the old statesman to his place in the House of Lords on the last day of
his life, he who assisted to carry him out, and he who stood as chief
mourner at that impressive funeral in the Abbey, his elder brother being
abroad. The thought of any life but a political and a public one, never
entered his mind, and two years later he became a member of Parliament.
The first step up the ladder was taken. Already a trained speaker, his
gifts were at once recognised by the House. Members of both parties
generously praised him, and prophesied that his would be a great career.
"I doubt not," said honest William Wilberforce, "but that I shall one
day see him the first man in the country." His likeness to his father
was remarkable. "Language, gesture, and manner were all the same,"
wrote his delighted tutor. "All the old members recognised him
instantly, and most of the young ones said this was the very man they
had so often heard described."
But it was not on his father's merits that William Pitt sprang into
immediate fame; his own personality was his passport.
Thirteen years before, another young man had entered Parliament, Charles
James Fox, the brilliant, excitement-loving son of Lord Holland. After
Eton and Oxford he had been sent abroad to complete his education, but
so great were his follies and extravagances, that his father had to
firmly summon him home. This mandate, we are told, "he obeyed with
great reluctance," and he seems to have gone back with an extensive
wardrobe of clothes in the latest and most costly fashions, leaving
behind him enormous debts in every town he had visited.
Lord Holland, who flattered himself that he had studied the world and
human nature with great attention and success, decided that a seat in
the House of Commons would best steady this irrepressible young man, and
provide him with occupation and ambition, so, though he was only
nineteen, and therefore legally not entitled to become a member, he was
duly elected, the Speaker, by wilful or accidental oversight, offering
no opposition. He too from the first delighted the House as a speaker,
for he was fresh, forcible, and graceful, with a great personal charm of
manner and an entire absence of conceit, and no one gave a more cordial
welcome to Pitt than he did, little dreaming in how short a time this
young man would be his lifelong and his successful rival. Rockingham,
who had succeeded North as Prime Minister, died suddenly in 1782, and
from every point of view Fox appeared to be the man who ought to have
succeeded him. But the King cordially disliked Fox, and sent instead
for Lord Shelburne. Fox, ever impetuous and hasty, refused to serve
under him, and Shelburne turned to Pitt, who thus at the age of
twenty-three became Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House
of Commons. A year later Lord Shelburne resigned, and the Premiership
was offered to Pitt, an honour greater perhaps than any honour ever
offered to a young man of twenty-four. He declined it; the Duke of
Portland accepted it; and Fox became leader in the House of Commons,
with what seemed to be a strong coalition Government at the back of him.
For the moment the Whigs were all-powerful, and against them stood Pitt,
who refused to be a member of any coalition, with a handful of men who
had belonged to the old Chatham party. No one hated the present
arrangement more than the King, and before long he saw an opportunity of
crushing it. Fox, chiefly by his own magnetic influence, had carried a
bill concerning India through the Commons, but the Lords, influenced by
the King, threw it out, whereupon he dismissed the Government, and
persuaded Pitt to accept the office of Prime Minister. Never before had
such a state of things prevailed. The Premier was a youth of
twenty-four, with a majority of two to one against him in the House of
Commons! Whatever he brought forward was defeated. Fox used all his
eloquence against him, and over and over again he was put in an
impossible position. Pitt, Lord Rosebery has told us, was never young.
Certainly, at this crisis, his patience, his caution, his firmness, and
his cool judgment would have done credit to a statesman of half a
century's experience. He did not make a mistake, and gradually he won
the country to his side. Before many months were over, Parliament was
dissolved; an election had taken place; and Pitt came back into power
with a large majority. For seventeen years he remained in office.
Nothing could have been greater than the contrast between him and his
strenuous opponent Fox, who was the most impulsive, genial, and lovable
of men; extravagant in every direction, in his likes, his hates, and his
sympathies; easily stirred and able to pour forth a torrent of
passionate eloquence; living always in the excitement and impulses of
the moment, with never a thought for the morrow. Pitt, on the contrary,
was cool and thoughtful. He stood, as it were, aloof from all the world,
though on the rare occasions when he unbent, he was full of charm.
