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Newcastle's love of power resembled Cutler's love of money. It was an avarice
which thwarted itself, a penny-wise and pound-foolish cupidity. An immediate
outlay was so painful to him that he would not venture to make the most
desirable improvement. If he could have found it in his heart to cede at once a
portion of his authority, he might probably have ensured the continuance of what
remained. But he thought it better to construct a weak and rotten government,
which tottered at the smallest breath, and fell in the first storm, than to pay
the necessary price for sound and durable materials. He wished to find some
person who would be willing to accept the lead of the House of Commons on terms
similar to those on which Secretary Craggs had acted under Sunderland,
five-and-thirty years before. Craggs could hardly be called a minister. He was a
mere agent for the Minister. He was not trusted with the higher secrets of
State, but obeyed implicitly the directions of his superior, and was, to use
Doddington's expression, merely Lord Sunderland's man. But times were changed.
Since the days of Sunderland, the importance of the House of Commons had been
constantly on the increase. During many years, the person who conducted the
business of the Government in that House had almost always been Prime Minister.
In these circumstances, it was not to be supposed that any that any person who
possessed the talents necessary for the situation would stoop to accept it on
such terms as Newcastle was disposed to offer.
Pitt was ill at Bath; and, had he been well and in London, neither the King nor
Newcastle would have been disposed to make any overtures to him. The cool and
wary Murray had set his heart on professional objects. Negotiations were opened
with Fox. Newcastle behaved like himself, that is to say, childishly and basely,
The proposition which he made was that Fox should be Secretary of State, with
the lead of the House of Commons; that the disposal of the secret-service money,
or, in plain words, the business of buying members of Parliament, should be left
to the First Lord of the Treasury; but that Fox should be exactly informed of
the way in which this fund was employed.
To these conditions Fox assented. But the next day everything was in confusion.
Newcastle had changed his mind. The conversation which took place between Fox
and the Duke is one of the most curious in English history. "My brother," said
Newcastle, "when he was at the Treasury, never told anybody what he did with the
secret-service money. No more will I." The answer was obvious. Pelham had been
not only First Lord of the Treasury, but also manager of the House of Commons;
and it was therefore unnecessary for him to confide to any other person his
dealings with the members of that House. "But how," said Fox, "can I lead in the
Commons without information on this head? How can I talk to gentlemen when I do
not know which of them have received gratifications and which have not? And
who," he continued, "is to have the disposal of places?"--"I myself," said the
Duke. "How then am I to manage the House of Commons?"-- "Oh, let the members of
the House of Commons come to me." Fox then mentioned the general election which
was approaching, and asked how the ministerial boroughs were to be filled up.
"Do not trouble yourself", said Newcastle; "that is all settled." This was too
much for human nature to bear. Fox refused to accept the Secretaryship of State
on such terms; and the Duke confided the management of the House of Commons to a
dull, harmless man, whose name is almost forgotten in our time, Sir Thomas
Robinson.
When Pitt returned from Bath, he affected great moderation, though his haughty
soul was boiling with resentment. He did not complain of the manner in which he
had been passed by, but said openly that, in his opinion, Fox was the fittest
man to lead the House of Commons. The rivals, reconciled by their common
interest and their common enmities, concerted a plan of operations for the next
session. "Sir Thomas Robinson lead us!" said Pitt to Fox. "The Duke might as
well send his jack-boot to lead us."
The elections of 1754 were favorable to the administration. But the aspect of
foreign affairs was threatening. In India the English and the French had been
employed, ever since the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in cutting each other's
throats. They had lately taken to the same practice in America. It might have
been foreseen that stirring times were at hand, times which would call for
abilities very different from those of Newcastle and Robinson.
In November the Parliament met; and before the end of that month the new
Secretary of State had been so unmercifully baited by the Paymaster of the
Forces and the Secretary-at-War that he was thoroughly sick of his situation.
Fox attacked him with great force and acrimony. Pitt affected a kind of
contemptuous tenderness for Sir Thomas, and directed his attacks principally
against Newcastle. On one occasion he asked in tones of thunder whether
Parliament sat only to register the edicts of one too powerful subject? The Duke
was scared out of his wits. He was afraid to dismiss the mutineers, he was
afraid to promote them; but it was absolutely necessary to do something. Fox, as
the less proud and intractable of the refractory pair, was preferred. A seat in
the Cabinet was offered to him on condition that he would give efficient support
to the ministry in Parliament. In an evil hour for his fame and his fortunes he
accepted the offer, and abandoned his connection with Pitt, who never forgave
this desertion.
