genius and the many noble qualities of Pitt, we cannot relate without
much pain. We believe that, at this conjuncture, he had it in his power
to give the victory either to the Whigs or to the King's friends. If he
had allied himself closely with Lord Rockingham, what could the court
have done? There would have been only one alternative, the Whigs or
Grenville; and there could be no doubt what the King's choice would be.
He still remembered, as well he might, with the utmost bitterness, the
thraldom from which his uncle had freed him, and said about this time,
with great vehemence, that he would sooner see the Devil come into his
closet than Grenville.
And what was there to prevent Pitt from allying himself with Lord
Rockingham? On all the most important questions their views were the
same. They had agreed in condemning the peace, the Stamp Act, the
general warrants, the seizure of papers. The points on which they
differed were few and unimportant. In integrity, in disinterestedness,
in hatred of corruption, they resembled each other. Their personal
interests could not clash. They sat in different Houses, and Pitt had
always declared that nothing should induce him to be First Lord of the
Treasury.
If the opportunity of forming a coalition beneficial to the state, and
honorable to all concerned, was suffered to escape, the fault was not
with the Whig ministers. They behaved towards Pitt with an
obsequiousness which, had it not been the effect of sincere admiration
and of anxiety for the public interests, might have been justly called
servile. They repeatedly gave him to understand that, if he chose to
join their ranks, they were ready to receive him, not as an associate,
but as a leader. They had proved their respect for him by bestowing a
peerage on the person who, at that time, enjoyed the largest share of
his confidence, Chief Justice Pratt. What then was there to divide Pitt
from the Whigs? What, on the other hand, was there in common between him
and the King's friends, that he should lend himself to their purposes,
he who had never owed anything to flattery or intrigue, he whose
eloquence and independent spirit had overawed two generations of slaves
and jobbers, he who had twice been forced by the enthusiasm of an
admiring nation on a reluctant Prince?
Unhappily the court had gained Pitt, not, it is true, by those ignoble
means which were employed when such men as Rigby and Wedderburn were to
be won, but by allurements suited to a nature noble even in its
aberrations. The King set himself to seduce the one man who could turn
the Whigs out without letting Grenville in. Praise, caresses, promises,
were lavished on the idol of the nation. He, and he alone, could put an
end to faction, could bid defiance to all the powerful connections in
the land united, Whigs and Tories, Rockinghams, Bedfords, and
Grenvilles. These blandishments produced a great effect. For though
Pitt's spirit was high and manly, though his eloquence was often exerted
with formidable effect against the court, and though his theory of
government had been learned in the school of Locke and Sidney, he had
always regarded the person of the sovereign with profound veneration. As
soon as he was brought face to face with royalty, his imagination and
sensibility were too strong for his principles. His Whiggism thawed and
disappeared; and he became, for the time, a Tory of the old Ormond
pattern. Nor was he by any means unwilling to assist in the work of
dissolving all political connections. His own weight in the state was
wholly independent of such connections. He was therefore inclined to
look on them with dislike, and made far too little distinction between
gangs of knaves associated for the mere purpose of robbing the public,
and confederacies of honorable men for the promotion of great public
objects. Nor had he the sagacity to perceive that the strenuous efforts
which he made to annihilate all parties tended only to establish the
ascendency of one party, and that the basest and most hateful of all.
It may be doubted whether he would have been thus misled, if his mind
had been in full health and rigor. But the truth is that he had for some
time been in an unnatural state of excitement. No suspicion of this sort
had yet got abroad. His eloquence had never shone with more splendor
than during the recent debates. But people afterwards called to mind
many things which ought to have roused their apprehensions. His habits
were gradually becoming more and more eccentric. A horror of all loud
sounds, such as is said to have been one of the many oddities of
Wallenstein, grew upon him. Though the most affectionate of fathers, he
could not at this time bear to hear the voices of his own children, and
laid out great sums at Hayes in buying up houses contiguous to his own,
merely that he might have no neighbors to disturb him with their noise.
He then sold Hayes, and took possession of a villa at Hampstead, where
he again began to purchase houses to right and left. In expense, indeed,
he vied, during this part of his life, with the wealthiest of the
conquerors of Bengal and Tanjore. At Burton Pynsent, he ordered a great
extent of ground to be planted with cedars. Cedars enough for the
purpose were not to be found in Somersetshire. They were therefore
collected in London, and sent down by land carriage. Relays of laborers
were hired; and the work went on all night by torchlight. No man could
be more abstemious than Pitt; yet the profusion of his kitchen was a
wonder even to epicures. Several dinners were always dressing; for his
appetite was capricious and fanciful; and at whatever moment he felt
inclined to eat, he expected a meal to be instantly on the table. Other
circumstances might be mentioned, such as separately are of little
moment, but such as, when taken together, and when viewed in connection
with the strange events which followed, justify us in believing that his
mind was already in a morbid state.