"Smiles were not natural to him," said a contemporary. "He is," said
Wilberforce, who unfeignedly admired him, even though he could not
always follow him, "one of the most public-spirited and upright men I
ever knew." And he was called upon to guide the ship of State through
troubled waters. It was his task to raise the money in payment of the
American war bill, for a debt of about twenty millions stared him in the
face. Then he had to face more than the usual amount of difficulty with
Ireland, where the celebrated Dublin Parliament which Henry Grattan, its
brilliant leader, had forced Fox to agree to, proved itself so unable to
cope with the task undertaken, that riots and disturbances broke out in
every quarter. Pitt believed that only one solution was possible,
namely, that instead of a separate Parliament at Dublin, the Irish
members with the Scotch should sit at Westminster, and in the year 1799
he brought in the Act of Union, which was carried during the next
session, in spite of a strong speech against it by Grattan, who was
dragged from his sick-room for the occasion. Pitt had also to contend
with a restless wave which swept over England, the result of the French
Revolution. But though the young minister was always ready for reform,
he would have nothing to do with violent changes or with revolution,
neither was he afraid to bring in such measures as seemed likely to
repress the revolutionary spirits in England. The French leaders, not
content with having executed their king and queen, and having waged war
on Austria, when that country moved to rescue the luckless Austrian
princess, now Queen Marie Antoinette, went to the further length of
declaring that every country not agreeing with the doctrines of the
Revolution was to be regarded as an enemy, and was to be forced into
war. For some while Pitt managed to hold the English people from
plunging into the conflict. He was altogether a peace minister. But
public opinion was too strong for him; the old hatred of France was
there, and the events of the last few years had fanned it into life.
Pitt had to bow to the will of the nation, though it was the French who
finally declared war in 1793 by an attack on Holland, after which
England could no longer stand aloof, though Fox, in his hot-headed way,
declared that in his opinion we had no right to demand the withdrawal of
French troops from the Netherlands. From that time until the day of
victory at Waterloo in 1815, the fight between England and France
continued with more or less intensity.
And the final issue was due in no small degree to Pitt, who, though he
hated the war, had during his long ministry of peace freely spent
millions of pounds on the British navy, recognising that so long as
England was mistress of the seas she was safe. From the moment, too,
that war was declared, he threw himself heart and soul into every
measure for carrying it through successfully; never for a moment did he
show a weak front, or fail to be the leader in every sense of the word.
When Napoleon, elated by his series of triumphs on the Continent,
prepared to invade England, it was Pitt who gave an impetus to the
volunteer movement by himself raising a force of 3000 men, and placing
himself at their head. "His spirit will lead him to be foremost in the
battle, and I am uneasy at it," said Wilberforce; "yet it is his proper
post, and I can say nothing against it." In an incredibly short time a
volunteer force of 300,000 was enrolled, "their good sense and firmness
supplying their want of experience." But though his spirit was as
strong as ever, his delicate frame was giving way under the high
pressure at which he had lived. True to his promise to Wilberforce, he
had pushed forward the Abolition of Slavery Bill, and he did not relax
an effort as regards his war policy, though on the Continent Napoleon
was still all victorious. Wellesley, a young soldier, had just come
back from India with a good reputation, and Pitt, then a dying man, sent
for him. He knew that what England wanted now was a great soldier to
lead her armies; her navy was safe under such commanders as St. Vincent,
Collingwood, and Nelson. For hours he talked to Wellesley, only ceasing
when he fainted from exhaustion. "The greatest minister that has ever
ruled England," was the verdict of the soldier statesman. Then came the
news of the victory at Trafalgar, saddened only by the death of the
heroic Nelson. But Pitt was drifting far away from all these things.
His mind wandered as his life flickered out; only just at the end there
was a rally. "Oh my country!" he cried; "how I leave my country!" That
was his last thought and his last speech.
When the usual proposal was brought forward that he should be buried at
Westminster at the expense of Parliament, and that a monument should be
erected, Fox characteristically felt bound to oppose it. "He could not
honestly," he said, "call a man an excellent statesman who had
consistently supported so bad a system." But when it was further
suggested that Parliament should pay the debts he had left and provide
for his nearest relations, no one agreed so cordially or so readily as
Fox. Wrong-headed he often was; wrong-hearted never.
