from the loathsome drudgery of
corrupting others. He had not, however, been twenty years in Parliament,
and ten in office, without discovering how the government was carried
on. He was perfectly aware that bribery was practised on a large scale
by his colleagues. Hating the practice, yet despairing of putting it
down, and doubting whether, in those times, any ministry could stand
without it, he determined to be blind to it. He would see nothing, know
nothing, believe nothing. People who came to talk to him about shares in
lucrative contracts, or about the means of securing a Cornish
corporation, were soon put out of countenance by his arrogant humility.
They did him too much honor. Such matters were beyond his capacity. It
was true that his poor advice about expeditions and treaties was
listened to with indulgence by a gracious sovereign. If the question
were, who should command in North America, or who should be ambassador
at Berlin, his colleagues would probably condescend to take his opinion.
But he had not the smallest influence with the Secretary of the
Treasury, and could not venture to ask even for a tidewaiter's place.
It may be doubted whether he did not owe as much of his popularity to
his ostentatious purity as to his eloquence, or to his talents for the
administration of war. It was everywhere said with delight and
admiration that the great Commoner, without any advantages of birth or
fortune, had, in spite of the dislike of the Court and of the
aristocracy, made himself the first man in England, and made England
the first country in the world; that his name was mentioned with awe in
every palace from Lisbon to Moscow; that his trophies were in all the
four quarters of the globe; yet that he was still plain William Pitt,
without title or ribbon, without pension or sinecure place. Whenever he
should retire, after saving the state, he must sell his coach horses and
his silver candlesticks. Widely as the taint of corruption had spread,
his hands were clean. They had never received, they had never given, the
price of infamy. Thus the coalition gathered to itself support from all
the high and all the low parts of human nature, and was strong with the
whole united strength of virtue and of Mammon.
Pitt and Newcastle were coordinate chief ministers. The subordinate
places had been filled on the principle of including in the government
every party and shade of party, the avowed Jacobites alone excepted,
nay, every public man who, from his abilities or from his situation,
seemed likely to be either useful in office or formidable in opposition.
The Whigs, according to what was then considered as their prescriptive
right, held by far the largest share of power. The main support of the
administration was what may be called the great Whig connection, a
connection which, during near half a century, had generally had the
chief sway in the country, and which derived an immense authority from
rank, wealth, borough interest, and firm union. To this connection, of
which Newcastle was the head, belonged the Houses of Cavendish, Lennox,
Fitzroy, Bentinck, Manners, Conway, Wentworth, and many others of high
note.
There were two other powerful Whig connections, either of which might
have been a nucleus for a strong opposition. But room had been found in
the government for both. They were known as the Grenvilles and the
Bedfords.
The head of the Grenvilles was Richard Earl Temple. His talents for
administration and debate were of no high order. But his great
possessions, his turbulent and unscrupulous character, his restless
activity, and his skill in the most ignoble tactics of faction, made him
one of the most formidable enemies that a ministry could have. He was
keeper of the privy seal. His brother George was Treasurer of the Navy.
They were supposed to be on terms of close friendship with Pitt, who had
married their sister, and was the most uxorious of husbands.
The Bedfords, or, as they were called by their enemies, the Bloomsbury
gang, professed to be led by John, Duke of Bedford, but in truth led him
wherever they chose, and very often led him where he never would have
gone of his own accord. He had many good qualities of head and heart,
and would have been certainly a respectable, and possibly a
distinguished man, if he had been less under the influence of his
friends, or more fortunate in choosing them. Some of them were indeed,
to do them justice, men of parts. But here, we are afraid, eulogy must
end. Sandwich and Rigby were able debaters, pleasant boon companions,
dexterous intriguers, masters of all the arts of jobbing and
electioneering, and, both in public and private life, shamelessly
immoral. Weymouth had a natural eloquence, which sometimes astonished
those who knew how little he owed to study. But he was indolent and
dissolute, and had early impaired a fine estate with the dice-box, and a
fine constitution with the bottle. The wealth and power of the Duke, and
the talents and audacity of some of his retainers, might have seriously
annoyed the strongest ministry. But his assistance had been secured. He
was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Rigby was his secretary; and the whole
party dutifully supported the measures of the government.
Two men had, a short time before, been thought likely to contest with
Pitt the lead of the House of Commons, William Murray and Henry Fox. But
Murray had been removed to the Lords, and was Chief Justice of the
King's Bench. Fox was indeed still in the Commons; but means had been
found to secure, if not his strenuous support, at least his silent
acquiescence. He was a poor man; he was a doting father. The office of
Paymaster-General during an expensive war was, in that age, perhaps the
most lucrative situation in the gift of the government. This office was
bestowed on Fox. The prospect of making a noble fortune in a few years,
and of providing amply for his darling boy Charles, was irresistibly
tempting. To hold a subordinate place, however profitable, after having
led the House of Commons, and having been entrusted with the business of
forming a ministry, was indeed a great descent. But a punctilious sense
of personal dignity was no part of the character of Henry Fox.
We have not time to enumerate all the other men of weight who were, by
some tie or other, attached to the government. We may mention Hardwicke,
reputed the first lawyer of the age; Legge, reputed the first financier
of the age; the acute and ready Oswald; the bold and humorous Nugent;
Charles Townshend, the most brilliant and versatile of mankind; Elliot,
Barrington, North, Pratt. Indeed, as far as we recollect, there were in
the whole House of Commons only two men of distinguished abilities who
were not connected with the government; and those two men stood so low
in public estimation, that the only service which they could have
rendered to any government would have been to oppose it. We speak of
Lord George Sackville and Bubb Dodington.
Though most of the official men, and all the members of the cabinet,
were reputed Whigs, the Tories were by no means excluded from
employment. Pitt had gratified many of them with commands in the
militia, which increased both their income and their importance in their
own counties; and they were therefore in better humor than at any time
since the death of Anne. Some of the party still continued to grumble
over their punch at the Cocoa Tree; but in the House of Commons not a
single one of the malcontents durst lift his eyes above the buckle of
Pitt's shoe.
Thus there was absolutely no opposition. Nay, there was no sign from
which it could be guessed in what quarter opposition was likely to
arise. Several years passed during which Parliament seemed to have
abdicated its chief functions. The Journals of the House of Commons,
during four sessions contain no trace of a division on a party question.
The supplies, though beyond precedent great, were voted without
discussion. The most animated debates of that period were on road bills
and enclosure bills.
The old King was content; and it mattered little whether he were content
or not. It would have been impossible for him to emancipate himself from
a ministry so powerful, even if he had been inclined to do so. But he
had no such inclination. He had once, indeed, been strongly prejudiced
against Pitt, and had repeatedly been ill used by Newcastle; but the
vigor and success with which the war had been waged in Germany, and the
smoothness with which all public business was carried on, had produced a
favorable change in the royal mind.