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During eleven weeks England remained without a ministry; and in the meantime
Parliament was sitting, and a war was raging. The prejudices of the King, the
haughtiness of Pitt, the jealousy, levity, and treachery of Newcastle, delayed
the settlement. Pitt knew the Duke too well to trust him without security. The
Duke loved power too much to be inclined to give security. While they were
haggling, the King was in vain attempting to produce a final rupture between
them, or to form a Government without them. At one time he applied to Lord
Waldegrave, an honest and sensible man, but unpracticed in affairs. Lord
Waldegrave had the courage to accept the Treasury, but soon found that no
administration formed by him had the smallest chance of standing a single week.
At length the King's pertinacity yielded to the necessity of the case. After
exclaiming with great bitterness, and with some justice, against the Whigs, who
ought, he said, to be ashamed to talk about liberty while they submitted to the
footmen of the Duke of Newcastle, his Majesty submitted. The influence of
Leicester House prevailed on Pitt to abate a little, and but a little, of his
high demands; and all at once, out of the chaos in which parties had for some
time been rising, falling, meeting, separating, arose a government as strong at
home as that of Pelham, as successful abroad as that of Godolphin.
Newcastle took the Treasury. Pitt was Secretary of State, with the lead in the
House of Commons, and with the supreme direction of the war and of foreign
affairs. Fox, the only man who could have given much annoyance to the new
Government, was silenced by the office of Paymaster, which, during the
continuance of that war, was probably the most lucrative place in the whole
Government. He was poor, and the situation was tempting; yet it cannot but seem
extraordinary that a man who had played a first part in politics, and whose
abilities had been found not unequal to that part, who had sat in the Cabinet,
who had led the House of Commons, who had been twice entrusted by the King with
the office of forming a ministry, who was regarded as the rival of Pitt, and who
at one time seemed likely to be a successful rival, should have consented, for
the sake of emolument, to take a subordinate place, and to give silent votes for
all the measures of a government to the deliberations of which he was not
summoned.
The first acts of the new administration were characterized rather by vigor than
by judgment. Expeditions were sent against different parts of the French coast
with little success. The small island of Aix was taken, Rochefort threatened, a
few ships burned in the harbor of St. Maloes, and a few guns and mortars brought
home as trophies from the fortifications of Cherbourg. But soon conquests of a
very different kind filled the kingdom with pride and rejoicing. A succession of
victories undoubtedly brilliant, and, as was thought, not barren, raised to the
highest point the fame of the minister to whom the conduct of the war had been
entrusted. In July 1758, Louisburg fell. The whole island of Cape Breton was
reduced. The fleet to which the Court of Versailles had confided the defense of
French America was destroyed. The captured standards were borne in triumph from
Kensington Palace to the city, and were suspended in St. Paul's Church, amidst
the roar of drums and kettledrums, and the shouts of an immense multitude.
Addresses of congratulation came in from all the great towns of England.
Parliament met only to decree thanks and monuments, and to bestow, without one
murmur, supplies more than double of those which had been given during the war
of the Grand Alliance.
The year 1759 opened with the conquest of Goree. Next fell Guadaloupe; then
Ticonderoga; then Niagara. The Toulon squadron was completely defeated by
Boscawen off Cape Lagos. But the greatest exploit of the year was the
achievement of Wolfe on the heights of Abraham. The news of his glorious death
and of the fall of Quebec reached London in the very week in which the Houses
met. All was joy and triumph. Envy and faction were forced to join in the
general applause. Whigs and Tories vied with each other in extolling the genius
and energy of Pitt. His colleagues were never talked of or thought of. The House
of Commons, the nation, the colonies, our allies, our enemies, had their eyes
fixed on him alone.
Scarcely had Parliament voted a monument to Wolfe, when another great event
called for fresh rejoicings. The Brest fleet, under the command of Conflans, had
put out to sea. It was overtaken by an English squadron under Hawke. Conflans
attempted to take shelter close under the French coast. The shore was rocky; the
night was black: the wind was furious: the waves of the Bay of Biscay ran high.