Sir Thomas, assisted by Fox, contrived to get through the business of the year
without much trouble. Pitt was waiting his time. The negotiations pending
between France and England took every day a more unfavorable aspect. Towards the
close of the session the King sent a message to inform the House of Commons that
he had found it necessary to make preparations for war. The House returned an
address of thanks, and passed a vote of credit. During the recess, the old
animosity of both nations was inflamed by a series of disastrous events. An
English force was cut off in America and several French merchantmen were taken
in the West Indian seas. It was plain that an appeal to arms was at hand.
The first object of the King was to secure Hanover; and Newcastle was disposed
to gratify his master. Treaties were concluded, after the fashion of those
times, with several petty German princes, who bound themselves to find soldiers
if England would find money; and, as it was suspected that Frederic the Second
had set his heart on the electoral dominions of his uncle, Russia was hired to
keep Prussia in awe.
When the stipulations of these treaties were made known, there arose throughout
the kingdom a murmur from which a judicious observer might easily prognosticate
the approach of a tempest. Newcastle encountered strong opposition, even from
those whom he had always considered as his tools. Legge, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, refused to sign the Treasury warrants, which were necessary to give
effect to the treaties. Those persons who were supposed to possess the
confidence of the young Prince of Wales and of his mother held very menacing
language. In this perplexity Newcastle sent for Pitt, hugged him, patted him,
smirked at him, wept over him, and lisped out the highest compliments and the
most splendid promises. The King, who had hitherto been as sulky as possible,
would be civil to him at the levee; he should be brought into the Cabinet; he
should be consulted about everything; if he would only be so good as to support
the Hessian subsidy in the House of Commons. Pitt coldly declined the proffered
scat in the Cabinet, expressed the highest love and reverence for the King, and
said that, if his Majesty felt a strong personal interest in the Hessian treaty
he would so far deviate from the line which he had traced out for himself as to
give that treaty his support. "Well, and the Russian subsidy," said Newcastle.
"No," said Pitt, "not a system of subsidies." The Duke summoned Lord Hardwicke
to his aid; but Pitt was inflexible. Murray would do nothing. Robinson could do
nothing. It was necessary to have recourse to Fox. He became Secretary of State,
with the full authority of a leader in the House of Commons; and Sir Thomas was
pensioned off on the Irish establishment.
In November 1755, the Houses met. Public expectation was wound up to the height.
After ten quiet years there was to be an Opposition, countenanced by the
heir-apparent of the throne, and headed by the most brilliant orator of the age.
The debate on the address was long remembered as one of the parliamentary
conflicts of that generation. It began at three in the afternoon, and lasted
till five the next morning. It was on this night that Gerard Hamilton delivered
that single speech from which his nickname was derived. His eloquence threw into
the shade every orator, except Pitt, who declaimed against the subsidies for an
hour and a half with extraordinary energy and effect. Those powers which had
formerly spread terror through the majorities of Walpole and Carteret were now
displayed in their highest perfection before an audience long unaccustomed to
such exhibitions. One fragment of this celebrated oration remains in a state of
tolerable preservation. It is the comparison between the coalition of Fox and
Newcastle, and the junction of the Rhone and the Saone. "At Lyons," said Pitt,
"I was taken to see the place where the two rivers meet, the one gentle, feeble,
languid, and though languid, yet of no depth, the other a boisterous and
impetuous torrent: but different as they are, they meet at last." The amendment
moved by the Opposition was rejected by a great majority; and Pitt and Legge
were immediately dismissed from their offices.
During several months the contest in the House of Commons was extremely sharp.
Warm debates took place in the estimates, debates still warmer on the subsidiary
treaties. The Government succeeded in every division; but the fame of Pitt's
eloquence, and the influence of his lofty and determined character, continued to
increase through the Session; and the events which followed the prorogation made
it utterly impossible for any other person to manage the Parliament or the
country.
The war began in every part of the world with events disastrous to England, and
even more shameful than disastrous. But the most humiliating of these events was
the loss of Minorca. The Duke of Richelieu, an old fop who had passed his life
from sixteen to sixty in seducing women for whom he cared not one straw, landed
on that island, and succeeded in reducing it. Admiral Byng was sent from
Gibraltar to throw succors into Port-Mahon; but he did not think fit to engage
the French squadron, and sailed back without having effected his purpose. The
people were inflamed to madness. A storm broke forth, which appalled even those
who remembered the days of Excise and of South-Sea. The shops were filled with
libels and caricatures. The walls were covered with placards. The city of London
called for vengeance, and the cry was echoed from every corner of the kingdom.