Soon after the close of the session of Parliament, Lord Rockingham
received his dismissal. He retired, accompanied by a firm body of
friends, whose consistency and uprightness enmity itself was forced to
admit. None of them had asked or obtained any pension or any sinecure,
either in possession or in reversion. Such disinterestedness was then
rare among politicians. Their chief, though not a man of brilliant
talents, had won for himself an honorable fame, which he kept pure to
the last. He had, in spite of difficulties which seemed almost
insurmountable, removed great abuses and averted a civil war. Sixteen
years later, in a dark and terrible day, he was again called upon to
save the state, brought to the very brink of ruin by the same perfidy
and obstinacy which had embarrassed, and at length overthrown, his first
administration.
Pitt was planting in Somersetshire when he was summoned to court by a
letter written by the royal hand. He instantly hastened to London. The
irritability of his mind and body were increased by the rapidity with
which he travelled; and when he reached his journey's end he was
suffering from fever. Ill as he was, he saw the King at Richmond, and
undertook to form an administration.
Pitt was scarcely in the state in which a man should be who has to
conduct delicate and arduous negotiations. In his letters to his wife,
he complained that the conferences in which it was necessary for him to
bear a part heated his blood and accelerated his pulse. From other
sources of information we learn that his language, even to those whose
cooperation he wished to engage, was strangely peremptory and despotic.
Some of his notes written at this time have been preserved, and are in a
style which Louis the Fourteenth would have been too well bred to employ
in addressing any French gentleman.
In the attempt to dissolve all parties, Pitt met with some difficulties.
Some Whigs, whom the court would gladly have detached from Lord
Rockingham, rejected all offers. The Bedfords were perfectly willing to
break with Grenville; but Pitt would not come up to their terms. Temple,
whom Pitt at first meant to place at the head of the treasury, proved
intractable. A coldness indeed had, during some months, been fast
growing between the brothers-in-law, so long and so closely allied in
politics. Pitt was angry with Temple for opposing the repeal of the
Stamp Act. Temple was angry with Pitt for refusing to accede to that
family league which was now the favorite plan at Stowe. At length the
Earl proposed an equal partition of power and patronage, and offered, on
this condition, to give up his brother George. Pitt thought the demand
exorbitant, and positively refused compliance. A bitter quarrel
followed. Each of the kinsmen was true to his character. Temple's soul
festered with spite, and Pitt's swelled into contempt. Temple
represented Pitt as the most odious of hypocrites and traitors. Pitt
held a different, and perhaps a more provoking tone. Temple was a good
sort of man enough, whose single title to distinction was, that he had a
large garden, with a large piece of water, and a great many pavilions
and summer-houses. To his fortunate connection with a great orator and
statesman he was indebted for an importance in the state which his own
talents could never have gained for him. That importance had turned his
head. He had begun to fancy that he could form administrations, and
govern empires. It was piteous to see a well-meaning man under such a
delusion.
In spite of all these difficulties, a ministry was made such as the King
wished to see,--a ministry in which all his Majesty's friends were
comfortably accommodated, and which, with the exception of his Majesty's
friends, contained no four persons who had ever in their lives been in
the habit of acting together. Men who had never concurred in a single
vote found themselves seated at the same board. The office of paymaster
was divided between two persons who had never exchanged a word. Most of
the chief posts were filled either by personal adherents of Pitt, or by
members of the late ministry, who had been induced to remain in place
after the dismissal of Lord Rockingham. To the former class belonged
Pratt, now Lord Camden, who accepted the Great Seal, and Lord Shelburne,
who was made one of the Secretaries of State. To the latter class
belonged the Duke of Grafton, who became First Lord of the Treasury, and
Conway, who kept his old position both in the government and in the
House of Commons. Charles Townshend, who had belonged to every party,
and cared for none, was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Pitt himself was
declared prime minister, but refused to take any laborious office. He
was created Earl of Chatham, and the privy seal was delivered to him.
It is scarcely necessary to say that the failure, the complete and
disgraceful failure, of this arrangement is not to be ascribed to any
want of capacity in the persons whom we have named. None of them was
deficient in abilities; and four of them, Pitt himself, Shelburne,
Camden, and Townshend, were men of high intellectual eminence. The fault
was not in the materials, but in the principle on which the materials
were put together. Pitt had mixed up these conflicting elements, in the
full confidence that he should be able to keep them all in perfect
subordination to himself, and in perfect harmony with each other. We
shall soon see how the experiment succeeded.
