treaty would instantly be the subject of discussion. It was probable
that Pitt, the great Whig connection, and the multitude would all be on
the same side. The favorite had professed to hold in abhorrence those
means by which preceding ministers had kept the House of Commons in good
humor. He now began to think that he had been too scrupulous. His
Utopian visions were at an end. It was necessary, not only to bribe,
but to bribe more shamelessly and flagitiously than his predecessors, in
order to make up for lost time. A majority must be secured, no matter by
what means. Could Grenville do this? Would he do it? His firmness and
ability had not yet been tried in any perilous crisis. He had been
generally regarded as a humble follower of his brother Temple, and of
his brother-in-law Pitt, and was supposed, though with little reason, to
be still favorably inclined towards them. Other aid must be called in.
And where was other aid to be found?
There was one man, whose sharp and manly logic had often in debate been
found a match for the lofty and impassioned rhetoric of Pitt, whose
talents for jobbing were not inferior to his talents for debate, whose
dauntless spirit shrank from no difficulty or danger, and who was as
little troubled with scruples as with fears. Henry Fox, or nobody, could
weather the storm which was about to burst. Yet was he a person to whom
the court, even in that extremity, was unwilling to have recourse. He
had always been regarded as a Whig of the Whigs. He had been the friend
and disciple of Walpole. He had long been connected by close ties with
William, Duke of Cumberland. By the Tories he was more hated than any
man living. So strong was their aversion to him that when, in the late
reign, he had attempted to form a party against the Duke of Newcastle,
they had thrown all their weight into Newcastle's scale. By the Scots,
Fox was abhorred as the confidential friend of the conqueror of
Culloden. He was, on personal grounds, most obnoxious to the Princess
Mother. For he had, immediately after her husband's death, advised the
late King to take the education of her son, the heir apparent, entirely
out of her hands. He had recently given, if possible, still deeper
offence; for he had indulged, not without some ground, the ambitious
hope that his beautiful sister-in-law, the Lady Sarah Lennox, might be
Queen of England. It had been observed that the King at one time rode
every morning by the grounds of Holland House, and that, on such
occasions, Lady Sarah, dressed like a shepherdess at a masquerade, was
making hay close to the road, which was then separated by no wall from
the lawn. On account of the part which Fox had taken in this singular
love affair, he was the only member of the Privy Council who was not
summoned to the meeting at which his Majesty announced his intended
marriage with the Princess of Mecklenburg. Of all the statesmen of the
age, therefore, it seemed that Fox was the last with whom Bute, the
Tory, the Scot, the favorite of the Princess Mother, could, under any
circumstances, act. Yet to Fox Bute was now compelled to apply.
Fox had many noble and amiable qualities, which in private life shone
forth in full lustre, and made him dear to his children, to his
dependents, and to his friends; but as a public man he had no title to
esteem. In him the vices which were common to the whole school of
Walpole appeared, not perhaps in their worst, but certainly in their
most prominent form; for his parliamentary and official talents made all
his faults conspicuous. His courage, his vehement temper, his contempt
for appearances, led him to display much that others, quite as
unscrupulous as himself, covered with a decent veil. He was the most
unpopular of the statesmen of his time, not because he sinned more than
many of them, but because he canted less.
He felt his unpopularity; but he felt it after the fashion of strong
minds. He became, not cautious, but reckless, and faced the rage of the
whole nation with a scowl of inflexible defiance. He was born with a
sweet and generous temper; but he had been goaded and baited into a
savageness which was not natural to him, and which amazed and shocked
those who knew him best. Such was the man to whom Bute, in extreme need,
applied for succor.
That succor Fox was not unwilling to afford. Though by no means of an
envious temper, he had undoubtedly contemplated the success and
popularity of Pitt with bitter mortification. He thought himself Pitt's
match as a debater, and Pitt's superior as a man of business. They had
long been regarded as well-paired rivals. They had started fair in the
career of ambition. They had long run side by side. At length Fox had
taken the lead, and Pitt had fallen behind. Then had come a sudden turn
of fortune, like that in Virgil's foot-race. Fox had stumbled in the
mire, and had not only been defeated, but befouled. Pitt had reached the
goal, and received the prize. The emoluments of the Pay Office might
induce the defeated statesman to submit in silence to the ascendency of
his competitor, but could not satisfy a mind conscious of great powers,
and sore from great vexations. As soon, therefore, as a party arose
adverse to the war and to the supremacy of the great war minister, the
hopes of Fox began to revive. His feuds with the Princess Mother, with
the Scots, with the Tories, he was ready to forget, if, by the help of
his old enemies, he could now regain the importance which he had lost,
and confront Pitt on equal terms.