Dorsetshire, Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Somersetshire,
Lancashire, Suffolk, Shropshire, Surrey, sent up strong addresses to the throne,
and instructed their representatives to vote for a strict inquiry into the
causes of the late disasters. In the great towns the feeling was as strong as in
the counties. In some of the instructions it was even recommended that the
supplies should be stopped.
The nation was in a state of angry and sullen despondency, almost unparalleled
in history. People have, in all ages, been in the habit of talking about the
good old times of their ancestors, and the degeneracy of their contemporaries.
This is in general merely a cant. But in 1756 it was something more. At this
time appeared Brown's Estimate, a book now remembered only by the allusions in
Cowper's Table Talk and in Burke's Letters on a Regicide Peace. It was
universally read, admired, and believed. The author fully convinced his readers
that they were a race of cowards and scoundrels; that nothing could save them;
that they were on the point of being enslaved by their enemies, and that they
richly deserved their fate. Such were the speculations to which ready credence
was given at the outset of the most glorious war in which England had ever been
engaged.
Newcastle now began to tremble for his place, and for the only thing which was
dearer to him than his place, his neck. The people were not in a mood to be
trifled with. Their cry was for blood. For this once they might be contented
with the sacrifice of Byng. But what if fresh disasters should take place? What
if an unfriendly sovereign should ascend the throne? What if a hostile House of
Commons should be chosen?
At length, in October, the decisive crisis came. The new Secretary of State had
been long sick of the perfidy and levity of the First Lord of the Treasury, and
began to fear that he might be made a scapegoat to save the old intriguer who,
imbecile as he seemed never wanted dexterity where danger was to be avoided. Fox
threw up his office, Newcastle had recourse to Murray; but Murray had now within
his reach the favorite object of his ambition. The situation of Chief-Justice of
the King's Bench was vacant; and the Attorney-General was fully resolved to
obtain it, or to go into Opposition. Newcastle offered him any terms, the Duchy
of Lancaster for life, a teller-ship of the Exchequer, any amount of pension,
two thousand a year, six thousand a year. When the Ministers found that Murrays
mind was made up, they pressed for delay, the delay of a session, a month, a
week, a day. Would he only make his appearance once more in the House of
Commons? Would he only speak in favor of the address? He was inexorable, and
peremptorily said that they might give or withhold the Chief-Justiceship, but
that he would be Attorney-General no longer
Newcastle now contrived to overcome the prejudices of the King, and overtures
were made to Pitt, through Lord Hardwicke. Pitt knew his power, and showed that
he knew it. He demanded as an indispensable condition that Newcastle should be
altogether excluded from the new arrangement.
The Duke was in a state of ludicrous distress. He ran about chattering and
crying, asking advice and listening to none. In the meantime, the Session drew
near. The public excitement was unabated. Nobody could be found to face Pitt and
Fox in the House of Commons. Newcastle's heart failed him, and he tendered his
resignation.
The King sent for Fox, and directed him to form the plan of an administration in
concert with Pitt. But Pitt had not forgotten old injuries, and positively
refused to act with Fox.
The King now applied to the Duke of Devonshire, and this mediator succeeded in
making an arrangement. He consented to take the Treasury. Pitt became Secretary
of State, with the lead of the House of Commons. The Great Seal was put into
commission. Legge returned to the Exchequer; and Lord Temple, whose sister Pitt
had lately married, was placed at the head of the Admiralty.
It was clear from the first that this administration would last but a very short
time. It lasted not quite five months; and, during those five months, Pitt and
Lord Temple were treated with rudeness by the King, and found but feeble support
in the House of Commons. It is a remarkable fact, that the Opposition prevented
the re-election of some of the new Ministers. Pitt, who sat for one of the
boroughs which were in the Pelham interest, found some difficulty in obtaining a
seat after his acceptance of the seals. So destitute was the new Government of
that sort of influence without which no Government could then be durable. One of
the arguments most frequently urged against the Reform Bill was that, under a
system of popular representation, men whose presence in the House of Commons was
necessary to the conducting of public business might often find it impossible to
find seats. Should this inconvenience ever be felt, there cannot be the
slightest difficulty in devising and applying a remedy. But those who threatened
us with this evil ought to have remembered that, under the old system, a great
man called to power at a great crisis by the voice of the whole nation was in
danger of being excluded, by an aristocratical cabal from that House of which he
was the most distinguished ornament.