On the very day on which the new prime minister kissed hands, three
fourths of that popularity which he had long enjoyed without a rival,
and to which he owed the greater part of his authority, departed from
him. A violent outcry was raised, not against that part of his conduct
which really deserved severe condemnation, but against a step in which
we can see nothing to censure. His acceptance of a peerage produced a
general burst of indignation. Yet surely no peerage had ever been better
earned; nor was there ever a statesman who more needed the repose of the
Upper House. Pitt was now growing old. He was much older in constitution
than in years. It was with imminent risk to his life that he had, on
some important occasions, attended his duty in Parliament. During the
session of 1764, he had not been able to take part in a single debate.
It was impossible that he should go through the nightly labor of
conducting the business of the government in the House of Commons. His
wish to be transferred, under such circumstances, to a less busy and a
less turbulent assembly, was natural and reasonable. The nation,
however, overlooked all these considerations. Those who had most loved
and honored the Great Commoner were loudest in invective against the
new-made lord. London had hitherto been true to him through every
vicissitude. When the citizens learned that he had been sent for from
Somersetshire, that he had been closeted with the King at Richmond, and
that he was to be first minister, they had been in transports of joy.
Preparations were made for a grand entertainment and for a general
illumination. The lamps had actually been placed round the Monument,
when the Gazette announced that the object of all this enthusiasm was an
Earl. Instantly the feast was countermanded. The lamps were taken down.
The newspapers raised the roar of obloquy. Pamphlets, made up of calumny
and scurrility, filled the shops of all the booksellers; and of those
pamphlets, the most galling were written under the direction of the
malignant Temple. It was now the fashion to compare the two Williams,
William Pulteney and William Pitt. Both, it was said, had, by eloquence
and simulated patriotism, acquired a great ascendency in the House of
Commons and in the country. Both had been entrusted with the office of
reforming the government. Both had, when at the height of power and
popularity, been seduced by the splendor of the coronet. Both had been
made earls, and both had at once become objects of aversion and scorn to
the nation which a few hours before had regarded them with affection and
veneration.
The clamor against Pitt appears to have had a serious effect on the
foreign relations of the country. His name had till now acted like a
spell at Versailles and St. Ildefonso. English travellers on the
Continent had remarked that nothing more was necessary to silence a
whole room full of boasting Frenchmen than to drop a hint of the
probability that Mr. Pitt would return to power. In an instant there was
deep silence, all shoulders rose, and all faces were lengthened. Now,
unhappily, every foreign court, in learning that he was recalled to
office, learned also that he no longer possessed the hearts of his
countrymen. Ceasing to be loved at home, he ceased to be feared abroad.
The name of Pitt had been a charmed name. Our envoys tried in vain to
conjure with the name of Chatham.
The difficulties which beset Chatham were daily increased by the
despotic manner in which he treated all around him. Lord Rockingham had,
at the time of the change of ministry, acted with great moderation, had
expressed a hope that the new government would act on the principles of
the late government, and had even interfered to prevent many of his
friends from quitting office. Thus Saunders and Keppel, two naval
commanders of great eminence, had been induced to remain at the
Admiralty, where their services were much needed. The Duke of Portland
was still Lord Chamberlain, and Lord Besborough Postmaster. But within a
quarter of a year, Lord Chatham had so deeply affronted these men that
they all retired in disgust. In truth, his tone, submissive in the
closet, was at this time insupportably tyrannical in the cabinet. His
colleagues were merely his clerks for naval, financial, and diplomatic
business. Conway, meek as he was, was on one occasion provoked into
declaring that such language as Lord Chatham's had never been heard west
of Constantinople, and was with difficulty prevented by Horace Walpole
from resigning, and rejoining the standard of Lord Rockingham.
The breach which had been made in the government by the defection of so
many of the Rockinghams, Chatham hoped to supply by the help of the
Bedfords. But with the Bedfords he could not deal as he had dealt with
other parties. It was to no purpose that he bade high for one or two
members of the faction, in the hope of detaching them from the rest.
They were to be had; but they were to be had only in the lot. There was
indeed for a moment some wavering and some disputing among them. But at
length the counsels of the shrewd and resolute Rigby prevailed. They
determined to stand firmly together, and plainly intimated to Chatham
that he must take them all, or that he should get none of them. The
event proved that they were wiser in their generation than any other
connection in the state. In a few months they were able to dictate their
own terms.
The most important public measure of Lord Chatham's administration was
his celebrated interference with the corn trade. The harvest had been
bad; the price of food was high; and he thought it necessary to take on
himself the responsibility of laying an embargo on the exportation of
grain. When Parliament met, this proceeding was attacked by the
opposition as unconstitutional, and defended by the ministers as
indispensably necessary. At last an act was passed to indemnify all who
had been concerned in the embargo.