Into the same grave as his father William Pitt was laid in the presence
of all the distinguished people of the day, his pall-bearers being six
men each of whom had been, or was to be, a Prime Minister of England.
"The figure of the first William Pitt," wrote Wilberforce, "seemed to be
looking down with consternation into the grave of his favourite son, the
last perpetuator of the name he had ennobled. It was an affecting
ceremony."
Pitt was still a young man, only forty-seven, yet into those years he
had crowded a glorious life, and it was with truth that the herald
proclaimed over his grave, "He lived not for himself, but for his
country."
Eight months later, Fox, who did not live to enjoy the power his rival's
death had placed within his reach, was buried close to him in the Abbey.
During his short spell of office, he had carried Wilberforce's Slave
Bill, and had frequently said he could retire happily when once that
bill was made safe. He disdainfully refused a Peerage. "I will not
close my politics in that foolish way," was his remark. Near together
too, though not in the Statesmen's Corner, are the monuments of these
two whose lives were throughout so interwoven. Pitt towers in lonely
state over the west door, standing there as if he were about to pour
forth his magnificent eloquence on the statues below and charm them back
into life for one brief moment. Fox lies surrounded by weeping figures,
one of whom represents the negro whose cause he had so powerfully
championed. And so the great Mother Church gathers them both to
herself, claiming each as a noble son of England.
Henry Grattan, the Irishman, is buried close to Fox, his friend and
hero. He had often told his followers that he wished to lie in a quiet
churchyard of his loved Ireland, but they had other ideas. "Well then,"
he said resignedly, "Westminster Abbey!" His funeral had a very
distinctive touch, for it was attended by hundreds of Irish children
from various charitable institutions, all of whom wore dresses of bright
green.
Next to the imposing monument of Chatham is a statue to Lord Palmerston,
that most English of statesmen. He went into political life more from a
sense of duty than from any particular liking for it, or from any
feelings of ambition. But into every office that he held he carried
with him a sturdy independence, a dogged tenacity of purpose, a fund of
common sense, and a very clear idea of what he meant to attain. Add to
this that he was the essence of good-nature, the most genial of friends,
simple and straight, manly and cheery, and we have some idea of the man
whom the nation insisted on having for Prime Minister, when he was over
seventy years of age, at a critical moment when it was felt that only a
strong, fearless, popular statesman could guide the ship out of the
storm.
And then, in contrast to the kindly, contented Palmerston, comes the
tomb of Lord Castlereagh, a statesman as much out of touch with the
people as "Pam" was their hero. He was Secretary of State for War in
those days when the struggle with France was beginning, and because at
first things went badly he was made the scapegoat. It was he who
planned that combination of forces which at last broke down the French
resistance, but that was not realised till long afterwards; in those
early days his policy was not successful, so it was unpopular. He stood
aloof from all men; he was cold, indifferent, wanting in tact, with no
gifts as a speaker, and yet, looking back now on his work, it is easy to
see how well he faced a period of unexampled difficulty. Nevertheless,
he was invariably misunderstood, and therefore unjustly disliked, so
that at last his mind gave way under the storm of hatred and abuse
levelled against him, and, in a dark moment, he put an end to his life.
Even at his funeral in the Abbey, the crowds could not forget their
dislike of him, and shouted exultantly as the coffin was carried inside
the doors. But the Abbey gave him a welcome and a resting-place.