The most important event of this short administration was the trial of Byng. On
that subject public opinion is still divided. We think the punishment of the
Admiral altogether unjust and absurd. Treachery, cowardice, ignorance amounting
to what lawyers have called crassa ignorantia, are fit objects of severe penal
inflictions. But Byng was not found guilty of treachery, of cowardice, or of
gross ignorance of his profession. He died for doing what the most loyal
subject, the most intrepid warrior, the most experienced seaman, might have
done. He died for an error in judgment, an error such as the greatest
commanders, Frederick, Napoleon, Wellington, have often committed, and have
often acknowledged. Such errors are not proper objects of punishment, for this
reason, that the punishing of such errors tends not to prevent them, but to
produce them. The dread of an ignominious death may stimulate sluggishness to
exertion, may keep a traitor to his standard, may prevent a coward from running
away, but it has no tendency to bring out those qualities which enable men to
form prompt and judicious decisions in great emergencies. The best marksman may
be expected to fail when the apple which is to be his mark is set on his child's
head. We cannot conceive anything more likely to deprive an officer of his
self-possession at the time when he most needs it than the knowledge that, if,
the judgment of his superiors should not agree with his, he will he executed
with every circumstance of shame. Queens, it has often been said, run far
greater risk in childbed than private women, merely because their medical
attendants are more anxious. The surgeon who attended Marie Louise was
altogether unnerved by his emotions. "Compose yourself," said Bonaparte;
"imagine that you are assisting a poor girl in the Faubourg Saint Antoine." This
was surely a far wiser course than that of the Eastern king in the Arabian
Nights' Entertainments, who proclaimed that the physicians who failed to cure
his daughter should have their heads chopped off. Bonaparte knew mankind well;
and, as he acted towards this surgeon, he acted towards his officers. No
sovereign was ever so indulgent to mere errors of judgment; and it is certain
that no sovereign ever had in his service so many military men fit for the
highest commands.
Pitt acted a brave and honest part on this occasion. He ventured to put both his
power and his popularity to hazard, and spoke manfully for Byng, both in
Parliament and in the royal presence. But the King was inexorable. "The House of
Commons, Sir," said Pitt, "seems inclined to mercy." "Sir," answered the King,
"you have taught me to look for the sense of my people in other places than the
House of Commons." The saying has more point than most of those which are
recorded of George the Second, and, though sarcastically meant, contains a high
and just compliment to Pitt.
The King disliked Pitt, but absolutely hated Temple. The new Secretary of State,
his Majesty said, had never read Vattel, and was tedious and pompous, but
respectful. The first Lord of the Admiralty was grossly impertinent. Walpole
tells one story, which, we fear, is much too good to be true, He assures us that
Temple entertained his royal master with an elaborate parallel between Byng's
behavior at Minorca, and his Majesty's behavior at Oudenarde, in which the
advantage was all on the side of the Admiral.
This state of things could not last. Early in April, Pitt and all his friends
were turned out, and Newcastle was summoned to St. James's. But the public
discontent was not extinguished. It had subsided when Pitt was called to power.
But it still glowed under the embers; and it now burst at once into a flame. The
stocks fell. The Common Council met. The freedom of the city was voted to Pitt.
All the greatest corporate towns followed the example. "For some weeks," says
Walpole, "it rained gold boxes."
This was the turning point of Pitt's life. It might have been expected that a
man of so haughty and vehement a nature, treated so ungraciously by the Court,
and supported so enthusiastically by the people, would have eagerly taken the
first opportunity of showing his power and gratifying his resentment; and an
opportunity was not wanting. The members for many counties and large towns had
been instructed to vote for an inquiry into the circumstances which had produced
the miscarriage of the preceding year. A motion for inquiry had been carried in
the House of Commons, without opposition; and, a few days after Pitt's
dismissal, the investigation commenced. Newcastle and his colleagues obtained a
vote of acquittal; but the minority were so strong that they could not venture
to ask for a vote of approbation, as they had at first intended; and it was
thought by some shrewd observers that, if, Pitt had exerted himself to the
utmost of his power, the inquiry might have ended in a censure, if not in an
impeachment.