The alliance was, therefore, soon concluded. Fox was assured that, if he
would pilot the government out of its embarrassing situation, he should
be rewarded with a peerage, of which he had long been desirous. He
undertook on his side to obtain, by fair or foul means, a vote in favor
of the peace. In consequence of this arrangement, he became leader of
the House of Commons; and Grenville, stifling his vexation as well as he
could, sullenly acquiesced in the change.
Fox had expected that his influence would secure to the court the
cordial support of some eminent Whigs who were his personal friends,
particularly of the Duke of Cumberland and of the Duke of Devonshire. He
was disappointed, and soon found that, in addition to all his other
difficulties, he must reckon on the opposition of the ablest prince of
the blood, and of the great House of Cavendish.
But he had pledged himself to win the battle; and he was not a man to go
back. It was no time for squeamishness. Bute was made to comprehend that
the ministry could be saved only by practising the tactics of Walpole to
an extent at which Walpole himself would have stared. The Pay Office was
turned into a mart for votes. Hundreds of members were closeted there
with Fox, and, as there is too much reason to believe, departed carrying
with them the wages of infamy. It was affirmed by persons who had the
best opportunities of obtaining information, that twenty-five thousand
pounds were thus paid away in a single morning. The lowest bribe given,
it was said, was a banknote for two hundred pounds.
Intimidation was joined with corruption. All ranks, from the highest to
the lowest, were to be taught that the King would be obeyed. The Lords
Lieutenants of several counties were dismissed. The Duke of Devonshire
was especially singled out as the victim by whose fate the magnates of
England were to take warning. His wealth, rank, and influence, his
stainless private character, and the constant attachment of his family
to the House of Hanover, did not secure him from gross personal
indignity. It was known that he disapproved of the course which the
government had taken; and it was accordingly determined to humble the
Prince of the Whigs, as he had been nicknamed by the Princess Mother. He
went to the palace to pay his duty. "Tell him," said the King to a page,
"that I will not see him." The page hesitated. "Go to him," said the
King, "and tell him those very words." The message was delivered. The
Duke tore off his gold key, and went away boiling with anger. His
relations who were in office instantly resigned. A few days later, the
King called for the list of Privy Councillors, and with his own hand
struck out the Duke's name.
In this step there was at least courage, though little wisdom or good
nature. But, as nothing was too high for the revenge of the court, so
also was nothing too low. A persecution, such as had never been known
before and has never been known since, raged in every public department.
Great numbers of humble and laborious clerks were deprived of their
bread, not because they had neglected their duties, not because they had
taken an active part against the ministry, but merely because they had
owed their situations to the recommendation of some nobleman or
gentleman who was against the peace. The proscription extended to
tidewaiters, to gaugers, to doorkeepers. One poor man to whom a pension
had been given for his gallantry in a fight with smugglers was deprived
of it because he had been befriended by the Duke of Grafton. An aged
widow, who, on account of her husband's services in the navy, had, many
years before, been made housekeeper to a public office, was dismissed
from her situation, because it was imagined that she was distantly
connected by marriage with the Cavendish family. The public clamor, as
may well be supposed, grew daily louder and louder. But the louder it
grew, the more resolutely did Fox go on with the work which he had
begun. His old friends could not conceive what had possessed him. "I
could forgive," said the Duke of Cumberland, "Fox's political vagaries;
but I am quite confounded by his inhumanity. Surely he used to be the
best natured of men."
At last Fox went so far as to take a legal opinion on the question,
whether the patents granted by George the Second were binding on George
the Third. It is said that, if his colleagues had not flinched, he would
at once have turned out the Tellers of the Exchequer and Justices in
Eyre.
Meanwhile the Parliament met. The ministers, more hated by the people
than ever, were secure of a majority, and they had also reason to hope
that they would have the advantage in the debates as well as in the
divisions; for Pitt was confined to his chamber by a severe attack of
gout. His friends moved to defer the consideration of the treaty till he
should be able to attend; but the motion was rejected. The great day
arrived. The discussion had lasted some time, when a loud huzza was
heard in Palace Yard. The noise came nearer and nearer, up the stairs,
through the lobby. The door opened, and from the midst of a shouting
multitude came forth Pitt, borne in the arms of his attendants. His face
was thin and ghastly, his limbs swathed in flannel, his crutch in his
hand. The bearers set him down within the bar. His friends instantly
surrounded him, and with their help he crawled to his seat near the
table. In this condition he spoke three hours and a half against the
peace. During that time he was repeatedly forced to sit down and to use
cordials. It may well be supposed that his voice was faint, that his
action was languid, and that his speech, though occasionally brilliant
and impressive, was feeble when compared with his best oratorical
performances. But those who remembered what he had done, and who saw
what he suffered, listened to him with emotion stronger than any that
mere eloquence can produce. He was unable to stay for the division, and
was carried away from the House amidst shouts as loud as those which had
announced his arrival.