On the opposite side stand the statues of the three Cannings: George
Canning, the statesman; his youngest son, Lord Canning, first Viceroy of
India; and their cousin, Lord Stratford de Radcliffe, "the wise old man
of the East," who was our ambassador at Constantinople during those
years which led up to the Crimean War, and whose influence, supported by
the Government at home and France, made it possible for Turkey to hold
Russia at bay. The verse on the statue:
"Thou third great Canning, stand among our best
And noblest, now thy long day's work hath ceased;
Here silent, in our Minster of the West,
Who wert the voice of England in the East,"
is the work of Tennyson, who has only written one other epitaph in the
Abbey. Close together are the monuments of Sir Robert Peel and Benjamin
Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Peel was the Minister who, in the face
of violent opposition, caused the tax on imported corn to be repealed,
thereby making bread cheaper; and Disraeli, who first won his reputation
by the persistent manner in which he fought this policy of Peel's,
doggedly forged his way to the front against much prejudice, until he,
though not an Englishman by race, held the proud position of being the
loved and trusted Prime Minister of Queen Victoria. The statue of
Beaconsfield--for by his own desire he was buried next to his wife in
the country churchyard at Hughenden--casts its shadow over the grave of
William Ewart Gladstone, whose family only consented to his being laid
there on the condition that Mrs. Gladstone should eventually rest beside
him, even as Lady Palmerston lay by her husband's side. The coffin
which contained this old statesman, who was better loved and better
hated perhaps than any public man of our generation, was placed for some
time in Westminster Hall, and nearly a quarter of a million people
passed through to pay their last token of respect. The time has not yet
come when his place in English history as a statesman can be fairly
judged, but friend and foe alike can bear tribute to his brilliant
intellect; his talents as a financier; his excellent learning; his
wonderful personality; his rich eloquence; his generous sympathies; his
stainless private life; and to those other qualities which his political
opponent Lord Salisbury so finely described as making him "a great
Christian." "God bless you, and this place, and the land you love," had
been his last public utterance, and in the spirit of that message we
leave him, who in life stirred up such sharp dissensions, sleeping
peacefully in the Abbey.
*CHAPTER XX*
*INDIAN STATESMEN AND SOLDIERS: LAWRENCE
AND THE HEROES OF THE MUTINY*
The Indian Mutiny, which produced "such a breed of warlike men," the
equals of whom have rarely, if ever, been found awaiting their country's
need of them, is especially commemorated in the Abbey, which holds the
graves of Lord Lawrence; Colin Campbell, Lord Clyde; and Sir James
Outram. Only a monument does honour to Warren Hastings, whose name is
so indissolubly linked with Westminster and with India, for it was at
Westminster School that he was educated, the favourite pupil of the
head-master Dr. Nichols, who found him "a hard student, bold, full of
fire, ambitious in no ordinary degree;" and it was to India that he
went, when eighteen, into the service of the East India Company. To the
building up of the British Empire in India he gave his life, working
with unfaltering courage under a thousand difficulties, sometimes no
doubt making errors of judgment, more often the victim of other men's
intrigues and treachery, but always the dauntless, enthusiastic servant
of the State. And his reward was disgrace, confiscation, and
impeachment. He was used by Ministers at home as a cat's-paw in the
game of politics. Burke and Fox charged him in Parliament with cruelty,
extortion, and corruption, while Sheridan's brilliant eloquence so
dazzled the Commons as to obscure all their calm judgment, and they
impeached Warren Hastings at the bar of the House of Lords for "high
crimes and misdemeanours." In the February of 1788 this most famous of
trials commenced in Westminster Hall, and it took Burke two days to get
through his list of charges. All the force of his great powers as an
orator was brought to bear against the accused, who "stood there small,
spare, and upright, his bearing a mixture of deference and dignity, his
soft sad eyes flashing defiance on his accusers; the lines of his mouth
and chin firm, his face very pale but calm."
The trial lingered on and on; it was seven years before the verdict was
given, a verdict which practically cleared Hastings, and proved that, if
on occasions he had been unnecessarily ruthless or hard in his rule, he
had not so acted from any selfish or unworthy motive, but because he
believed that thereby he was best serving the interests both of England
and of India. Though he was acquitted, he was practically a ruined man.
The trial had cost him more than L70,000, and he was not rich, neither
could he hope for any employment under Fox or Pitt. The East India
Company voted him a pension for twenty-eight years, but refused him when
he asked that it might be continued during the lifetime of his wife,
"the dearest object of all his concerns." And so he died a bitterly
disappointed man.
[Illustration: RT. HON. WARREN HASTINGS.]