But Pitt had infused into each branch of the service a spirit which had long
been unknown. No British seaman was disposed to err on the same side with Byng.
The pilot told Hawke that the attack could not be made without the greatest
danger. "You have done your duty in remonstrating," answered Hawke; "I will
answer for everything. I command you to lay me alongside the French admiral."
Two French ships of the line struck. Four were destroyed. The rest hid
themselves in the rivers of Brittany.
The year 1760 came; and still triumph followed triumph. Montreal was taken; the
whole province of Canada was subjugated; the French fleets underwent a
succession of disasters in the seas of Europe and America.
In the meantime conquests equaling in rapidity, and far surpassing in magnitude,
those of Cortes and Pizarro, had been achieved in the East. In the space of
three years the English had founded a mighty empire. The French had been
defeated in every part of India. Chandernagore had surrendered to Clive,
Pondicherry to Coote. Throughout Bengal, Bahar, Orissa, and the Carnatic, the
authority of the East India Company was more absolute than that of Acbar or
Aurungzebe had ever been.
On the continent of Europe the odds were against England. We had but one
important ally, the King of Prussia; and he was attacked not only by France, but
also by Russia and Austria. Yet even on the Continent the energy of Pitt
triumphed over all difficulties. Vehemently as he had condemned the practice of
subsidizing foreign princes, he now carried that practice further than Carteret
himself would have ventured to do. The active and able Sovereign of Prussia
received such pecuniary assistance as enabled him to maintain the conflict on
equal terms against his powerful enemies. On no subject had Pitt ever spoken
with so much eloquence and ardor as on the mischiefs of the Hanoverian
connection. He now declared, not without much show of reason, that it would be
unworthy of the English people to suffer their King to be deprived of his
electoral dominions in an English quarrel. He assured his countrymen that they
should be no losers, and that he would conquer America for them in Germany. By
taking this line he conciliated the King, and lost no part of his influence with
the nation. In Parliament, such was the ascendancy which his eloquence, his
success, his high situation, his pride, and his intrepidity had obtained for
him, that he took liberties with the House of which there had been no example,
and which have never since been imitated. No orator could there venture to
reproach him with inconsistency. One unfortunate man made the attempt, and was
so much disconcerted by the scornful demeanor of the Minister that he stammered,
stopped, and sat down. Even the old Tory country gentleman, to whom the very
name of Hanover had been odious, gave their hearty Ayes to subsidy after
subsidy. In a lively contemporary satire, much more lively indeed than delicate,
this remarkable conversation is not unhappily described:
"No more they make a fiddle-faddle About a Hessian horse or saddle. No more of
continental measures No more of wasting British treasures. Ten millions, and a
vote of credit, 'Tis right. He can't be wrong who did it."
The success of Pitt's continental measures was such as might have been expected
from their vigor. When he came into power, Hanover was in imminent danger; and
before he had been in office three months, the whole electorate was in the hands
of France. But the face of affairs was speedily changed. The invaders were
driven out. An army, partly English, partly Hanoverian, partly composed of
soldiers furnished by the petty Princes of Germany, was placed under the command
of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. The French were beaten in 1758 at Crevelt. In
1759 they received a still more complete and humiliating defeat at Minden.
In the meantime, the nation exhibited all the signs of wealth and prosperity.
The merchants of London had never been more thriving. The importance of several
great commercial and manufacturing towns, of Glasgow in particular, dates from
this period. The fine inscription on the monument of Lord Chatham, in Guildhall
records the general opinion of the citizens of London, that under his
administration commerce had been "united with and made to flourish by war?"