A large majority approved the peace. The exultation of the court was
boundless. "Now," exclaimed the Princess Mother, "my son is really
King!" The young sovereign spoke of himself as freed from the bondage in
which his grandfather had been held. On one point, it was announced, his
mind was unalterably made up. Under no circumstances whatever should
those Whig grandees, who had enslaved his predecessors and endeavored to
enslave himself, be restored to power.
This vaunting was premature. The real strength of the favorite was by no
means proportioned to the number of votes which he had, on one
particular division, been able to command. He was soon again in
difficulties. The most important part of his budget was a tax on cider.
This measure was opposed, not only by those who were generally hostile
to his administration, but also by many of his supporters. The name of
excise had always been hateful to the Tories. One of the chief crimes of
Walpole, in their eyes, had been his partiality for this mode of raising
money. The Tory Johnson had in his Dictionary given so scurrilous a
definition of the word Excise, that the Commissioners of Excise had
seriously thought of prosecuting him. The counties which the new impost
particularly affected had always been Tory counties. It was the boast of
John Philips, the poet of the English vintage, that the cider-land had
ever been faithful to the throne, and that all the pruning-hooks of her
thousand orchards had been beaten into swords for the service of the
ill-fated Stuarts. The effect of Bute's fiscal scheme was to produce an
union between the gentry and yeomanry of the cider-land and the Whigs of
the capital. Herefordshire and Worcestershire were in a flame. The city
of London, though not so directly interested, was, if possible, still
more excited. The debates on this question irreparably damaged the
government. Dashwood's financial statement had been confused and absurd
beyond belief, and had been received by the House with roars of
laughter. He had sense enough to be conscious of his unfitness for the
high situation which he held, and exclaimed in a comical fit of despair,
"What shall I do? The boys will point at me in the street, and cry,
'There goes the worst Chancellor of the Exchequer that ever was!'"
George Grenville came to the rescue, and spoke strongly on his favorite
theme, the profusion with which the late war had been carried on. That
profusion, he said, had made taxes necessary. He called on the gentlemen
opposite to him to say where they would have a tax laid, and dwelt on
this topic with his usual prolixity. "Let them tell me where," he
repeated in a monotonous and somewhat fretful tone. "I say, sir, let
them tell me where. I repeat it, sir; I am entitled to say to them, Tell
me where." Unluckily for him, Pitt had come down to the House that
night, and had been bitterly provoked by the reflections thrown on the
war. He revenged himself by murmuring, in a whine resembling
Grenville's, a line of a well-known song, "Gentle shepherd, tell me
where." "If," cried Grenville, "gentlemen are to be treated in this
way"--Pitt, as was his fashion, when he meant to mark extreme contempt,
rose deliberately, made his bow, and walked out of the House, leaving
his brother-in-law in convulsions of rage, and everybody else in
convulsions of laughter. It was long before Grenville lost the nickname
of the Gentle Shepherd.
But the ministry had vexations still more serious to endure. The hatred
which the Tories and Scots bore to Fox was implacable. In a moment of
extreme peril, they had consented to put themselves under his guidance.
But the aversion with which they regarded him broke forth as soon as the
crisis seemed to be over. Some of them attacked him about the accounts
of the Pay Office. Some of them rudely interrupted him when speaking, by
laughter and ironical cheers. He was naturally desirous to escape from
so disagreeable a situation, and demanded the peerage which had been
promised as the reward of his services.
It was clear that there must be some change in the composition of the
ministry. But scarcely any, even of those who, from their situation,
might be supposed to be in all the secrets of the government,
anticipated what really took place. To the amazement of the Parliament
and the nation, it was suddenly announced that Bute had resigned.
Twenty different explanations of this strange step were suggested. Some
attributed it to profound design, and some to sudden panic. Some said
that the lampoons of the Opposition had driven the Earl from the field;
some that he had taken office only in order to bring the war to a close,
and had always meant to retire when that object had been accomplished.