John Lawrence was the son of a soldier, and from boyhood he had chosen
the army for his profession, as a matter of course. Three of his
brothers had already gone to India, two into the cavalry, and one into
the artillery, and John was hoping to enter the service of the East
India Company in the same way, when to his disgust he was offered an
appointment, not in their army, but in the Civil Service. There could
be no question as to which of the two branches offered the better
opening to any hard-working, ambitious young man, but John would hear
none of this. "A soldier I was born, a soldier I will be," he said
firmly. And he was only moved in his resolution by the simple, sensible
arguments of his invalid sister Letitia, to whom he was entirely
devoted. So to the East India College at Haileybury he went, and sailed
for India at the age of eighteen, considered by his elders to be a
reliable, intelligent lad, but nothing more. The old longing for a
soldier's life came back to him on landing, and for the first few weeks
he was so entirely miserable, that, as he said afterwards, "the offer of
L100 a year would have taken me straight home again." Then he firmly
pulled himself together and resolved that there should be no turning
back now; he would go forward, and do the work which came to him with
all his might. Delhi was his first destination, and soon he found
himself in charge of a district, so good a reputation had he made for
being both self-reliant and cautious. It was a turbulent, unsettled
piece of country that he was given to bring into order, but his
firmness, justice, and conscientious hard work accomplished wonders, and
prepared him for greater things. Without a single soldier he kept
perfect order among his people through the great drought, which filled
his district with starving men and with bands of robbers, but at last
his health gave way under the strain of eleven years' work, and he came
home to England on sick leave. Two years later he returned to his post,
now a married man, and was soon brought into close contact with that
sturdy soldier, Sir Henry Hardinge, who was in command of the fierce
campaign then being waged against the Sikhs. Hardinge entirely depended
on being able to get sufficient supplies, guns, and ammunition from the
base at Delhi, and it was to the civilian magistrate there, John
Lawrence, that he appealed for help. Splendidly that help was given.
Lawrence organised a system of carts, each to be driven by his owner;
and in an incredibly short time a long train of guns, ammunition, and
food of all sorts, reached the camp, as much to the delight as to the
astonishment of the General. A few days after the arrival of these
welcome supplies, the battle which ended the campaign was fought and
won. Hardinge did not forget the man who had made this victory
possible, and gave him for reward a most responsible piece of work, the
charge of the newly won Sikh province of Jalandhar.
A second Sikh war, which ended in the complete submission of the Sikh
army, gave the whole province of the Punjab into the hands of the
Viceroy.
"What shall we do with it?" he asked of Lawrence.
"Annex it at once," was the answer; and when Lord Dalhousie pointed out
the difficulties, Lawrence, who had known and realised them all, met
every objection with the words: "Action, action, action!"
So the Punjab was annexed, and it was decided to govern it by a Board,
which included Henry Lawrence and John Lawrence. Frankly, let us admit
at once that the arrangement was not a happy one. Both brothers were
men of strong character and great ability, but they saw things from very
different points of view. Henry was enthusiastic, imaginative, and
easily moved; John was entirely practical and clear-headed. Each loved
and respected the other, but neither would give way on what seemed to
each vital questions of importance. Finally, both sent in their
resignations, and Lord Dalhousie, wisely recognising that John Lawrence
was specially fitted for the special work required at the moment in the
Punjab, made him the Chief Commissioner, and moved Henry to another
field. It was a great province to reduce to law and order, even when it
was divided into seven districts, ruled over by picked men. But
Lawrence was a born organiser. Not only could he work himself
indefatigably, but he knew how to choose other men for the posts that
had to be filled, and having chosen them, he trusted them and supported
them loyally. He had only to recognise "grit," or "metal," in a
subordinate, and there was nothing he would not do to help him on.
"Human nature is human nature," he would say, and "A strong horse if
held with a tight hand will do more than a weak horse to whom you may
give his head." So he managed to keep his brilliant colleagues all in
one team; he smoothed over their disagreements, he dealt with them all
quite frankly, criticising where he held it needful, praising generously
whenever it was possible, and thus he gathered around him that band of
men, including Nicholson, Chamberlain, and Edwardes, who came to the
fore so vigorously a little later in the hour of the crisis. But
Lawrence was to do still greater things in the near future.