It must be owned that these signs of prosperity were in some degree delusive. It
must be owned that some of our conquests were rather splendid than useful. It
must be owned that the expense of the war never entered into Pitt's
consideration. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that the cost of his
victories increased the pleasure with which he contemplated them. Unlike other
men in his situation, he loved to exaggerate the sums which the nation was
laying out under his direction. He was proud of the sacrifices and efforts which
his eloquence and his success had induced his countrymen to make. The price at
which he purchased faithful service and complete victory, though far smaller
than that which his son, the most profuse and incapable of war ministers, paid
for treachery, defeat, and shame, was long and severely felt by the nation.
Even as a war minister, Pitt is scarcely entitled to all the praise which his
contemporaries lavished on him. We, perhaps from ignorance, cannot discern in
his arrangements any appearance of profound or dexterous combination. Several of
his expeditions, particularly those which were sent to the coast of France, were
at once costly and absurd. Our Indian conquests, though they add to the splendor
of the period during which he was at the head of affairs, were not planned by
him. He had undoubtedly great energy, great determination, great means at his
command. His temper was enterprising; and, situated as he was, he had only to
follow his temper. The wealth of a rich nation, the valor of a brave nation,
were ready to support him in every attempt.
In one respect, however, he deserved all the praise that he has ever received.
The success of our arms was perhaps owing less to the skill of his dispositions
than to the national resources and the national spirit. But that the national
spirit rose to the emergency, that the national resources were contributed with
unexampled cheerfulness, this was undoubtedly his work. The ardor of his soul
had set the whole kingdom on fire. It inflamed every soldier who dragged the
cannon up the heights of Quebec, and every sailor who boarded the French ships
among the rocks of Brittany. The Minister, before he had been long in office,
had imparted to the commanders whom he employed his own impetuous, adventurous,
and defying character They, like him, were disposed to risk everything, to play
double or quits to the last, to think nothing done while anything remained
undone, to fail rather than not to attempt. For the errors of rashness there
might be indulgence. For over-caution, for faults like those of Lord George
Sackville, there was no mercy. In other times, and against other enemies, this
mode of warfare might have failed. But the state of the French government and of
the French nation gave every advantage to Pitt. The fops and intriguers of
Versailles were appalled and bewildered by his vigor. A panic spread through all
ranks of society. Our enemies soon considered it as a settled thing that they
were always to be beaten. Thus victory begot victory; till, at last, wherever
the forces of the two nations met, they met with disdainful confidence on one
side, and with a craven fear on the other.
The situation which Pitt occupied at the close of the reign of George the Second
was the most enviable ever occupied by any public man in English history. He had
conciliated the King; he domineered over the House of Commons; he was adored by
the people; he was admired by all Europe. He was the first Englishman of his
time; and he had made England the first country in the world. The Great
Commoner, the name by which he was often designated, might look down with scorn
on coronets and garters. The nation was drunk with joy and pride. The Parliament
was as quiet as it had been under Pelham. The old party distinctions were almost
effaced; nor was their place yet supplied by distinctions of a still more
important kind. A new generation of country squires and rectors had arisen who
knew not the Stuarts. The Dissenters were tolerated; the Catholics not cruelly
persecuted. The Church was drowsy and indulgent. The great civil and religious
conflict which began at the Reformation seemed to have terminated in universal
repose. Whigs and Tories, Churchmen and Puritans, spoke with equal reverence of
the constitution, and with equal enthusiasm of the talents, virtues, and
services of the Minister.
A few years sufficed to change the whole aspect of affairs. A nation convulsed
by faction, a throne assailed by the fiercest invective, a House of Commons
hated and despised by the nation, England set against Scotland, Britain set
against America, a rival legislature sitting beyond the Atlantic, English blood
shed by English bayonets, our armies capitulating, our conquests wrested from
us, our enemies hastening to take vengeance for past humiliation, our flag
scarcely able to maintain itself in our own seas, such was the spectacle which
Pitt lived to see. But the history of this great revolution requires far more
space than we can at present bestow. We leave the Great Commoner in the zenith
of his glory. It is not impossible that we may take some other opportunity of
tracing his life to its melancholy, yet not inglorious close.
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