He publicly assigned ill health as his reason for quitting business, and
privately complained that he was not cordially seconded by his
colleagues, and that Lord Mansfield, in particular, whom he had himself
brought into the cabinet, gave him no support in the House op Peers.
Mansfield was, indeed, far too sagacious not to perceive that Bute's
situation was one of great peril, and far too timorous to thrust himself
into peril for the sake of another. The probability, however, is that
Bute's conduct on this occasion, like the conduct of most men on most
occasions, was determined by mixed motives. We suspect that he was sick
of office; for this is a feeling much more common among ministers than
persons who see public life from a distance are disposed to believe; and
nothing could be more natural than that this feeling should take
possession of the mind of Bute. In general, a statesman climbs by slow
degrees. Many laborious years elapse before he reaches the topmost
pinnacle of preferment. In the earlier part of his career, therefore, he
is constantly lured on by seeing something above him. During his ascent
he gradually becomes inured to the annoyances which belong to a life of
ambition. By the time that he has attained the highest point, he has
become patient of labor and callous to abuse. He is kept constant to his
vocation, in spite of all its discomforts, at first by hope, and at last
by habit. It was not so with Bute. His whole public life lasted little
more than two years. On the day on which he became a politician he
became a cabinet minister. In a few months he was, both in name and in
show, chief of the administration. Greater than he had been he could not
be. If what he already possessed was vanity and vexation of spirit, no
delusion remained to entice him onward. He had been cloyed with the
pleasures of ambition before he had been seasoned to its pains. His
habits had not been such as were likely to fortify his mind against
obloquy and public hatred. He had reached his forty-eighth year in
dignified ease, without knowing, by personal experience, what it was to
be ridiculed and slandered. All at once, without any previous
initiation, he had found himself exposed to such a storm of invective
and satire as had never burst on the head of any statesman. The
emoluments of office were now nothing to him; for he had just succeeded
to a princely property by the death of his father-in-law. All the honors
which could be bestowed on him he had already secured. He had obtained
the Garter for himself, and a British peerage for his son. He seems also
to have imagined that by quitting the treasury he should escape from
danger and abuse without really resigning power, and should still be
able to exercise in private supreme influence over the royal mind.
Whatever may have been his motives, he retired. Fox at the same time
took refuge in the House of Lords; and George Grenville became first
Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer.
We believe that those who made this arrangement fully intended that
Grenville should be a mere puppet in the hands of Bute; for Grenville
was as yet very imperfectly known even to those who had observed him
long. He passed for a mere official drudge; and he had all the industry,
the minute accuracy, the formality, the tediousness, which belong to the
character. But he had other qualities which had not yet shown
themselves, devouring ambition, dauntless courage, self-confidence
amounting to presumption, and a temper which could not endure
opposition. He was not disposed to be anybody's tool; and he had no
attachment, political or personal, to Bute. The two men had, indeed,
nothing in common, except a strong propensity towards harsh and
unpopular courses. Their principles were fundamentally different. Bute
was a Tory. Grenville would have been very angry with any person who
should have denied his claim to be a Whig. He was more prone to
tyrannical measures than Bute; but he loved tyranny only when disguised
under the forms of constitutional liberty. He mixed up, after a fashion
then not very unusual, the theories of the republicans of the
seventeenth century with the technical maxims of English law, and thus
succeeded in combining anarchical speculation with arbitrary practice.
The voice of the people was the voice of God; but the only legitimate
organ through which the voice of the people could be uttered was the
Parliament. All power was from the people; but to the Parliament the
whole power of the people had been delegated. No Oxonian divine had
ever, even in the years which immediately followed the Restoration,
demanded for the king so abject, so unreasoning a homage, as Grenville,
on what he considered as the purest Whig principles, demanded for the
Parliament. As he wished to see the Parliament despotic over the nation,
so he wished to see it also despotic over the court. In his view the
prime minister, possessed of the confidence of the House of Commons,
ought to be Mayor of the Palace. The King was a mere Childeric or
Chilperic, who might well think himself lucky in being permitted to
enjoy such handsome apartments at St. James's, and so fine a park at
Windsor.
Thus the opinions of Bute and those of Grenville were diametrically
opposed. Nor was there any private friendship between the two statesmen.
Grenville's nature was not forgiving; and he well remembered how, a few
months before, he had been compelled to yield the lead of the House of
Commons to Fox.
We are inclined to think, on the whole, that the worst administration
which has governed England since the Revolution was that of George
Grenville. His public acts may be classed under two heads, outrages on
the liberty of the people, and outrages on the dignity of the crown.