The first words uttered by Chatham, in the House of Lords, were in
defence of his conduct on this occasion. He spoke with a calmness,
sobriety, and dignity well suited to the audience which he was
addressing. A subsequent speech which he made on the same subject was
less successful. He bade defiance to aristocratical connections, with a
superciliousness to which the Peers were not accustomed, and with tones
and gestures better suited to a large and stormy assembly than to the
body of which he was now a member. A short altercation followed, and he
was told very plainly that he should not be suffered to browbeat the old
nobility of England.
It gradually became clearer and clearer that he was in a distempered
state of mind. His attention had been drawn to the territorial
acquisitions of the East India Company, and he determined to bring the
whole of that great subject before Parliament. He would not, however,
confer on the subject with any of his colleagues. It was in vain that
Conway, who was charged with the conduct of business in the House of
Commons, and Charles Townshend, who was responsible for the direction of
the finances, begged for some glimpse of light as to what was in
contemplation. Chatham's answers were sullen and mysterious. He must
decline any discussion with them; he did not want their assistance; he
had fixed on a person to take charge of his measure in the House of
Commons. This person was a member who was not connected with the
government, and who neither had, nor deserved to have, the ear of the
House, a noisy, purse-proud, illiterate demagogue, whose Cockney English
and scraps of mispronounced Latin were the jest of the newspapers,
Alderman Beckford. It may well be supposed that these strange
proceedings produced a ferment through the whole political world. The
city was in commotion. The East India Company invoked the faith of
charters. Burke thundered against the ministers. The ministers looked at
each other and knew not what to say. In the midst of the confusion, Lord
Chatham proclaimed himself gouty, and retired to Bath. It was announced,
after some time, that he was better, that he would shortly return, that
he would soon put everything in order. A day was fixed for his arrival
in London. But when he reached the Castle Inn at Marlborough, he
stopped, shut himself up in his room, and remained there some weeks.
Everybody who travelled that road was amazed by the number of his
attendants. Footmen and grooms, dressed in his family livery, filled the
whole inn, though one of the largest in England, and swarmed in the
streets of the little town. The truth was that the invalid had insisted
that, during his stay, all the waiters and stable-boys of the Castle
should wear his livery.
His colleagues were in despair. The Duke of Grafton proposed to go down
to Marlborough in order to consult the oracle. But he was informed that
Lord Chatham must decline all conversation on business. In the
meantime, all the parties which were out of office, Bedfords,
Grenvilles, and Rockinghams, joined to oppose the distracted government
on the vote for the land tax. They were reinforced by almost all the
county members, and had a considerable majority. This was the first time
that a ministry had been beaten on an important division in the House of
Commons since the fall of Sir Robert Walpole. The administration, thus
furiously assailed from without, was torn by internal dissensions. It
had been formed on no principle whatever. From the very first, nothing
but Chatham's authority had prevented the hostile contingents which made
up his ranks from going to blows with each other. That authority was now
withdrawn, and everything was in commotion. Conway, a brave soldier, but
in civil affairs the most timid and irresolute of men, afraid of
disobliging the King, afraid of being abused in the newspapers, afraid
of being thought factious if he went out, afraid of being thought
interested if he stayed in, afraid of everything, and afraid of being
known to be afraid of anything, was beaten backwards and forwards like a
shuttlecock between Horace Walpole, who wished to make him prime
minister, and Lord John Cavendish, who wished to draw him into
opposition. Charles Townshend, a man of splendid eloquence, of lax
principles, and of boundless vanity and presumption, would submit to no
control. The full extent of his parts, of his ambition, and of his
arrogance, had not yet been made manifest; for he had always quailed
before the genius and the lofty character of Pitt. But now that Pitt had
quitted the House of Commons, and seemed to have abdicated the part of
chief minister, Townshend broke loose from all restraint.
While things were in this state, Chatham at length returned to London.
He might as well have remained at Marlborough. He would see nobody. He
would give no opinion on any public matter. The Duke of Grafton begged
piteously for an interview, for an hour, for half an hour, for five
minutes. The answer was, that it was impossible. The King himself
repeatedly condescended to expostulate and implore. "Your duty," he
wrote, "your own honor, require you to make an effort." The answers to
these appeals were commonly written in Lady Chatham's hand, from her
lord's dictation; for he had not energy even to use a pen. He flings
himself at the King's feet. He is penetrated by the royal goodness, so
signally shown to the most unhappy of men. He implores a little more
indulgence. He cannot as yet transact business. He cannot see his
colleagues. Least of all can he bear the excitement of an interview with
majesty.