Pitt showed on this occasion a moderation and self-government which was not
habitual to him. He had found by experience, that he could not stand alone. His
eloquence and his popularity had done much, very much for him. Without rank,
without fortune, without borough interest, hated by the King, hated by the
aristocracy, he was a person of the first importance in the State. He had been
suffered to form a ministry, and to pronounce sentence of exclusion on all his
rivals, on the most powerful nobleman of the Whig party, on the ablest debater
in the House of Commons. And he now found that he had gone too far. The English
Constitution was not, indeed, without a popular element. But other elements
generally predominated. The confidence and admiration of the nation might make a
statesman formidable at the head of an Opposition, might load him with framed
and glazed parchments and gold boxes, might possibly, under very peculiar
circumstances, such as those of the preceding year, raise him for a time to
power. But, constituted as Parliament then was, the favorite of the people could
not depend on a majority in the people's own House. The Duke of Newcastle,
however contemptible in morals, manners, and understanding, was a dangerous
enemy. His rank, his wealth, his unrivalled parliamentary interest, would alone
have made him important. But this was not all. The Whig aristocracy regarded him
as their leader. His long possession of power had given him a kind of
prescriptive right to possess it still. The House of Commons had been elected
when he was at the head of affairs, The members for the ministerial boroughs had
all been nominated by him. The public offices swarmed with his creatures.
Pitt desired power; and he desired it, we really believe, from high and generous
motives. He was, in the strict sense of the word, a patriot. He had none of that
philanthropy which the great French writers of his time preached to all the
nations of Europe. He loved England as an Athenian loved the City of the Violet
Crown, as a Roman loved the City of the Seven Hills. He saw his country insulted
and defeated. He saw the national spirit sinking. Yet he knew what the resources
of the empire, vigorously employed, could effect, and he felt that he was the
man to employ them vigorously. "My Lord," he said to the Duke of Devonshire, "I
am sure that I can save this country, and that nobody else can."
Desiring, then, to be in power, and feeling that his abilities and the public
confidence were not alone sufficient to keep him in power against the wishes of
the Court and of the aristocracy, he began to think of a coalition with
Newcastle.
Newcastle was equally disposed to a reconciliation. He, too, had profited by his
recent experience. He had found that the Court and the aristocracy, though
powerful, were not everything in the State. A strong oligarchical connection, a
great borough interest, ample patronage, and secret-service money, might, in
quiet times, be all that a Minister needed; but it was unsafe to trust wholly to
such support in time of war, of discontent, and of agitation. The composition of
the House of Commons was not wholly aristocratical; and, whatever he the
composition of large deliberative assemblies, their spirit is always in some
degree popular. Where there are free debates, eloquence must have admirers, and
reason must make converts. Where there is a free press, the governors must live
in constant awe of the opinions of the governed.
Thus these two men, so unlike in character, so lately mortal enemies, were
necessary to each other. Newcastle had fallen in November, for want of that
public confidence which Pitt possessed, and of that parliamentary support which
Pitt was better qualified than any man of his time to give. Pitt had fallen in
April, for want of that species of influence which Newcastle had passed his
whole life in acquiring and hoarding. Neither of them had power enough to
support himself. Each of them had power enough to overturn the other. Their
union would be irresistible. Neither the King nor any party in the State would
be able to stand against them.
Under these circumstances, Pitt was not disposed to proceed to extremities
against his predecessors in office. Something, however, was due to consistency;
and something was necessary for the preservation of his popularity. He did
little; but that little he did in such manner as to produce great effect. He
came down to the House in all the pomp of gout, his legs swathed in flannels,
his arm dangling in a sling. He kept his seat through several fatiguing days, in
spite of pain and languor. He uttered a few sharp and vehement sentences; but
during the greater part of the discussion, his language was unusually gentle.
When the inquiry had terminated without a vote either of approbation or of
censure, the great obstacle to a coalition was removed. Many obstacles, however,
remained. The King was still rejoicing in his deliverance from the proud and
aspiring Minister who had been forced on him by the cry of the nation. His
Majesty's indignation was excited to the highest point when it appeared that
Newcastle, who had, during thirty years, been loaded with marks of royal favor,
and who had bound himself, by a solemn promise, never to coalesce with Pitt, was
meditating a new perfidy. Of all the statesmen of that age, Fox had the largest
share of royal favor. A coalition between Fox and Newcastle was the arrangement
which the King wished to bring about. But the Duke was too cunning to fall into
such a snare. As a speaker in Parliament, Fox might perhaps be, on the whole, as
useful to an administration as his great rival; but he was one of the most
unpopular men in England. Then, again, Newcastle felt all that jealousy of Fox,
which, according to the proverb, generally exists between two of a trade. Fox
would certainly intermeddle with that department which the Duke was most
desirous to reserve entire to himself, the jobbing department. Pitt, on the
other hand, was quite willing to leave the drudgery of corruption to any who
might be inclined to undertake it.
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